The Lycan

The coffee

The conversation seemed to mellow out as each other stopped talking and were in comfortable silence. Slowly sipping on the dark roast coffee that warmed their hands, thinking.

But for once in the past couple of weeks, it was nice to sit in silence and not think of the fate that lay before one another.

Maxie was zoned completely out as his hair hung over his face, staring down at the maroon wood table, while Jamiie just started out in the window. Look at the deep forest covered in fog.

 It was pretty for once the disturbingly dark forest was pretty.

"Hmm I should get more sweaters instead of jackets, these are more comfortable," Jamiie thought to herself, taking a slow sip of her coffee and not pulling her eyes away from the forest.

She didn't glance at Maxie who was pondering over the conversation they just had before, he never said those things out loud.

He always pushed those thoughts to the deepest part of his mind, but she brought them out of him. It was like her words were taking bits and pieces of his soul and crushing them by saying what he never would.

"Were my thoughts always that sad?" Maxie thought to himself as he felt every emotion wash over him from the past five years and all he felt was an endless wave of excuses.

It was like standing in front of a title wave or biting down on metal. It was so painfully eye-opening to how he felt these years that he never thought to confront himself.

"Did my dad ever care for me? Why did he never check on me? Why did he leave me in my room with nothing but my thoughts? Did he ever care that I was there alone?" he thought again after he saw the things this town had to offer and was scared his father would never look him in the eye.

He wondered if that was why he pushed himself to work, and why the house became a ghost town. 

Why was his dad always out with friends or why he never asked why Maxie quit the summer camp?

He began to grip the coffee mug to the point where the tips of his fingers became white and the veins began to pop out. He glanced at himself in the reflection of his coffee

"Was I so worried about him I never stopped to think if he was worried about me?" he whispered out in a low tone, feeling the vibration of his voice, Jamiie without thinking out her hand over his tearing it away from the mug he was gripping so hard she feared it would break.

She held his hand and rubbed her thumb over his hand. It was like tracing your fingers over thin ice or cracked glass.

Comforting.

Jamiie for the first time in her life was trying to comfort someone, as she was holding his hand she felt him shake.

She didn't want to look at him because she knew this was a moment of weakness. A moment where you realize something your subcutaneous pushed to the back of your mind because it would be the straw that broke the camel's back.

Maxie let in a deep inhale like he was keeping himself from crying. He felt angry, sad, and embarrassed. With this many emotions flowing through him, he felt like he was going to explode.

"I spent years wondering how the love of his life died but I never thought how it felt for my mother to die. I spent years of my life for him all for it to not matter. I put him first in all of my decisions even now with that creature hunting you down I still put him first. But has he done the same for me?" Maize whispered out again, only this time Jamiie could hear him

"Duffy, why did it take a simple conversation with you to start resurfacing feelings?" he mumbled out

"Because you needed someone to talk to, someone you could relate to," Jamiie says trying to reason with him, still stroking his hand as she held it

"You must think I'm a crybaby," he says in a humorless tone

"No, you're crying for a good reason, we all do"

"Do you have moments like these?"

"I had one last night"

"What was it about?"

"A lot, mainly the fact I was thinking about a past I can't change and if I would be different if I grew up here"

"How so?"

"Those people, the ones that brung me here... feel so different from the others. Everyone else wanted a child simply because they couldn't have one themselves or their marriage was falling apart but them... they feel like I was being here simply because they wanted to and not some reason other than to fix themselves"

"Were all of them like that?"

"Nah some were good, but you know how it goes, spend years trying to have a child, give up and adopt a child, and then boom, come up pregnant"

"So then they give you back?"

"Nah I leave"

"Why?"

"Haven't you ever heard those stories where they'll neglect the other child for the one they gave birth to? Well, I have, and let me tell you, those are some sad people. I mean it's one thing if they straight up tell you to your face but it's another to have them show it and rub salt on the wound by not even caring if you know"

"That sounds kinda like living here now, kids missing and the parents going on about their daily lives"

"Yeah it does, kinda ironic to run from it my whole life just to see it play out in front of me"

"Three days"

"Then she'll tell us what we need to know and we'll put this whole thing behind us"

"What happens then? When all of this is done and over"

"Then we can live our lives"

"Yeah, but what will I come back to? A place where no one is around and live in a house where my own father won't acknowledge their existence?"

"Then go, far far away. Start college and make friends"

"And what are you going to do?"

"Same thing"

"Can I go with you then?"

"Of course"

"Three days"

"Three days"

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