Fur

17 | His Essence

Wednesday
October 4th

The memory of Zakai's arms around my shoulders haunts me. Of his chest against my cheek. Of his thumb running over my wrist's vein and his shallow, warm breath fanning over my face as he neared closer. He left Heisenbühl, left to go meet his pack members, but he haunted me the whole way out of the woods from the ruined fortress to my rented house.

I couldn't sleep. I rarely can but last night was worse. I laid awake with niggling thoughts, comparisons of the past and the present, memories of the Zakai from five years ago, of the one from hours ago. I couldn't even wander the night—as Zakai had thought was dangerous for a feigned human to do—for the fear that I would search for him instead of sleep.

Somewhere near four in the morning, I came to terms with the fact that I'm troubled. A fog has rolled over the folds of my brain, clouding it from wiser thoughts, and it is made of his essence.

He tried to kiss me.

Why the fuck would he try to kiss me?

He's confused. I'm confused. Both of us have undergone emotional shock. That's all it is.

That's all it is, but the logic of it doesn't take away the awful feeling. Repeating it in my head doesn't absolve the disturbance that it happened. There's a sickness in my stomach that I can't shake, brought on by the idea that we might not be the same people we were five years ago. That we might be... different.

Stop it, just stop it!

That word alone sends me into a spiral of nausea.

Different.

A shiver rips down my spine. I roll my shoulders and shake my head as if to ward it off, thoughts and all.

As I get ready to go to work at their café, I redirect myself to the McNamaras. I called Lattie after parting with Zakai last night, as I walked the little used trails through the woods, because leaving them alone during Heisenbühl's recent events was a stupid decision. Werewolves, murderers, BridgeHandprintsStalkersDrunkenSleazebags. It all flashed through in the same thought.

She answered on the first ring. My shoulders let go of their tension at the sound of her normal, calm voice; at the absence of any commotion in the background besides the mundanity of the droning television.

"How did it go?" She asked right away, right down to the business of my official reunion with my long lost friend. Despite being blissfully ignorant of the details, I think Lattie is wary of all parts of my past—even the good. Her question wasn't excited. It was cautious.

"It went well," I answered, quick and dismissive because I didn't want to return to my previous thoughts, to being haunted by Zakai, and then I thought that maybe Lattie is right to be wary. And then because I needed a reason to be calling her, because telling her I was just checking in to see that she hadn't been murdered by the stalker with a nest made in the bushes outside of her window was unacceptable, I asked her, "Did I leave my phone charger over there?"

As always, she was eager to help. "I haven't seen it. I'll look—"

"Oop, here it is!" I broke away from the trail, avoiding the part of it that runs along the creek, per the chance that Lattie might've heard its trickling. I grabbed a low hanging branch and shoved it away in passing, hoping the rustling of the leaves might've sounded on the other end of the line like the impatient shoving of papers. "It was under the mail."

"Oh, good," she sighed, and I heard the relief in her voice, her happiness that my minor (and fabricated) inconvenience was over. It reminded me that she's too good for this world, too precious to be friends with me, and the guilt painted my insides for lying to her, for everything I've ever done in her ignorance. But I know it's for her own good, and that's what I told myself to keep from opening my mouth and confessing.