Shifted #Wattys2016

LVIII

Maxine

I called my mother the other day. She's doing well, told me that she's been going out with a man she really likes. Says that he treats her well.

I'm sort of happy for her, but I find myself untrusting of this man.

She's a grown up and there's nothing I can do—or say—to stop her.

Bloom has announced that she's pregnant. We're excited for her. Because of how different and dangerous werewolf pregnancies can be, her doctor from Colorado is moving here. Just until the first month is through. Then she'll move back and stay in Colorado until the last month of Bloom pregnancy when Bloom will move there. A compromise of sorts.

This won't be for a while, though.

Hopefully.

Apparently there's a lot that can go wrong with werewolf pregnancies, and that Felix and Greyson were anomalies. First set of werewolf twins to both survive.

This week, Bloom and Emmett around taking a trip to meet up with the doctor. They'll be gone overnight. I am not allowed to spend the night.

So now I'm home with Julie. I'm playing the piano and she's listening. After that we cook dinner and then bake a dessert. After that, it's still light outside, and I suggest taking a walk.

We head to the forest, and I realize that it's been weeks since I've been out in the forest, at least this edge of the forest. I tell Julie about the call I had with my mother, and she tells me about how she felt when my mother first started talking about my father.

"She said they met at a concert in the city. And this concert was some punk rock band that was horrible—she blasted their music in her room all the time. Anyway, every weekend she'd go and hang out with him in the city, and would come back crazy late. Eventually, I invited him out to the house for dinner. He came over wearing this black t-shirt with such graphic... what's the word... pictures, you know? I think it had an Ouija board on it. Anyway, talking to him over dinner I knew he was such a... Lord, I can't think... you know when you just know that the person won't go anywhere in life?"

I nodded, silent. This is the most I've heard about my father in years. And I could trust that this was true.

"He said that he wanted to be a solo artist—which mind you, in those days weren't extremely popular—and that he was in deep love with your mother. When she told me they were going to get married, oh how we fought. She was only eighteen, you know? And I knew it was too early and they were too young. But she had her mind made up. Packed her bags and they both moved to Chicago."

I was still silent, and Julie had stopped talking. There wasn't much more to say. I knew the rest.

He knocked my mother up—while they were still only engaged—and he left. My mom raised me, broke and well below the poverty line, but raised me nonetheless. She told me that my father had died in space, as some world renowned astronaut. For years I wanted to be an astronaut just so I could follow in my father's "foot-steps".

Ground control to Major Tom.

"Let's get back, it's getting dark." Julie said and we turned around and headed back towards the little white house.

I feel sleep.

Then I woke up and the man was there, floating on top of me. He was staring at me, but he had no eyes. It was him watching me that woke me up. My heart pounded in my chest and I started to swat him away. His dissipated and I took my bracelet off of my wrist and threw it towards the end of my bed, as if that bracelet was what was causing this man to show up.

I pulled my knees up to my chest and stared into the dark of my bedroom, almost daring the man to show again.

I flipped on the lamp beside my bed, illuminating the room, and grabbed my phone. I texted Felix and told him that I saw the man again. I didn't expect an immediate reply, but got one anyway.

It's okay. Nothing will happen to you. I'll protect you.

I laid back down and left the lamp on.

From outside my window, I heard the low howl of a wolf.

I felt safe.

I fell asleep.

I enjoyed watching Caven play baseball, and tried to make it to a good amount of his games. He had games, it seemed, every other day until the rain came.

It started as a light sprinkle, a few hours after Bloom and Emmett got home from their trip. And the light sprinkle quickly turned into a downpour, the drops of rain heard in every inch of the house. We stood on the back porch awhile and watched the lightning light up the sky and listen to the water come down.

In Chicago, I hated the rain. It always smelled like sewage and sweat. The city itself turned gray, a dark cloud hanging think in the air like smog. The rain made the buses go slower, made the people go slower, made everything feel slower. It made the subways dingier, the stairs wet with puddles of water that refused to evaporate. The rain made everything deeply depressing.

But the rain here felt different.

Even in the dark it felt light. It was a warm summer rain, and everything smelled... green. I don't know how to describe the smell of it other than that: green. Green with a hint of dirt. It wasn't gray, it was green. The color of sunlight fighting its way through the droplets and reflecting off of the wet leaves and grass.

Felix and Emmett and Bloom all loved it. Especially Bloom. After watching the rain for fifteen minutes, Bloom growing antsier as each minute passed, she threw off her shoes and hurried down the stairs—she would've ran if it hadn't been so dark and if the steps weren't so wet. Bloom's shirt was soaked within minutes of playing in the downpour. Felix went down the stairs to join her, shifting as he hit the ground. Emmett followed, a sly smile on his face. Caven stood on the back porch with me, watching the whole ordeal, trying to conceal a smile.

"Every time it rains," Caven began, watching the group, Bloom in particularly, "she does this. Dance and prance. And then Felix joins, and then Emmett. She's like an illness. And everything she does is highly contagious. And the only way to be free of the disease is to join."

"Why don't you join?" I asked.

"I don't like the rain."

I wanted to ask why, but something about the way he said it made me refrain. Caven sighed. "I'm going to get them some towels." Then he said under his breath, "I can already smell the wet dog."

I smiled at that and walked down the steps tomeet up with the rest of the pack and dance just like they were. All of mycares falling off my skin just like raindrops.