I didn't know I was a wolf

Chapter 2

She pulled in to her house still thinking of the wolf. The way it felt, the way she felt with it. ‘Should I even tell Justin?’.

Justin. Her husband. They have been together for eight years. They met when they were both getting their masters degree. Her in English and him in Engineering. They say opposites attract and for them it was true. They have been inseparable since they met. They had been trying to have a baby since she got tenure at the university, and every month she was met with disappointment. The doctors had diagnosed them with “unexplained infertility” was the official diagnosis from the doctors. They had tried IVF too. They had one shot at it, that was all they could afford. They were working through making their peace about never having a baby. It was hard, but they had each other. And now she had a wolf friend, she thought with snark.

Justin’s car was in the driveway, so he was home. ‘Don’t tell him’ was the first thought she had. He hated her runs in the mountain trails by herself. He was always telling her she was going to get eaten by a bear of fall off a cliff and no one would even know. This would just be ammo to his argument to either run in town or get a treadmill. How could she explain that it wasn’t about the run, but about being in the forest? Any time she tried the words failed her. This was always a source of strain, the one thing he never understood. He was scared for her safety but she needed it like she needed air.

“Hi babe!” he called from the kitchen. She walked in to get some water, he kissed her and her skin crawled. Odd, she had never had this reaction to him. “Wasn’t expecting you for a while! Did you cut your run short?”

“Yeah, ran into some wildlife, nothing big, but didn’t want to get in the way”

“wildlife? Are you ok?”

“yes, I told you, it wasn’t anything bad, but they looked peaceful so I turned around instead of doing my loop”

This seemed to satisfy him. She felt a little bad about the lie, but she didn’t want the fight that the truth would cause. “I’m gonna go shower ok?”

“Dinner will be ready in about an hour. Lasagna! Your favourite!”

“Yum, you’re the best” He kissed her cheek and again, her body tensed, did not want this. ‘ugh, what is wrong with me. I need a shower’ she thought.

The shower was hot enough to burn her skin. She needed it this hot to try to burn away the feelings she could not shake off. The memory of those eyes watching her. ‘This is probably just my brain trying to process a near death experience’ she reasoned. She could not stop seeing those green eyes. They were burned in her memory. Her body felt strange, foreign, cold in spite of the hot water. She moved through the motions for the rest of the evening with no real feeling in it. She felt like a zombie. Justin noticed but did not comment. She has been having a hard time with work so he probably thought it was because of that. Maybe it was. Her brain felt fuzzy, numb, underwater. When she went to bed that night, all she could think about were those green eyes and imagined that there was howling out her window.