The Werewolf and the Human

Please?

My head hurt. My whole body ached, but my head was the worst. I could barely think. I could barely hear anything around me as if there was anything to be heard at all. It seemed fairly quiet as if the air itself was nervous. It was afraid to break the silence. It was afraid of everything. I was afraid of everything.

              I remembered what happened, or I tried to. My mind faded a little. It seemed to snap back and forth. It played with what was supposed to happen, but it didn’t stop. It didn’t stop toying with everything. It toyed with everything, but it slapped me back and forth. It kept trying to get my attention. Pulling me in three or four different directions. I tried to follow everything. I tried to follow the strands of the memories of things I thought I would need to remember. Except it never worked. One strand led to another that intersected, overlapped, and then twisted around themselves once more. I couldn’t follow any of them. I would get lost on one that would travel to another and then decided that it needed to twist around another, and that was the string that snapped back to a different memory.

              Eventually, I stopped trying to remember exactly what happened; decided that the best thing I could do was to breathe and try to sit up. This place was different than the last place that I had awoken from.

              I sat up. I rolled my head around my shoulders a few times. It felt weird. It felt heavy as if someone had replaced my head with a bowling ball. I will say I was less dizzy than the last time. That was a good thing. It might not have been exactly what I wanted, but it was something.

              I didn’t know where I was. It was odd. It looked like a clinic. Not a hospital. That much was easy to tell. It was too homey. It had at least two quilts piled on a small wooden chair in the corner. I had a quilt on me. There were a few flowers in the corner of the room. I couldn’t tell what those flowers looked like, but I could tell there were at least four different kinds. I’ve never been good with botany. No, one has ever tested me on my botany abilities. There was wood paneling on all four walls. There was a painting of some wolf on one of the walls. Honestly, if it hadn’t been for the heart monitor hooked up to me, I could have been in someone’s bedroom. The bedroom of an old lady, sure, but her bedroom nonetheless. Which seemed a bit terrifying to me.

              There was one thing I noticed above everything else. Jackie wasn’t there. That concerned me above everything else. She had been with me at the hospital. She had been there the entire time. I can’t remember a moment she wasn’t there. I can’t. No matter how hard I try. I can’t remember a moment when she wasn’t there. So, where was she?

              Was she ok? Was she getting the car? Did they kidnap me? Her? Both of us? I had to get up. I had to find her. This was my fault, and I needed to ensure she was safe. I needed to make sure nothing happened to her. This was on me, and I would not let her get punished for my stupidity.

              I stood, my head dancing, the room spinning both to music I had never heard before, to music I could not hear. I sat back down. I waited for the chorus to be over, hoping that the tempo would slow down if nothing else. Once it slowed, I tried again.

              I went to stand up. The music wasn’t quite so fast this time. I could at least compete against it. I might not be able to win, but I could fight it. And I did. I fought it and was able to stay standing. Barely, but I was able to do it. I would take it. It might not have been perfect, but it was something. I took one step, and I felt dizzy. The world was spinning, and everything was dizzy. I was nauseated. I wanted to throw up. But I didn’t. Instead, I took another step. The dizziness barely in my head. The thrumming barely in my head. Still, my head felt heavy. It felt weak, and more than that, it felt like I could barely keep my head up. It wanted to bob and sway. It wanted to fall, but nothing else did. My body didn’t want to sway or fade. It did not want to break. It wanted to keep moving forward.

              And more than that, I wanted to keep moving. And I did. One foot in front of the other. One foot. I walked all the way to the door. By the time I got there, I was nearly exhausted. I was ready to collapse, but I had to find Jackie. Jackie was more important than anything else. I had to make sure she was fine.

              I placed my hand on the doorknob, and just as I was about to open the door, it flung open. Xander was standing in front of me. “You should not be out of the bed,” he said, his deep voice scolding me slightly.

              “I was looking for Jackie,” I said, my voice scratching my throat a little bit.

              “She went to stretch her legs.” He stood tall. “Now, you need to get back to bed.”

              “I would like to see her.” I straightened myself a little bit. I was a little nervous, but I knew Jackie mattered, and I had to protect her.

              “She will be back any moment,” he said, keeping his eyes on me. “And you can wait for her in the bed.”

              “No.” I stared at him for a moment, but then I let my head drop, and my eyes followed suit. “I think I would like to wait for her here.”

              “You would be more comfortable in bed.”

              Screw comfort. I didn’t care about what I would be more comfortable doing. I cared about Jackie. “I am fine. I would be better if I knew she was fine.”

              “She will be back any moment; please just go back and lie down.”

              Please? Did he say please? Did he really say please? Did I hear that correctly? There is no way to hear that correctly. I mean, he wouldn’t say please. He never said please before. He would never say please. I must have miss heard. Still, the shock of miss hearing him made me follow what he said. I went back to the bed. I sat down on the edge of the bed. My feet barely glancing the floor.

              “Thank you,” he said, looking down at me.

              “You’re welcome,” I said, looking down at my hands.

              “Would you please put your feet back onto the bed?”

              “I’m fine,” I whispered.

              “You would feel better if your feet were on the bed,” he said, simply staring over me. I shook my head, but I started getting dizzy. I started feeling even more nauseated than I had been. I felt so nauseated. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to. I really wanted to. I didn’t, but I really wanted to. “Here.” There was suddenly a glass of water in front of me. I reached out for the glass and then stopped myself. Was this poison? Did he give me poison? Would he poison me? Why would he poison me? “There is nothing wrong with it,” he told me.

              “I didn’t…”

              “Don’t lie to me,” he growled. There is no other way to explain that. He growled. That was the only word that could be used.

              “Excuse me?” I asked, looking up at him.

              “I don’t want you to lie to me.”

              “I didn’t.”

              “You did.” I had, but what was it to him. So, I lied. Everybody lies. It’s not always a bad thing to lie. At least, not when you are protecting others or yourself. And it’s not a big lie, just the white lies we tell every day.

              And I was about to tell him as such when he glanced behind his shoulder to look at something. I was able to catch a glimpse at what he was looking at. “Jackie,” I said, giving her a smile.

              “It’s good to see you up again,” she said, taking a few steps closer to me. She looked at me like a glass doll. “Are you alright?”

              “I am fine.” I flashed her a weak, soft smile. “Did you ever doubt that I would be?”

              She takes a few steps closer to the bed, nearly sitting down on it. “Always.”

              “I’ll leave you to it,” Xander said, slowly walking out of the room.

              Jackie turned to him. “I don’t know if she has said it or not, but thank you.” He glanced toward me but didn’t say anything. He just turned back around and walked away. The moment he disappeared out of our sight. “You didn’t thank him, did you?”

              I glanced to the door he left out of before turning my attention back to her. “Why would I thank him?”