Love and Submission

Chapter Seventeen

Olivia closed her eyes and sighed happily as the hot water hit her body. Showers were a perfect way to relieve tension in her opinion and she had certainly had her share of that this evening. As if it wasn’t stressful enough to have your boyfriend meet your parents, then he has to go talking about marriage and revealing how little they really knew about each other. Sure she knew all sorts of wolf stuff and the basic genealogy of his family but that was it. She didn’t know anything about him specifically. Well, okay, she didn’t know a lot about him. She knew he liked rap music, fast cars, and any chance possible to be a pain. He loved all the wolf stuff that was easy enough to tell. She sighed again but this one wasn’t happy. She was supposed to be making a decision here. A decision about the rest of her life.

Not that he made mulling that over any easier on her, no no. He couldn’t. That would go against what little she knew about him. Her current thoughts tossed a wrench the size of Texas into her previous ruminations about loving the furry little imp. How could she love someone she didn’t know? He certainly didn’t know her very well. But usually people had time to discover these things about each other. She had weeks. Actually, she had two weeks to be exact. Then she would be a werewolf and that was it. Turning furry, howling at the moon, hunting animals and people. She shuddered. Part of her enjoyed that imagery. The wolf part she imagined. And it was gaining ground in her consciousness every day. The wolf in her looked at Connor as its mate while the human was left with the chore of looking at their relationship in the sensible light of reality. Not fun.

So, what she needed to do was give the wolf part of her brain a time out. She scrubbed soap into her skin more roughly than she probably should have but the wolf did not enjoy the idea of being confined. Was this how it was going to be from now on? Constantly warring with her own mind over what action to take? The wolf and her self? She shook her head into the spray of water feeling her face start to droop. Well what was her alternative? Death? There was no cure for lycanthropy or at least not one Connor had ever shared. That was her choice. The one that decided her future and it had to be made in a matter of days. Live as a wolf or die as a human. Thinking about dying caused her chest to constrict painfully. Would she really do that? Leave behind her hassling mother and distant father? Would she leave her two young siblings to their fates?

She turned off the shower forcefully and nearly gave herself a rug burn wrapping the towel around herself. The bathroom door was yanked open and barely missed banging off the wall behind it. She had to be quiet her parents were still upstairs. They didn’t care she was pissed off. “Okay, angrier than I thought you’d be.” She didn’t have to turn to see Connor sitting on the edge of her bed. She’d caught his scent the second air and flooded into the bathroom. She didn’t respond. She didn’t trust herself not to fly at him and start pounding lumps into his thick skull. “Will you at least tell me what I did to make you so angry?” He finally asked her softly as she stormed around the room getting clothes and brushing her hair.

“What you did?” She asked incredulous and had to remind herself, again, not to shout. “You bit me, that’s what you did!” He frowned.

“Okaaaaay. I’m not sure exactly how we got back to this argument.”

“It’s not an argument Connor it’s a statement of fact. You bit me. You forced me into this stupid situation and I’m angry about it. I’m angry at you.” He blew out air in a loud gust.

“So this isn’t about dinner then?”

“Yes it is.” She snapped at him. He looked confused and started fidgeting around. One of Connor’s easiest tells was his fidgeting problem. The second he became agitated sitting still wasn’t an option. “You just had to go and mention marriage. You couldn’t resist! And to my parents, of all people.”

“I was being honest.”

“I haven’t even decided yet!” Connor’s eyes widened and he stood completely still.

“But I thought we were on the same page. I mean you and I, this past week…”

“But I haven’t. You don’t get how difficult this is. I have zero time to sort this s**t out and it kind of affects the rest of my existence.” He looked at the ground and ran a nervous hand through his hair.

“I guess I just thought that we had gotten past that part.” She scoffed at him. Sitting down seemed like a good plan but sitting next to him would not solve anything. So she chose the uncomfortable desk chair. “I already apologized for biting you Olivia. I don’t know what else you want me to do.”

“I don’t want you to do anything. I just…” She growled as she tried to vocalize emotions that felt far too primitive for words. “I’m still angry. I don’t like being forced into things.”

“I didn’t force you into anything, aside from becoming a werewolf and I can’t take that back. I would if I could but I can’t and it's done.”

“You forced me into this mess! I now have to choose, life with you as a monster or death. Yeah great freaking options right there.” The look on his face was like she’d punched him in the gut. It hurt her to see him like that, actually physically hurt but she needed this. She needed to be able to say what she felt without getting sidetracked again.

“You aren’t seriously saying you’d rather be dead than have a life with me?” She rolled her eyes.

“You are not the problem Connor. I’m not sure I want to spend the rest of my life as a werewolf.”

“You’d rather die?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” She said angrily. Why was it so impossible to make him understand things? “I wasn’t born into this, I didn’t choose it, and while I understand what happened I still have to live with the consequences. Or not. I mean, it’s not an easy choice and I have two weeks left to make it in. Two weeks to decide whether I live or die.”

“Wow. I didn’t realize you were still in that head space.” She didn’t say anything and they elapsed into silence. It wasn’t easy. She could hear his heart pounding and could almost see the gears grinding in his head. He was trying to think of a way to make her want to stay alive. They stayed quiet for good chunk of time before she thought to say something else. Something that was still a weight on her mind but something they actually had a prayer of resolving.

“Why don’t we ever do anything human? Is that part of some master plan or something? Make the wolf part of me so dominant that I don’t even think about the human stuff anymore?”

“I don’t have a master plan Olivia. And we do plenty of human stuff.”

“Like what?”

“We go to school, we meet each other’s parents, and we went to the mall.”

“We went to the mall once which is where we ran into your parents. You met my parents and school is not exactly a human activity. I meant like why don’t we ever go on a date or hang out with friends? Do you even have other friends outside of your family?”

“You’re making it seem like we don’t do anything at all.” He said angrily.

“No we do stuff. We go for runs, we chase each other around, we practice hunting skills and tracking skills. We do wolf stuff. I want to know why we don’t do human stuff.”

“I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you had an apartment here?” She was talking softly now all anger seeming to have burned away. She was honestly curious.

“I just assumed you knew. I mentioned my parents lived upstate and I figured it was obvious.” They were quiet again. Olivia listened to the sounds of the house while Connor sat there looking like he was deep in thought.

“What’s my favorite color?” She suddenly asked causing him to snap his head towards her. He frowned as he thought about it.

“I don’t know.”

“How about my birthday? What do I want to be? What college do I want to go to?” His frown deepened into a glare.

“Your point being?”

“Don’t you think you should know some of this stuff? That I should know those things about you before we contemplate marriage and lifelong commitment?” Connor rolled amber eyes at her.

“I didn’t mean right now Liv; I just know that’s where this will head so I wanted to make sure he understood that. Most fathers want to know the intentions of their daughters’ boyfriends.” She sighed heavily. “So what are you saying with all of this Liv?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying. I mean I’m saying how I feel but I don’t know what it means.” He nodded. “Maybe we should cool off a little bit.”

“You wanna break up?”

“No. Just not so fast maybe. Don’t look at me like that I’m not accusing you of pushing me, relationship wise, anywhere I didn’t want to go.” He stood up quickly and was definitely pissed off now. Great. She had meant to have a serious conversation not a fight. It had started that way but then improved and now it was crap again.

“That’s fine. You want a break, we’ll take a break. I don’t want to force you into anything else.” His words were angry and clipped. He snatched his sweatshirt off the hanger and yanked it over his head.

“Please don’t leave angry Connor. I’m trying to figure this out.”

“Then I’ll give you space to do it.” He hefted the window open; more like slammed it open and then climbed out of it with the same liquid grace that he did everything. She was waiting beneath the window when he turned around. “I’ll call you.” He leaned in as if he were going to kiss her but then stopped and turned away. She watched as his body melted into the night and continued to stare into the dark until she couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore. She flopped onto her bed with a huff and proceeded to stare at the ceiling. It was curious to her how she couldn’t seem to fall asleep without the warm body of Connor pressed against her when she had only had him there for a couple of weeks. Regardless of the ironic humor she didn’t sleep that night at all.