The Last Werewolf

Chapter 2 Can’t Love You Yet

We were both lying on our backs on the cold wet puddles, the rain sloshing from the late afternoon sky.

I still held onto his arm. I was afraid to let go.

Eventually he yanked free, giving me a disgusted look as if I was some slimy monster.

“Wha-what’s so hard about it?” I intended to keep my voice calm, but I was barely choking the words. “What’s so hard about your life that you have to do it this way?”

He got up and staggered away from me. I sat up. We locked eyes.

When he spoke at last, his voice was heavy, fierce.

“Why.”

It sounded more like a full stop than a question mark.

“Why did you do it?” He asked.

I forced my heartbeat to slow.

“You’ve just finished your first chapter; there’s so much more ahead.”

His chest was heaving to the rhythm of his rapid breathing.

“You know nothing about me. Nothing. So why can’t you just leave me alone?”

“You’ve been alone all this time.”

“Yeah, thanks for the reminder.”

“And you’ve been lonely.”

All of a sudden he was laughing like crazy.

Anger thrummed in his veins. “So? I was dying in loneliness, so what? It’s none of your business. Why do you care anyway? Now that my last wish is to just die, have I become so pitiful?!”

He was yelling, and that made me flinch.

I took a deep breath, trying hard to convince myself that that’s not what he meant.

“You were lost. You had nowhere to go. You were hungry. Weren’t you?”

He was still laughing, but there was a bitter taste to it. “You think I’m—,” then his voice cracked.

He looked away, and when his eyes finally returned to mine, they were teary.

He was smiling, but it wasn’t the warm smile that I craved. It was the broken smile of sadness, the one that comes with tears.

All the rage and hatred was gone. His voice was feeble, more quivering than mine. I could tell that he was trying very hard not to cry. “Who cares?”

He was just five steps away from the railings, and five steps away from me.

I walked towards him, as cautiously as approaching a frightened animal.

One. Two. Three.

Four.

I reached out.

My fingertips brushed his hair, then down his wet cheeks.

And under the beating rain, I whispered, “I do.”

I didn’t know why I had done it, but something seemed to change.

I could tell by the look of his face that it had been the first time he heard that confession.

First time somebody told him that she cared.

And then he opened his mouth to say something, closed them, swallowed and opened them again.

Muffled in tears he whispered just two words: I’m sorry.

I shook my head slowly. “You shouldn’t be.”

But he went on, uttering the same words again and again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

I didn’t know if he was saying that to me or to himself. But one thing I knew was that he had done nothing wrong.

“It’s hard, isn’t it?”

I let him wrap his shaking arms around me and press me into himself. I let him embrace me, hold onto me tightly.

I let him share my warmth. I let him know that I wasn’t lying, that I did care.

After our rather uncommon and unexpected interaction, I wasn’t ready to let him go. Not because his eyes were so pretty and his smile so warm, but because I was afraid he would attempt killing himself again.

“There’s a Mexican restaurant two blocks away. You wanna go eat something?”

It was four in the afternoon, a unlikely time for both lunch and dinner, but I couldn’t think of anything else.

“Sure.”

He was still hiccuping, but I was glad he had found his voice again.

We walked down the stairs, the corridor and to the restaurant together, but we didn’t hold hands.

All that happened between us was one single day. One event, that’s all.

There wasn’t anything romantic between us. There shouldn’t be.

I kept reminding myself of Riley. Riley Webster. I held his hand when we walked. He was my boyfriend, Mike was just a—

I stole a furtive glance at him.

A boy space friend. Or maybe he wasn’t a friend at all.

He was right when he said that I knew nothing about him. Nothing except his name, of course.

And that he has yellow eyes and that he’s going through a tough time.

Oh, and that he brings his lunch in a plastic bag, and that he eats potatoes (which I don’t), and I know this because I saw him pick plenty at the Dumpster.

I know that he takes the geometry class in school, that he reads Sci-fis like any other guy.

That he never sleeps during the library, which has become a habit for the entire school.

I know that he doesn’t stan any soccer player, band or celebrity, which is weird, and that he doesn’t eat anything from the vending machine or the convenience store which is weirder.

I furrowed my eyebrows. I felt like a stalker.

“Sophie?”

His voice snapped me out of my train of thoughts.

I turned to him. “Hm?”

His eyes were still puffy and swollen from crying, but he was giving me that warm smile again.

He lifted his hand and gently pressed his finger on my knitted eyebrows.

“You’re cute when you do that.”

Hey everyone, let’s gather around and breathe. Inhale, exhale, inhale, there you go — okay, this isn’t working.

My ears turned hot and suddenly I was sweating, but luckily I wasn’t the only one who turned pink.

“And,” I said, “you’re lovely when you blush.”

He shrugged. “It-it’s a hot day.”

“Oh? And I thought it was November.””

He chuckled. It was the first time for me to hear that. And the first time for him to do it.

For a brief moment I felt like sinking, or floating, whatever. Falling into the warm glow of his eyes and the tenderness of his…

I stopped myself in the middle of my thoughts.

Mike, no, Michael Anderson. He was a stranger to me, a guy who scavages food from the Dumpster and attempted suicide half an hour ago. He’s got no phone, I noticed, and probably no parents too. Maybe not even a house.

He could be a homeless beggar wandering around.

He could be a street gangster who breaks into homes.

He could be a swindler, trying to trick me and steal my money.

He could be a murderer, a r****t, a psychopath.

He could be anything.

And I realized that I wasn’t ready.

I wasn’t ready to love him yet.