A Moment for Tara

by Tamar Sloan

  Chapter Six

  When the Impossible Becomes Possible

  The full moon, Mitch and Noah’s birthday, comes and goes. I stay up that night, looking up at the pale steady orb as it watches over the trees, wishing I could see what it’s seeing. I wish I could have been there when they got home. Seeing my two besties after their first change, celebrating with the two boys I’ve shared my childhood with.

  Instead I paint.

  Constantly.

  I paint at school in the art room, relieved that Mitch doesn’t come looking for me. Knowing that his choice is a statement. No, more of a question. Is it possible for us to have a friendship after this?

  I paint at home. And when I run out of canvases I use whatever paper I can find. And on days like today, where I’ve run out of indigo blue, I paint in my mind, trying to create some beauty in a world that is steadily fading, losing its color.

  I’m heading back in when I find Dad at the dining room table. He’s spread out a sheet and has his favorite shotgun, the one that used to be Grandfather Garrett’s, spread out in parts.

  He picks up the barrel, rubbing it with a white cloth. “How are those placards going?”

  I stop, keeping my gaze focused on what he’s doing. The placards were finished days ago thanks to my current output. “Yep, all done.”

  “You all set for tomorrow?”

  Tomorrow is the protest. I reach out and grasp the back of a chair. “It’s just the Channons?”

  Dad grunts, one of those deep heaves that lifts his entire torso. “They’ve got enough on their plate at the moment.”

  I’m not sure if my breath out is relief that I won’t have to see them…or disappointment. “With the mayor and the legal loopholes?”

  Dad looks up, big bushy brows heading up to his hairline. “You don’t know?”

  Fiddling is gone, fidgeting is forgotten. Dad’s tone has me freezing. “Don’t know what?”

  Dad goes back to pick up the stock, grunting again. “Noah didn’t change.”

  “What?”

  He looks up, eyes serious. “Noah didn’t shift. Mitch did, but Noah, well…nothing happened.”

  I sit with a thud. “How is that possible?”

  “It’s not.” Dad looks back to his gun. “He’s always had that weird mark.”

  Our wolf tattoo is stamped on our chest, and for every other Were on the planet it sits beside a pack symbol, except for Noah’s. No one’s been able to figure out why his is different. I never really cared. In my mind Noah is a special guy, and that tattoo just proved it.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Dad sucks his chin in, his beard pushing into his chest. “Figured that’s why you weren’t spending time with them, that you realized there’s something not right with those twins.”

  I stand up, my chair scraping across the floor. “I’ve gotta go.”

  Dad finally stops and looks up. “Tara, that family needs space.”

  But I’m out the door before Dad gets a chance to tell me to stay, which would mean discovering whether I have the courage to defy him.

  The drive to the Phelans involves acting like speed limits don’t apply to Weres but it still takes too long. Because of my selfishness I wasn’t there when two of the most important people in my world needed me.

  The Phelan house is quiet when I arrive. One of the trucks is missing, telling me Adam and Beth are out, probably on some errand to do with the threat to the Glade. My own dramas pale when I think of what the family inside is going through.

  I don’t bother knocking, I haven’t since I was a kid. I head straight upstairs, knowing Mitch will be in his room. I stop when I get there, his door is open and it frames the still person sitting on the bed.

  He’s grown, filled out since the change, but the shoulders that have broadened are stooped and rounded. When Mitch looks up his eyes swim with pain and grief. I go to him, the past on pause because right now there’s something far more important I need to do. Be there for the one who’s always been there for me.

  I shut the door and move forward. His hand comes up and I grasp it, eyes stinging at the warmth that caresses something deep in my chest. Things have changed, he’s bigger now, and we’ve barely spoken for weeks. But our connection, lifelong and friendship born, entwines like it was never severed. He tugs, needing closeness. I don’t think. I sit beside him, practically on top of him, my small frame tucking into his seamlessly.

  “Noah’s not here.”

  I’m not surprised. Out of the three of us Noah has always been the one who shouldered pain like a rock. Solid and alone. “He’s walking?”

  Mitch blinks, a long slow shuttering of relief that he doesn’t have to explain.

  I squeeze his hand and look at him. Waiting for him to tell me.

  Mitch’s words stutter and halt, knowing I can piece together the fragments. They went to the Glade, brimming with so much excitement and anticipation that nervousness never stood a chance. As twilight descended Mitch changed. And Noah didn’t. They waited — the Phelans have patience patented.

  And nothing happened.

  “Dad and Noah went back every night for a week. Nothing.”

  “That would have been awful.” Waiting, hoping.

  “I wanted to be there, Tara. He’s my brother, my twin for Pete’s sake.”

  “But it would have hurt him more.” Because Mitch has changed, he’s a Were now.

  Mitch sighs, having run out of words.

  I don’t slacken my grip on his hand. “What’s next?”

  “Now we wait for the next full moon.”

  His tone is colored with hope, tinged with anguish. If Noah didn’t change when we are meant to, why would he change any other time?

  I shake my head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It’s like you’ve built something, something big, only to find out it has the mother of all faults running right through the foundation.”

  “Noah’s stronger than this, we both know it.”

  But Mitch doesn’t respond, like there’s no room for optimism anymore. “It really messes with your head.”

  I just watch him, his face slack and sad, and no words come. I squeeze his hand and Mitch looks down at our entwined fingers. “It’s like there’s nothing left to trust.”

  “Mitch, no.”

  “Noah’s world has been turned inside out because he assumed he knew where it was going. So did I when it came to you…us.”

  My heart splinters as the boy I love discovers his foundations weren’t what he thought they were. Undermined by something that we never thought possible…but also undermined by my lies. He looks down, dragging away the deepwater gaze I was drowning in.

  One question rises up through my heartache. How can the truth be wrong?

  I reach up, my fingers brushing his jaw, bringing those blue eyes back to me. “You weren’t wrong, Mitch.”

  His brows tug down, confusion pulling them tight. Rather than tell him I follow my heart, and show him.

  I push up and press my lips to his own startled ones. The moment they brush, touch and connect I discover that passion in its purest form is a kaleidoscope of colors. There’s the purity of truth, the swirling haze of desire. I gasp and it deepens, and I discover the bold strokes of ‘oh sweet gods of yes’ and ‘don’t ever stop’.

  My hands come up to cup his face, trace his shoulders, tremble over his rapidly moving chest. His arms band around me like clamps and the passion bursts even brighter. This is why I didn’t want to touch Mitch once my feelings tipped over the edge. I wouldn’t want to stop.

  The final word registers. I need to stop.

  I pull back, already resenting the cool air that starts to slip between us. But Mitch doesn’t let me get far. His palms clasp my head and he leans back in. The prismatic play of feelings, hunger and gasps, starts all over again. How am I supposed to ever move from the one place I don’t ever want to leave?

  Minutes and lifetimes pass
before we pull apart. We sit there, foreheads touching, gazing in wonder. Our first kiss. Where do we go from here?

  Mitch’s breath, all cinnamon and citrus, puffs out. “I don’t want us to end at this.”

  The truth escapes me before I can reign it in. “Me neither.”

  Mitch’s eyes blaze, the first flash of light I’ve seen since I arrived. I can’t bring myself to pull back, loving his lips so close to mine. “Maybe we keep this quiet for a little while.”

  I need time.

  Mitch blinks. “Keep it quiet?”

  “Yeah. You know, with all this stuff going on with Noah, and the Glade. I think our packs have enough on their plates.”

  Mitch frowns but I press my lips to his, knowing I’ve just established an addiction, wanting him to agree.

  He pulls back, the frown replaced by soft passion. “Just me and you, huh?”

  “For now. Just you,” I clasp him tighter, “and me.”

  As his lips descend again I know I need to convince my dad this is a good thing. When it feels like colors have just been born, how could he not agree?