by Yara Gharios
As I went on doing my job, I kept a close eye on them. They were the kind of customers that would hit on the staff just because they could get away with saying anything. ‘The customer is always right,’ they would say in their foreign accents when they tried to justify themselves. They didn’t bother Elise and the other girls as much as they did me, because I didn’t enjoy the attention the way the girls sometimes did.
The night passed. True to his routine, the overachiever left the bar with his girl, while his brother was still working his angle. I shook my head in frustration when they left. The brother, on the other hand, struck out for the first time, and the girl threw her drink in his face.
This was new. I couldn’t deny the satisfaction I felt that he was rejected for once. When I saw his dejected look though, I felt sympathy for him. He left the booth and walked towards the bar, where he dropped on a stool and put his head between his hands.
“You okay there?” I asked him in English.
I was concerned. I’d never seen anyone so sad after being turned down, especially not someone with a winning streak as long as his. He could really try again tomorrow and it would be fine. I wondered what could possibly put him in such a mood.
At the sound of my voice, he looked up and smirked. “Why? You want to help me make it better?” he slurred, obviously too intoxicated to even think up a decent pick-up line.
He did this every night, even on those he went home with someone. He would always find something to say to me that counted as flirting to him, but which was rude and degrading in my opinion. My sympathy for him disappeared, and I was angry.
“You want to show me your passport there, kid?” I demanded.
He let out a noise that sounded like laughter but was too slow from the alcohol in his system. “You know, if you want to know my name, all you have to do is ask.”
“I don’t care what your name is. If you’re too young to drink in this bar, I’m two seconds away from kicking you out of here for good and banning you and your brother from ever stepping foot in this place again,” I retorted coldly.
He shook his head slowly, as if it was too heavy for him to move it properly. “Mary, Mary, why do you hate me?” He got my name from the waitress tag on the front of my shirt.
“I don’t know you to be able to hate you,” I pointed out. “But I see you come and go every night with another girl, and I find that sort of behavior despicable, especially since you don’t seem to respect them enough to refrain from flirting with the waitresses in their very presence, right before you toss them to the side like yesterday’s garbage.”
After staring at me for a moment, he grimaced and moaned, throwing his head forward onto the table. “What else is a guy with a meaningless existence supposed to do?” he whined. “At least this way, I’m not alone all the time.”
His words shocked me into silence. He must have been drunker than I thought if he was speaking this way. I didn’t think he had thought up a reasoning for his behavior, and I certainly didn’t expect it to be because of a fear of being alone. Suddenly, I saw him in a new light, and I found the perfect opportunity to test my ability while helping a lost soul at the same time.
I placed the cup and towel to the side and leaned on the stool toward him. “Why do you call your existence meaningless?”
He groaned again, and I guessed he was starting to have a headache. “It is what it is,” he lamented. “I have nothing to look forward to in life, and nothing to give meaning to it, other than my own enjoyment. I just want to have fun, but I’m not having much of that here. And I thought Paris was supposed to be the answer, especially after I saw you.”
I blinked at him. This was more than just a confession; this kind of information was possibly present on a subconscious level. He was literally pouring his deepest thoughts out.
“Whatever problems you have, you can’t expect to run from them by travelling somewhere,” I told him. “Not even by distracting yourself with booze and women. It will always come back to bite you in the ass.”
“You have a pretty ass,” he whimpered like he was falling asleep.
I rolled my eyes, but let it slide for once. This was obviously not getting through to him. I tried a different approach. “What’s your name?”
“Mason,” he mumbled.
“Well, Mason, I’m pretty sure you’re drunk enough to say everything you probably wouldn’t say sober, but too drunk to remember this tomorrow, so I don’t really feel guilty prying into your life,” I started. “I’m going to ask you some questions, okay? I want you to answer me with the first thing that comes to mind. If you want, in the morning, try to only remember those that you feel are important to know, okay?”
He lifted his head off the table and stared at me curiously. “What?”
“What’s the most valuable thing to you?” was my first question.
I expected something materialistic for an answer, like his car or some other possession. Instead, his answer was, “My family,” spoken with utter seriousness.
I had to take a second to process the fact that maybe this kid was a lot deeper and more complex than I thought him out to be. “Why is that?”
“They’re the greatest people I know,” he simply said, although, granted, his voice was slurred.
I paused. “You’re happy that you have them?”
“Yes.”
“Then why aren’t you with them right now?”
He seemed confused and blinked for a moment. “I don’t want to… be trapped, like my sister. You know? I want to escape the… cage she’s going to end up in.”
Now I was the one who was confused. “Your sister?” I repeated incredulously. “Why is she trapped?”
He frowned, like he was trying really hard to remember something. “I’m not supposed to… talk about it,” he mumbled.
I decided not to push him. “Okay, you don’t have to do that, then,” I conceded. “But tell me this. Aren’t you trapped right now, too?”
A look of intense concentration passed over his face as he tried to make sense of what I was saying to him. “How am I trapped? I’m not home. I’m free as a bird.”
“You come to the same place every night with your brother, and you do the same routine of picking up girls,” I pointed out. “Over and over again, you repeat the same thing. You’re stuck in a cycle. You are trapped.”
He didn’t seem to fully understand what I was trying to say, but he looked like he wanted to. I could tell my words affected him in some way, and I hoped he would remember this in the morning and that it would change him.
“My advice?” I went on, planning on ending it with this. “Find another way to escape what you’re really afraid of, one that doesn’t trap you in a different type of cage. Or better yet, confront it. That’s the best thing you could do for yourself. Take it from someone who’s seen a lot of people confined in a prison of their own making, and who knows firsthand what it does to them: don’t wait around for something to let you out. Set yourself free on your own.”
With that, I pushed myself away from the bar and went back to work. It took him a while to move, and place some money on the counter before picking himself up and stumbling out of the bar. I was happy because I felt like I did something good.
It came as a shock when I saw him the next morning, entering the deserted bar in such a serious manner as I had never expected him capable of. He looked like he didn’t get much sleep, though I could tell he was sober. I spotted him immediately, but although I was surprised by his presence at such an early hour –it was almost closing time– I didn’t react until his searching eyes found me sweeping behind the bar and he marched over with determination.
“What did you mean?” he asked.
I blinked, momentarily unsure what he was talking about because I couldn’t know what he remembered. “What did I mean by what?”
“Everything.”
When I understood, I smiled and invited him to sit at the stool. We sat there talking well
after closing hours, and we kept on talking during the remainder of his trip to Europe. If I had known when I first saw him that he would later on become that important to me, I would have said something immediately.
CHAPTER 14
Michael
Marianna finishes her story and fixes me with her all-knowing eyes. No wonder Mason caved the next morning and came to see her. She’s very good at reading people and knowing exactly what to say. Unlike me.
At first, I was surprised that Mason admitted this early on that I was a girl. I’ve always thought he told her that after asking her to be his mate. It doesn’t really matter though.
I’m glad I finally learned the full story of what happened to bring Mason and Marianna together, but it’s clouded by the message she obviously means to deliver by telling me the story.
“What are you trying to say?” I ask. “That I’m trapped in a cage of my own doing?”
“Not exactly,” she replies, and the kindness with which she stares at me softens the blow of her words. “I know you didn’t put yourself in this position on purpose. But you do have the ability to be rid of it. I’ve always thought you have, even before your secret came out and you found out you had a mate. You just never realized it or thought to use it.”
I understand what she’s saying. She’s telling me I could have lived freely all those years. Instead, I let my prison cage me and trapped myself. Even now, she thinks I can somehow free myself from the burden of being in a one-sided doomed relationship. But I beg to differ.
“Marianna, there’s no way I could have lived whatever way I wanted to. There’s no way I could have ever found someone to love and have a life with,” I disagree calmly.
“Why not?” she counters. “You could have let somebody in, somebody you learned to trust, the way you guys let me in, and Sadie.”
“And Cade,” Sadie interjects.
Marianna nods at her. “And Cade,” she repeats.
“And Andrea now.”
At this, Marianna frowns. “Andrea?”
I roll my eyes at the digression. “Connor asked her to be his mate. What’s your point?”
“My point is you could have found a balance.”
I shake my head in denial. “Then I still wouldn’t be completely free.”
“In time, you would have been,” she insists. “It doesn’t matter what you wear or how you sound, but you would have at least been able to be yourself among a group of people that love you and accept you for who you are. And that’s how it can be with Logan. You don’t have to close yourself off from him completely. You’re protecting yourself from something you’re not even sure will happen. How do you know he doesn’t already love you?”
“Let’s agree to disagree on that,” I request, the turn that the conversation is taking making me queasy.
I don’t want to think about that anymore. From the look on Marianna and Sadie’s faces, I can see they’re not going to drop this. The only thing I can think of doing right now is delaying the inevitable.
“I need some air,” I declare before standing up. “I’m going for a run.”
What the hell, right? It’s not like nobody in the area knows anymore. I can go run if I want to. Besides, I need it. I haven’t been out in the open for a while, and I miss it. I could definitely use the escape right now.
Thankfully, they let me go without a fuss. I sprint all the way out of the house and towards the forest. I pass a few people in the compound who give me weird looks when I just keep running. I only stop at the edge to think about which way I’m going, before deciding that it doesn’t really matter anyway. I take off into the woods, for once not going far, because I don’t need to hide. It feels great not to worry about someone walking in on me for a change.
I stop by a spot about five hundred yards from the edge of the forest, take off my clothes and hide them behind a tree. Then I take my time shifting so I could feel every part of the changing process. The heat going from the top of my head, through my spine and all the way to my extremities, my elongating and shortening limbs, and the molding of my face like clay into a canine snout and skull. There is something therapeutic to it, and I can’t help relaxing when I am in full wolf form.
About an hour goes by during which I run, chase my tail, sit back, and even howl a little when it gets dark. The experience is liberating. It helps me, in a way, to regain my positive outlook on life –or rather construct one, since I wasn’t all that positive to begin with. It’s great to be free from social restrictions as well as the physical confinement of four walls.
This is the first time I can be myself like that when I’m shifted. I make a promise to myself that this is how it’s going to be from now on. I can hear every buzzing insect around me, like a soothing lullaby telling me to forget all my worries and just relax. The sharper colors of the earth, trees, plants and night sky calm me. The smells from the various plant life pacify the thoughts raging around in my head, until I am thinking of nothing but what my five senses can tell me in this moment.
As I am sitting there taking in every aspect of the nature surrounding me, I gradually become aware of the pull I feel towards Logan clawing its way through my serenity to the surface.
Not now, I whine. I’m just starting to enjoy myself.
Then it hits me. The only way I can get Marianna and Sadie off my back about this is if I prove them wrong. I’ve just been presented with an opportunity to do so.
Shifting back to human form takes me all but a second. Then after putting my clothes on, I concentrate on letting the pull guide me.
He’s only three minutes’ walking distance away, standing on the river bank in the very spot I saw him in for the first time. As if he can feel me coming, which he probably can, his face is turned in my direction. His wolf eyes are on me when I come into view.
For a moment, neither of us moves. We simply stand there staring at each other. The pull intensifies sharply in one second, until I almost start slipping into my conflicting dark and light emotions again. Almost, but not quite. I am prepared for it this time, and I will hold my ground.
Grinding my teeth and holding my head up in determination, I take four steps in his direction. “Come with me. Now.”
Without another word, I spin sharply on my heels and walk away, somehow knowing with certainty that Logan will follow. My thoughts are confirmed when I hear his light footsteps behind me.
When we get to a clearing with enough tree coverage, I face him. He’s holding his clothes in his mouth.
“Stay there,” I order. He stops. “Don’t move until I come out.”
He blinks, but other than that, he is perfectly still. I go around the nearest and thickest tree, and start taking my clothes off again. Though I know he hears it, I can’t help taking a deep breath before I start to shift. I may be determined, but I’m still nervous as hell.
Once I’m back in wolf form, I walk around the tree with deliberate slow steps, my eyes cast downward. I stand in a spot that I assume is directly facing him. However, when I look up, there’s nobody there.
Unbelievable, I bitterly think. Did he seriously just leave?
But he didn’t. Because if he did, the pull would have lessened a lot right about now.
“Dylan,” his voice suddenly calls out from the side.
I snap my head up to look at him. He’s back in human form, dressed only in jeans. My emotions betray me then. I could have taken him fully dressed, but when he’s topless, and I see the way every muscle on his chest, in his shoulders and arms, moves with his labored breathing, I feel weak all over. The desperate need to get near him and touch him, if only to make sure he’s real and standing there right now, is greater than ever.
But it’s the expression on his face that snaps me out of it and forces me to regain my wits. He’s looking at me with so much wonder and love that it’s hard to believe he was ever cold or even formal with me.
He finally gets it. He feels the pull. Now he knows what I am to him.
> But all this does is prove my point.
It’s too little too late now. The damage has already been done. So while he walks over to me, looking like he’s in pain over the presence of a couple dozen feet between us, I stand up and walk toward the tree where I hid my clothes. I need to be in human form for this, in which case I have to be dressed. My walking away from Logan doesn’t sit well with him, though.
“Wait, stop,” he begs.
I almost listen, but what good is that going to do? I can’t talk to him in wolfish, and there are some things that need to be said. So I hide behind the tree and shift. But he still doesn’t get what I’m trying to do, and he follows me.
“Dylan,” he whispers from behind me.
I squeak and turn sharply, my hands going over my naked body to hide myself.
Seriously? I look like a cavewoman right now while he looks like a Greek god in jeans. He couldn’t wait just a minute?
“Just let me get dressed, first!” I demand. “Turn around!”
He blinks at me, and I can see a hundred different emotions flashing through his eyes right at that moment. I recognize those I felt as well, not so long ago in his position; desire, the need to be physically close, and amazement. At the same time, pain and hurt at being rejected as well as frustration over the fact that his body is out of his control right now, all are also front and center. He can’t even move to give me the little bit of privacy I requested. His breathing is heavy.
I try for the begging approach, because I know for fact that he would do practically anything I want him to do right now. I know because I’ve been there, and I’m still there. I’ve just had more practice resisting it.
“Please, turn around for bit?” I gently ask, instinctively looking up at him from under my lashes.
He blinks again, only this time it’s different. It’s like he’s waking up from a dream instead of living in one. After what feels like forever, he finally complies and turns his back on me. I do the same and reach down for my clothes.
Hastily, I put them on, eager to get this over with. I know I said I can resist it, and I can. But the longer I stand here, this close to him, while also knowing that he’s half naked and absolutely willing, my resistance is slowly being torn down.