1: Shouldn't Have Met Him

I should’ve never met him in this lifetime. Or any lifetime. If there was another…. another lifetime…

Throughout the ten years I had married him, I had been through hell, one shitshow after another he had created and had told myself repeatedly, 

“This is okay. Marriages are usually like that. Not everything is a flower or a pretty dress.” 

Except that I had hardly received any flower ever since our wedding except for that one time. 

The one time he gave me one single flower had been from someone else’s bouquet, what his friend had given him as a joke. 

He flung that onto our car dashboard and viola, he gave me that when he was home, drunk and heavily slurred.  Pretty dresses? I don’t remember putting on any beautiful or nice except for decade-old clothes I had owned before our marriage.

Wait. You just wait. That had been far from the worst thing he had done to me.

Click!

Beep!

That was the door lock. He was back. I didn’t get up from where I was sitting because I was thoroughly not interested in his existence. That was what I had been telling myself at least. That I had given up on him.

I waited for, ‘where is the dinner?’ but it didn’t come. It wasn’t like he loved my cooking or took his time enjoying it. What he usually did was looking at the plates before criticizing how awful they looked. He would blame me for my lack of talent in cooking. I had tried really hard, and had been improved. Even though they weren’t particularly the best, they were decent.

But, he’d always end up tossing dishes or breaking plates or barking at me for my uselessness. I am ashamed to admit that I was scared of him. As much as I would want to claim how brave I was and how I confronted him fearlessly. He broke my jaw once and another time he slashed my chest after stripping me naked. No, it wasn’t exciting, not in the least even though I was naked. You didn’t know him as I did, to him I was repulsive.

Anyway, he’d been back for…I glanced at the clock, 10 minutes? 20? It’s 11 at night, but the living room was unusually silent. I got to my feet with a long sigh I was used to. ‘Toughen up, woman, you can’t die. You’ll get through this just like other time.’ Still, my lips trembled so I bit them down.

“Issac?” I used to love his name. I once thought it was pretty. If only a name reflected  person’s personality…

The living room wasn’t exactly a room. We had a small studio apartment divided by cardboard boxes. We were the definition of white trash. Barely any furniture and things without anywhere to stack or store except for those boxes. We owed 5 million dollars to ten different people, or eleven people? I wasn’t sure. 

I had never known people could be in that much debt without founding a company and going bankrupt but obviously it was possible with Issac.

So we were running from debtors because we didn’t want our stomachs sliced open for kidneys or any other organs. I bet he would plead his best to let them do whatever they wanted to me to save his own ass.

“Urghhhh!!!” I screamed because it wasn’t Issac in the adjoining kitchen.

I was looking at a filthy boy around 15 or 16, shoving omelets into his mouth with all the pots, plates, and the content from the fridge filling the table.

Oh God, oh God, oh God…I have an idea again, a very bad idea.

I had a suspicion that this kid was that…you know that…a werewolf. Gossomerhill had lots of wolf packs we humans steered clear away from. I knew he was that because he had hair on his face. I think he was half shifting or whatever they called it.

Currently he doesn’t care my scream or my presence. He looked to be awfully starving. I kinda pity him a bit and starts to think maybe I’ll just let him eat for a while before I call the police. That’s crazy, really crazy. I fumble around for anything, a weapon, before I can grab my phone which is on the table he is sitting at.

I pick up the broom and thrust it around.

“I’ll beat you to death! Leave!”

He glanced up briefly and went back to the food. 

So after a while, I sat down at the table opposite him and asked him where he was from, who he was, and who were his parents, but he answered nothing. If I were to be completely honest, I always thought werewolves were fascinating. Especially in their full wolf forms. Some of them were really adorable.

“Thank you,” he said at last and my hand indecisively hovering around the phone halted. 

“You aren’t scary.”

He grins, rising from his seat. The boy would have a cute face without those hair.

“I thought werewolves were supposed to be really scary.”

“My name is Jaime. Thank you for the food. I wish I could pay you but I have nothing.”

I gaped at him. “You’re really eloquent and well-mannered than most people I have encountered.”

He turned to the door, ready to take off. But then, a thought flickered. The last ten years have been a marathon of struggle and survival, and maybe that was why I wanted a ray of sunshine, some form of happiness, in my life.

So I called after him. “Wait. You can do something for me in return.”

He spun around with a cock of his head.

“I’ve always adored wolf pups. Can you…”

“I’m not a pup.” His nose scrunched up in a scorn.

“Sorry?” I was not sure how I offended him. Pups were cute.  “So… can you do your thing in front of me? Shifting thing?”

He stared at her as though he wanted to say something but he agreed. “Sure.”

When the kid stripped, I looked away for his sake though I was not embarrassed to be around naked teenagers, being a 30-year-old married woman as I am.

It was amazing to see wolves as creepy as they appeared. I didn’t see in the beginning but halfway through I turned around. His bones restructures and his body transforms completely in about a quarter of an hour. 

I gasped in giddiness as I stared at the gray wolf that might be as tall as my hips. He was an adolescent wolf but was big. The rooted discrimination against werewolves made me fearful of him despite this being my request. Issac really hated werewolves. He believed they were all criminal, every single one having done bad things. 

As ashamed as I was, I was occasionally coerced to like what he liked and hated what he hated. We were spouses, many spouses are like that.

I approached the wolf. When I pet him, he pushes his fluffy head into my hand readily. I couldn’t describe how great it felt to scratch behind a wolf’s ear. It gives me all warm and fuzzy feeling.

That’s when…

Beep!

Click!

The door opened and suddenly Jaime had nowhere to run, still in his wolf form. 

Issac was here, kicking the door close behind him. “I’ll kill that bitch,” he muttered, his eyes half-closed.

“Why? Why would you? Why is it always my fault?” I can’t control myself after years. I momentarily forgot about the werewolf’s presence. 

“Oh, there you are.” He looked in my direction. He was awfully drank. “Did you talk back to—” His eyes widened in fear, finally registering Jamie. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!!!!”

He fumbled with his pockets and I knew instantly what he was searching for. No! He had a gun. He used to be a cop but was fired after serving three years in prison for assaulting a minor he was supposed to protect. He had kept a gun illegally, the same thing he usually threatened me with. 

“Don’t! He’s… a friend! I know him, alright? I know him!”

Jamie growled, about to jump up on him. 

“No, kid! He’s my husband!” 

I was more than distraught. I didn’t know what to do. I should’ve let him kill Issac but I was telling him no.

 “You know this animal? A werewolf.” His fear morphed into a disgust.