Her dorm is a shoebox. Of course, I already knew that, but being forced to sit in here in her rolling desk chair and watch her sleep is a fucking nightmare. The chair isn't comfortable enough for me to sleep, and climbing into bed with her is so far from an option it's comical.
Touching her would be like lighting a match and tossing it at kindling without being sure how much gasoline has been poured on the lot. Whoosh!
A few weeks ago, that might have been an appealing thought, but I've been rethinking my previous recklessness. If I'd stayed away from Emmerson like everyone told me, neither of us would be in this position now. Both of us are in danger—me because I've become so weak and her for who-the-hell-knows why. Somebody out there knows, but so far no one is running forward to fill me in.
I sense she's awake before she says anything, and I pop open an eye from where I've been pretending to sleep.
"That can't be comfortable." She peeks out from the edge of the covers, half her face barely visible.
Something in the vicinity of my heart contracts at her sleepy adorableness. Not a normal reaction for me, and I file it away in the things that shouldn't happen around Emmerson mental file that's taking up more room in my brain than it should.
"Nope," I agree. "It's not."
"You did say you were going to stay right beside me." She pats the bed.
"Can't do that."
"It's pretty comfortable over here."
"That is a tiny bed, and I am a big man."
"It'd be cozy."
She's going to push, and so I decide to push back. "You've got a boyfriend."
She tugs the covers down and then flops over onto her back, staring at the ceiling. "I tried with him, I really did."
"Hmm." I don't know enough about human or pseudo-human relationships to comment, but it was pretty clear from everything I was feeling through Emmerson that he wasn't doing it for her on any level. Can't say I was disappointed about that.
"You don't believe me?" She turns back on her side to face me.
"I'm just here to keep you alive. We don't need to braid each other's hair."
"If all those memory gaps are you, we've spent a lot of time together."
I grimace but I don't say anything in response. Not like I can defend myself. I did what I wanted, and now I'm suffering the consequences in a rolling chair that's too small and uncomfortable to be even marginally functional. At the end of these four weeks, I'll be sleep deprived and excessively horny, but hopefully we'll all still be alive.
"Don't you have class soon?"
"And you know my schedule," she says, flinging the covers back. "Serious stalker vibes."
If only she knew the full extent. I spin the chair around so I'm not facing her. As much as I'd love to watch, that's more temptation than I can handle.
"People are going to wonder why you're following me around campus all of a sudden."
"No, they won't."
"A super tall, bearded, mountain of muscle man is definitely going to attract attention."
Her description makes me want to puff out my chest with pride. When I look in the mirror, I see a shadow of myself. It's one of many things that spurred my decision to give in to the Clara fiasco. I'm not cut out to be an every-man. For a while, though I'm not sure I could have admitted it, I might have thrown away my destiny for Emmerson. The last few weeks free from most of her influence has given me the clarity I needed.
Everything is too high a price.
Sure there's something between us, but it's never going to be what I need to fulfill my full potential. This, with her, is fleeting, and I have to stop pretending it can be anything other than that. Whatever connection has formed between us will be snipped once Clara and I are bonded, and that's the way it should be.
My heart contracts again at the thought, and I run my hands through my hair in frustration. The truth is, I don't know if my head and my heart are as perfectly aligned as I'd like them to be. I just have to have enough pretending in me to get my ass to the ceremony with Clara. That's where I need to be, even if it's not where I want to be.
"Okay," she says. "I'm ready."
I whirl the chair around and stand up to inch past her into the bathroom. She doesn't give me any extra space, and when I glance down at her, she's looking up at me with a hint of a smirk. It's tempting to say or do something that'll inch us closer in some way—physically or emotionally. Somehow I get into the bathroom without doing either, but when I stare at myself in the mirror, I know I'm not making it the four weeks without fucking something up. It's just a question of how big.
###
Emmerson's lecture is probably the most boring thing I've ever sat through, and that includes my father's yearly throne speech where he drones on and on about how great and special he is. It takes a particular kind of person to incite more boredom than that.
"Learn anything?" Emmerson asks as we head back to her apartment where she'll change into her state park uniform, and we'll negotiate getting her to work.
"Was I supposed to?" My senses twig an odd energy, and I scan the area, not sure what I'm feeling, but it's something.
"What do I tell Brody about you?" Emmerson asks, and I notice she's focused on someone coming toward us.
When I swing my attention along the sidewalk, Brody is weaving through other students to get to Emmerson, a broad, dopey smile on his face. A domesticated dog, eager to please.
"Nothing," I say. "Don't even mention me. He won't notice me." I shove my hands in the pockets of my jeans and keep scanning the area.
"Babe!" Brody says.
"Babe?" I mutter. "You've got a fucking name."
"Be nice," Emmerson says out of the side of her mouth just before Brody is close enough to hear her.
Little does she know, I don't have to be nice. Brody can't see or hear me, so I can be as snide as I want. The only person who has to suffer through my comments is Emmerson, and maybe some of them will hit close enough to home that she'll finally break up with this guy. She likes the idea of him, but she doesn't want him in any way that matters. Letting him go is best for all of us.
Brody wraps his arms around Emmerson and plants a sloppy kiss on her. It's quite possibly the worst kiss I've ever witnessed.
"Do you need a napkin or something?" I ask. "There's some slobber just..." I indicate her cheek with my finger.
Emmerson shoots me a glare, and then focuses on Brody, ignoring me like I suggested.
Turns out I don't actually want to be ignored, though.
"Come sleep at my place when you're done work," Brody says. "I don't have class tomorrow until the afternoon."
"Is sleep a euphemism?" I ask. "Have you told him that he's not capable of satisfying you? That nothing about him will ever satisfy you."
"Are you hearing this?" Emmerson asks, focused on Brody.
"Hearing what?" Brody's dopey grin seems to be permanent.
"There's like this buzzing noise to my right." She flicks her hand in my direction and smacks me. "But if you don't hear it, it's fine. It's just really annoying."
"Your hearing's always been better than mine." He shrugs. "Tomorrow?"
His comment perks me up. "Is your hearing better than average?"
"I think you're just partially deaf," she says, maintaining a playful tone that grates on my nerves. "And I can't tomorrow, I'm sorry." She tugs on his T-shirt and draws him into another kiss, which feels more performance than desire. At least he doesn't try to eat her whole face this time.
"Call me," he says, backing up and almost running into people behind him. "I miss you."
"I will. Working a lot this week."
"And actually not at all interested in you," I say. "You should add that. Hammer in that last nail to the relationship coffin."
"Jealous much?" she asks as she turns on her heel and leads the way back to her dorm room.
"If there was any chance he was competition, maybe."
"No one but me can see you or hear you?"
"I get to choose who sees me."
"And you chose me a lot." She says it like a statement, and it's true, but I'm wary of confirming more than I already have. "So how does it work?" she asks as we walk. "Can you turn it off and on?"
"Not really," I say with a sigh. Admitting all of it is only going to enforce her belief that she's special.
As we walk, she seems to be taking note of how people go around me without realizing I'm there. No one runs into me, but no one acknowledges that I'm walking beside her either. I'm used to it, but I suppose it would be strange to see for the first time.
Once we're inside her dorm room, I throw myself into the wheely chair and turn my back to her.
"I think," she says, and I can hear her stripping off her clothes, "that the invisibility thing is on all the time, and you decide when to turn it off. When to reveal yourself." The last button on her shirt snaps audibly. "You can turn around."
I use my heel to spin myself in her direction, and once we're facing each other, she seems almost excited, as though none of this weirds her out. A giant man who can turn himself invisible to the human eye doesn't phase her at all. Maybe if I told her I'm a wolf that'd do it. For some reason, she hasn't made that connection, even though she saw me in wolf form yesterday.
"Why did you decide to reveal yourself to me?" she asks.
"I didn't."
A line appears between her brows, and she searches my expression, probably trying to figure out if I'm fucking with her. I am and I'm not.
"Can you just explain?" she asks, her tone exasperated.
"The first time I saw you, I didn't choose to show myself. You just saw me, and it was..." I can't even describe what it was.
"It was?"
"Electric," I admit. "Unexpected."
"But good." She says it like a statement.
"The unexpected is never good," I clarify. "Not in the world I live in."
"Which isn't this one? I'm trying to figure out how you can do the things you do."
"I live in this world," I say, pointing to the floor. "But I guess you could call it a different frequency. There are others like me." I'm not going to tell her they're all related to me, at least all the ones around here.
"Where do you live?"
"The state park. In the section no one enters."
"Erosion," she says with a slow nod. "Is that really enough of a deterrent?"
"Doesn't really matter. Humans can't see most parts of our existence." Except when we're in wolf form, but even then, their brains seem to turn us into other things—bears, mostly—or we're described as smaller than we actually are. "More peaceful when humans keep their distance."
"You don't get along with humans?"
"We co-exist."
"Are you an alien?"
"No," I say with a laugh.
"So what are you?"
"I'm the thing nightmares are made of."
"That's not helpful."
"It wasn't meant to be." I stand up. "Are we getting food before you start your shift? I swear you're trying to starve me."
"I sometimes forget to eat," she admits, grabbing her bag and phone off the desk.
"I never forget to eat." I open her dorm door, and she steps out ahead of me.
"You aren't going to tell me what you are?"
"No." The more I reveal, the riskier everything gets. For now, she knows I'm not quite human, and she knows she's in danger from a trained wolf pack. If I can keep the details to that, if she turns out to be human, then she can resume her life with a cool story. If she's not human, she'll come to understand everything in time.
Once I'm bonded with Clara, they'll be no need for her to live in my world.
"Did you tell me when you thought I wouldn't remember?" she asks as we start the walk out to the state park.
I did. I told her a lot of things when I thought she wouldn't remember. For a long time, I hoped she might recall some of our conversations, might finally see me the way I see her, but now that my decision is made, now that I've agreed to accept Clara, the last thing I need is for Emmerson to remember anything I told her.
"No," I lie. "I never did."
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