********I freaking love the book shiver, so i just threw this together :D it's a bit sketch, but i hope ya'll enjoy :D xox, CountryStrongxo**********
It's been exactly three weeks. Well three weeks and a day. Exactly. Well, since I was bitten. The girl with the green eyes, Maddie, told me I should shift soon. I wasn't sure exactly what that meant. But I was sure I'd figure out soon. With the changing of the seasons from fall to winter I'd been feeling something tugging inside me. Wanting to be let loose. I was scared and confused. Very confused.
My name is Isabel Miller. I'm seventeen years old. I'm a senior in high school, and I have ADHD. My dad hates me. My moms not around much. To whoever asks I say shes some fancy doctor working on a cure for cervical cancer. If only that was really true. Shes just a druggie in a rehab center thirty miles south of here. St. Cloud minnesota. That's where here is. We live in a small house on the edge of the city. Me and my dad. Its got one floor and a decent sized loft. The lofts my room. My dad has the bedroom downstairs with whatever girlfriend. Well he calls them girlfriends. I call them whores. No big deal though. Then we had a mudroom with a laundry machine and an adjoined living area and kitchen. Its alright I guess. My father doesn't care. About me. About anything. The only thing he ever cared about was my mother. Now that she's gone. He's got nothing. So he fills up his time, memory, and life up with dirty whores he meets at the club. Every morning I usually wake up to a version of this "Isabel wake up you stupid bitch. It's time to go to the school nobody likes you at. Oh by the way make me breakfast." it just makes my day to hear that every morning. Not.
So I was running the other day. Well not really the other day. But it was probably a month ago. Anyway I love to run. But as i was running I saw a car abandoned by the side of the road. Engine still on drivers side door open. And a charcoal grey wolf running from it. I was shocked mainly because there aren't usually wolves around highly populated areas. And second because it ran like it was coming from the car. I ran to the car to see if anyone was inside. Sure enough nobody was. Just a few scraps of clothes littering the ground. I didn't really know what to do. Then I looked in the direction the wolf had been running to. I saw it sitting there. Calm as day and night it's green eyes glittering with one unknown secret. Then promptly I got the urge to shut off the ignition, clean up the torn up clothing set It in a pile in the backseat, and shut the door and pretend I hadn't seen anything. So I did. Until three weeks ago I had almost forgotten about the weird car and grey wolf.
"Isabel......Isabel? Dude wake up. The bell just wrang. We're gonna be late for trig...."
"relax I'm up. Sorry"
"hey it's alright," replied my best friend in the world Ben, " Rough night?"
"ya you could say that. I also feel like shit so ya know."
"what happened?"
"oh nothing important. Trust me."
There was an awkward moment of silence while he stared at me. That look always meant he knew I was lying. But of course he was always right.
"come on, or we'll be late"
So promptly we left Mr. Clarksons twelfth grade English class. We walked silently, listening to all the other people in the hallways talking, catching bits and pieces of conversations about weekend plans. Suddenly I turned to Ben.
"let's ditch eight and ninth period. No one will miss us. Come on please? We only have three minutes to decide....."
Without thinking he replied, "let's do it."
So we opened the doors of the building and ran to Bens car. Five minutes later we were on the road. After a few minutes of silent driving I flipped the switch on the radio to some ninties station and Ben asked,
"where to?"
" ah .... I don't know."
"hey it was your idea to ditch..... You should pick where to go."
"fine your house. We can order pizza."
"sounds perfect"
Ben had his own apartment but I was over there so much it was never awkward. Soon we were pulling into his designated spot and running up the stairs two by two laughing all the way. I couldn't help but feel that thing inside me, tugging at my soul. The chilly weather was raising goosebumps on my arms. Ben saw and unlocked the door and let me in first. His one room apartment was quaint. Small but quaint. I plopped down on his bed and reached for the remote while he dialed the number of the pizza place down the street.
I heard a guy pick up on the other end and say the usual 'hello thank you for calling pizza shack what can I get for you?' to that Ben replied
" one large cheese please, for delivery."
Then he hung up the phone and said it should be here soon. Good thing too. I was starving. We sat on his bed watching some stupid reality tv show about bratty teens having their dream sixteenth birthday party. I remembered my sixteenth birthday. Me, Ben, a box of pizza, and a cupcake with a candle. I knew in my heart it was better than any of these snotty rich kids birthday parties. Even though I had been in shorts and a tank, and not a three hundred dollar dress.
Suddenly ben said "i feel so comfortable around you Hayle, but I feel like it's all about to change."
"what do you mean?"
"just... I know it sounds stupid, but i have this guy feeling. I don't know...."
I looked into his soft brown eyes. He looked so sincere and innocent when he said that. And just so vulnerable. But I felt it too. The thing, whatever it was that was inside me was insisting with the colder weather to come out. Whatever happened to me when the wolf bit me. The wolf from the car, the one with the glittering green eyes, was bad, and it was going to change everything. I felt a little tug at my heart and a small tear trickled down my cheek.
"Isabel? You alright?"
He scooted closer and I leaned into him. He put his arm around me like we had done so many times before. But this was different. It almost felt intimate. I let another tear fall, then another, then another. I knew that night it was going to happen, whatever was supposed to happen. It was going to happen tonight.
And I was right.
Ben drove me to my house late. Really late. Almost one in the morning. It was tugging at me so hard it almost hurt. This invisible pull. I turned up the heat as high as I could that beads of sweat were forming on bens face, but I was still freezing. I was shivering. When we pulled in the driveway I knew if I went outside of the car the thing inside me was going to explode. So I started to cry. And then I told Ben everything.
"Isabel hon why are you crying? Are you alright? Are you sick what's wrong? Please talk to me."
His face was so full of pain.
"I ...... Three weeks ago. When me And my dad got into a fight I left and ran to that little diner about a mile from my house. It got dark and so while I was running home I decided to take the back way. Plus it took longer and I wanted to make sure my dad was completely ..... Lost in whatever girl he had home that night. So i ran on the path bordering the woods. I stopped to catch my breath when I saw these green eyes staring at me through the dark. And...." I started to choke on my words because even the memory hurt, "the wolf.... It leaped from the woods and tackled me. I landed on the ground and .... Ben I thought I was going to die. But instead it just scratched me up a bit and bit my shoulder . But it burned Ben. It burned. Like someone had injected me with poison. All I remember is lying there with those green eyes starting at me. I'm not even sure how i got home. But i woke up in my bed. My shoulder throbbing, and this, " I pulled up my sleeve to show him a scare in the shape of a moon," and ever since then. This thing has been pulling at me from the inside. Every time Im outside in the cold it tugs at me. Harder and harder. It hurts."
I started to cry.
"Isabel........ I'm..... I'm sorry. Do you want me to stay?"
I just nodded my head. Doubtful I'd make it through the door. I was right. I stepped out of the car and walked maybe two feet and doubled over in pain. I could feel it. Over powering me. taking over my body. Ben was beside me freaking out. All I could get out was to get my stuff. All my stuff and take it to his house. And id be back soon. And then I shifted. I was a bounding black wolf with bright blue eyes. Running through the woods. crying inside. I was loosing my memories. The only face I could keep in my head was Ben. And his soft brown eyes and matted blonde hair. I stopped and realized i had no idea where I was going. My wolf instincts were freaking out. I didn't know how to hunt. I didn't know where I was even. I ran back to where I had come from. And I saw the face. The only one embedded into my memory. Ben. He was sitting on the ground crying. Saying the name Isabel, isabel, isabel, over and over again.
I remembered then that I was Isabel. That was my name. Isabel. Isabel miller. I slowly emerged from the woods only by a few feet and howled. He looked up. And then started crying harder.
Being a wolf was a simple life. The green eyed wolf, I think this was the strange girl Maddie who'd talked to me once at school and told me I should have shifted by now. Then I realized it was she who had bit me, but as a wolf. Well she taught me how to hunt. Where to sleep. What to drink from. Stuff like that. There were others too. Other wolves. That were people too. Just like me and Maddie. There was probably about maybe between six and ten. My wolf memories aren't that strong. But before i knew it. The snow had melted and little tiny buds were starting to form on the trees. Grass was beginning to pop up. It was spring.
My shifting would become very irregular. I might shift for ten minutes. Or maybe just three minutes. But it was progressively getting longer and longer. There was a shed in the woods. There was a box with everyones name on it. In the box there was a fresh set of clothes and there was also boxes of food and bottled water. And heaters blankets anything a wolf might need.
I remember going in the shed and finding a box with my name on it already. Even though I was a new wolf. It had a pair of sweats, a tshirt and sweatshirt in there. Along with some deodorant, boots, a bra, and socks. It was decent clothing. Turns out my father hadn't cared enough to even inform the police of my disappearance. Imagine that. All he did was tell my school I was going to live with my mom for a while and wasn't sure when I'd be back. I went straight to bens. He wasn't home so I looked above the door and found the key he'd kept there since moving in. I let myself In the place smelled like ramen noodles and old spice. His room had become mine and he had moved his bed out into the living area. Just like he promised. I found a piece of paper wrote a note to him and made some ramen noodles and sat on his bed and watched tv. I didn't realize that I had fallen asleep until something big and heavy was on top of me hugging me so hard it Hurt.
Ben.
I started crying. He was crying too. We were one big crying mess.
"I thought you were dead. Like the wolf...... you ...... You turned into a black wolf and..... You were gone into the woods. Oh my God I thought you were never coming back....."
He went on and on. But I was still unstable. I needed heat. Or I wad going to shift again.
"hey Ben?" I interrupted him in the middle of his rant.
"yes!?" he replied immediately.
"can you turn up the heat? If not I might----" before I even finished he was up cranking up the heat.
"thanks"
There was a minute of silence. We were both wrapped up in our own private thoughts.
"God Isabel. I missed you so much. You my best friend you know? Have I even told you that? If not it's true. Almost loosing you. That scared the sense into me."
"your my best friend too Ben."
With that we both lay down on his bed and held each other and fell asleep.
That night I dreamed of wolves. They were rabid and all chasing Ben. I was trying to stop them but they wouldn't listen to me. It was so frustrating. We were running and they were nipping at his heels and his eyes were so full of terror I couldn't stand it. One of the wolves. A brown one leaped and caught his leg. And then I woke up. I was shaking. Crying. Screaming. Ben was there, he wasn't dead, and he was hugging me. Just one solid hug. I burried my face in his shirt and we sat like that. For a long long time. Finally I looked up at him and he looked at me with those caring eyes. And kissed me lightly on the lips. It was barley a kiss. His lips hardly brushing mine. Then he leaned back from my face and whispered in my ear, "I love you Isabel miller. And I'm not gonna let you go."
I don't remember what I said in response. Maybe I didn't say anything At all. I remember sleeping the rest of the night tucked up against him. Knowing as long as I could help it. I wasn't shifting back. I wasn't going to loose this. Ben I mean. Because nothing else mattered to me but him. I was able to burry the wolf inside of me for one night. And just be Isabel again.
It was two in the morning when I heard him whispering to me through the dark.
" I'm going to cure you Isabel. I swear."
Then I fell back into slumber.
I woke up to the smell of eggs and toast. My stomach growled. I was so hungry. We ate in silence on his couch. It was a comfortable silence. I remembered the kiss. It was all a dream probably. But it felt so real. And it was. It was real. I know because Ben leaned over and kissed me. Exactly like that again. His lips lingering on mine. It felt amazing. Like I was drunk on his kiss.
I knew then it didn't matter if I was a wolf or a girl. This moment, here with Ben, was something worth fighting for.
<3