After school I meet up with Dasia like planned. She greets me at the school entrance.
"Hey Amber! How was school?"
"It was fine, as good as school can be." She nods and we begin our walk. She happily munches on what looks like trail mix.
"Hey Dasia?"
"What's up?"
"Zay told me you were one of the few werewolves to go to a real high school. Did you enjoy going to yours?" I question.
"Yes, I did actually. It was interesting to befriend a species that has a fourth of the temper I'm used to."
"Why did you leave? If you don't mind me asking," I ask, trying not to pry into her life too much.
"You could say I got promoted. My grandpa wasn't gonna do with me going to school when I could be training for combat. So now I go on secret undercover missions that are super classified."
"Wow really?"
"No," she says, laughing. "But I do stuff like this, watching out for people and places to protect."
"Well, that's just as special. You got paired with me," I laugh. We get closer to his house, and since we still have a few minutes to go I take a leap of faith. "So what is it that you guys can do?" I ask her.
"What do you mean?"
"Like, your superpowers I guess," I say, feeling kinda silly.
"Zay hasn't told you anything about himself?"
I shake my head. "Yes and no. He gets kind of defensive sometimes when I bring it up. Trying it out on you."
"You picked the right werewolf then, I love to talk!" she says finishing up her trail mix. "Let's see, we're fast and strong and we can turn into wolves. That's the superpower part of it I guess. And once upon a time everyone could mind link with each other. Only a few of us can now."
"Can you?"
She frowns. "No. I can receive thoughts but can't portray them out."
"Oh, sorry."
"Hey, you didn't do it. Besides, I still got the other perks. Our smelling and hearing is great too. And, if we try really hard, we can levitate off the ground."
"Whoa, really?"
She laughs. "Nah just playing. Worth the look on your face though."
I crack a smile. "Funny, funny. What about your drive to kill, does it being a wolf have something to do with that?"
She raises her eyebrows. "Oh, drastic change of topic. Why, think we're gonna kill you?"
"No, no. But Zay always talks about being afraid he's going to hurt me. What's the control factor with that?"
"Hmm. I guess it just has to do with how much control each individual has, with themselves and their wolf. The more anger and negativity you have in you, the more that drive to destroy increases. I don't think you've given Zay a good reason to hate you so you'll be fine."
"Yeah, it's him who needs convincing though." I kick a stick onto Zay's lawn and we stop in front of it. "Anyways, thanks for shedding some light. All that is pretty cool."
"It's nothing. I've never had to explain that stuff to anyone, for us it's common knowledge. It's kind of fun to amaze you with my supernaturalness," she says with a soft smile.
I smile back and look at Zay's house. To my surprise, he is outside standing next to his car. We walk over to him and he nods at Dasia.
"Thank you for walking with her."
She winks at him. "No problem. Catch y'all later!"
When we are alone, he wipes off his palms on his pants and opens the door on his car for me.
"We're going somewhere?" I ask getting into the car.
"Indeed we are," he says on his side of the car.
"To where are you taking me?"
"It's a surprise."
"Just tell me, I'll act surprised later."
"No."
"Please babe?"
"Nope, if I tell you it won't be a surprise," he says.
We drive for a long time and I repeatedly ask him where we are going and what's going on, but each time he ignores me and I eventually just give up. By the time he finally slows down it has gotten dark. He pulls into a parking lot and it looks like we are in a park that trails off into a bunch of trees.
"If it was any further I would have fallen asleep," I say jokingly.
He smiles quickly and opens his door. I go to open mine too, but before I can Zay disappears, jumping over the car to get to my side. He opens my door for me, laughing at my startled expression.
I take his hand and climb out of the car. "You will never cease to surprise me."
"I try." He takes out a piece of cloth. "Do you trust me?"
I look questionably at the fabric. "Yes?"
He pecks my lips with a kiss. "Close your eyes."
I do as he says. I feel the cloth being placed on my face and tied behind my head. Still behind me, Zay places his hands on my shoulders and tells me to walk. I do as he says, relying on him to tell me when to step over rocks and sticks and when to make turns.
A few minutes later, he tells me to stop and take off my blindfold. I don't know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn't this.
We're surrounded by trees and there is a large grassy opening with a dirt area in the middle, with lanterns strewn all around. Placed among the ground are hundreds of different kinds of flowers around the dirt area. There are blue, red, yellow, purple, any color you could think of. Small and big ones, and ones that come in bunches.
I walk around looking at the flowers and notice there's two blue blankets next to it with pillows on it.
I turn around and look at Zay who's staring at the flowers. "I didn't know what your favorite flower was so I got... a lot," he says quietly.
"A desert rose," I say, spotting one in the light from the lantern glow and moonlight up above.
He walks next to me and examines it. "Almost as beautiful as you." He takes my other hand and leads me to the blanket, sitting down on the fluffy material.
I stare out at the beautiful scene before me. The mix of the colorful flowers and the glowing lanterns is alluring. There's a slight wind that ruffles through the grass, giving it an even stronger magical effect. It's like a fairytale land.
Zay touches my leg. I look over at him see the worried look in his eyes. "What's wrong?" I ask.
"Do you like it? All of this, I've never done this before so I wasn't sure what to do but I tried to make it-," he rambles but I cut him off.
"I love it," I say and lean in to give him a long passionate kiss. When I pull away his expression looks much better.
"Wanna know something?" he asks. "I drove around for extra time until it was dark so we could look up at the stars."
"So that's why it felt like we were driving to a different country," I say giggling. He pulls the blanket over us and I move closer to him, cuddling in his warmth. I look at the sky and see the tiny spots of light dotting the darkness, feeling content. "This is perfect."
"Yeah, it is," he agrees. He wraps his arms around me, making me even warmer, and kisses my cheek.
"I wouldn't mind if my whole life was just this," I say, meaning it fully.
"Your life has drastically changed since you met me though huh?"
I nod. "Yeah. But not all for the worst."
He smiles lightly but it disappears a few seconds later. "But it's not too much right?"
"No. I'll never stop fighting for us."
"Good." He looks away.
"What is it?"
He shrugs. "I just, I think you should talk to your friends. Let them know you're okay. See how they're doing," he says. The effort he's making to sound nonchalant is so painfully obvious, I almost feel like laughing.
I try to think of who he'd want me to talk to, but then again I don't know because he's not being too specific.
"You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"You're not telling me what you actually want to say. So what is it?" I ask again.
"Savannah. I think she's afraid to talk to you about her problems, because she doesn't want to push more stress into your life," he says in one breath.
"Why would you think that?"
"Just talk to her when you get the chance, okay?"
"Alright," I say again left to wonder what he could be talking about.
A small moment passes, and then Zay speaks again. "I remember when we met," he says quietly.
"Yeah, me too. Although getting caught.." I pause for a moment looking for the word.
"Stalking?" Zay offers with a sly smile.
I roll my eyes but agree. "Yeah, that's not very romantic."
"No, it's not. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about the first time we met. Freshman year."
"We met freshman year?"
"I guess met is the wrong word. It was the first time I saw you. We were in the library. You were asking the librarian where a book was and I was in that aisle. You were so focused on finding that book though, you didn't see me."
I try and think back to that day to see if I noticed him but my mind can't make the connection. "Huh. You should have said something. Maybe we would've hit it off."
"That was the beginning of my no human friendship stage. I had no intentions of talk to any girl, but I wish I hadn't made that decision. I definitely would have talked to you."
I think about how things might have been if we had met earlier. If we had more time to spend with each other, how great it would've been. And then a question forms in my mind.
"So when you were younger and smaller, when you shifted was your wolf as small as you?"
He laughs. "Not exactly. The wolf grows as we age but always a bit larger than we are as humans. And at a certain point we stop growing."
"Oh. That's interesting," I say. "Are you still growing?"
"Don't really know, but maybe?"
"Can I see you, ya know shift? See you as a wolf?"
He goes quiet. "Um, I don't know.." he says scratching his head nervously.
"Oh yeah, you can't tell me from your attacker."
"Uh, that's not it. I don't think we have to worry about that anymore. I couldn't mistake you for anyone."
"Then why not?" I ask.
"I honestly don't know how I would act around you. It's been weird lately when I shift."
"Weird how?"
"I don't even know how to explain it to myself."
I think about the possible bad outcomes and then I forget them because I trust him. "I'd like to see. Please?"
A very long moment passes without him talking. He finally hugs me tighter and says, "Are you sure?"
"Yes. Completely."
"Okay."
I lean away and look at his face, trying to tell if he's joking. I didn't actually think he would agree.
He unwraps his arms from me and stands up, keeping a hand in mine the whole time. We stand two feet apart and he stares into my eyes. And, we just stand there. For three whole minutes.
"Is something wrong?"
He shakes his head and looks down at the ground. "No I just... I'm scared."
I try not to laugh. "I think that's supposed to be my job, even though I'm not."
"I'm afraid once you see me that... I don't know."
"Zay. I'm not going to think anything different of you. My feelings, they're not going to change. Nothing can change that," I say.
He waits for a few more seconds and then nods his head. His eyes brighten. He closes them, squeezes my hand, and it starts to happen.