The Choice: Part 7

The Choice
Part 7

Immediately after they were out of sigh, Caroline checked me over.
“Are you okay?” she said.
I nodded.
“Good,” she said, and slapped me.
“Ow! What was that for?”
She pulled me up onto my feet, then got right in my face. “Do you have any idea how close you just came to having your head knocked off? You're not even a full werewolf yet, and you were staring down a damned pack leader! If he had been anyone even slightly less understanding, he would have killed you right on the spot!”
I rubbed my head. “Yeah but, he was going to hurt you,” I said.
“He wasn't gonna hurt me!” she yelled. “A fact that he made very clear with his elaboration!”
“Yeah, well, I didn't believe him,” I said. “I didn't want to risk it.”
She sighed and turned away.
“Good lord, I have never... EVER come that close to peeing myself.”
I laughed, and she turned on me. “You think that's funny?” she pushed me into a tree, and I turned my head, confused.
“I...yeah?”
She punched me in the face, and I stumbled over a few steps.
I wiped blood from my mouth. The taste set off my senses. “Okay, that was uncalled for-”
Another punch landed in my gut, and I fell to my knees, heaving. She tried to punch me again, but this time I caught her fist in mid-air. I looked up at her, angry and confused.
“What's wrong with you?” I said.
“I'm pissed off, that what's wrong with me!” she screamed. She tore her fist away, then said. “God, I'm going to find that smarmy piece of shit and rip him to shreds!”
“Caroline,” I said.
“No one, NO ONE talks to my man like that!”
I stumbled up and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Just punch me again, okay?” I said.
She stopped in the middle of a shout and stared. “What?”
“Whatever you need to do to keep from chasing those guys down, just get it over with and get it out of your system. The last thing we want to do is start some kind of war.”
She was trembling from anger, but as she looked at me she seemed to calm down. Eventually, she exhaled and shrugged me off. “Don't flatter yourself. It wouldn't be a war, it'd be a massacre.”
I said, “If they hurt you, you bet your ass it'd be a war.”
She smiled. “So, uh... sorry for beating the shit out of you.”
I shrugged. “I can take it,” I said, nursing my stomach. “I'd always wandered how hard a woman could punch.”
“You sexist jerk,” she said with a smile. “I should slap you for that.”
I kissed her, and after a few moments she become greatly enamored with the kiss, to the point of knocking us both onto the ground.
“God,” she said, “your blood is fantastic.”
I laughed and said, “I don't know if now is the time, Caroline.”
She turned her head and looked at me, and I nodded to the street.
Lined up like an audience, a couple of kids stood on the sidewalk. Backpacks showed that they had just gotten out of school.
Caroline waved, then stood. She held out an arm and pulled me up.
“Alright, so, let's get out of here?” she said, embarrassed.
“I dunno,” I said. “I think one of those kids wants an autograph.”
As we walked past them, she punched me in the arm.
Before we parted, I said to her, “You were right.”
“Huh?”
“It's not like it is in the movies,” I said. “It's better.”
She smiled.
As time continued to pass, what Caroline told me that first morning came true. I found myself hating everything man-made that I looked at, and feeling sorry for every living thing that wasn't. But what she had left out was the worst part. I would often wander outside, looking for comfort in the moon, and finding nothing. It's the detachment from the source of your strength that makes you so angry. It's an odd thing, really, because you know the moon is still there, but it's the light you want, and there isn't any. You almost hate the moon for making you its slave, then turning away.
But then with each passing day, as slivers of the moon begin to show, you become excited for the prospect of the full moon. The anger and contempt fades away, and you feel that the whole thing is worth it.
It was two days after the new moon, however, when I made a mistake in gym class. I had yet to be calmed by the presence of the moon, and I was still riled from the encounter with the four-eyed werewolf.
Now, by this point everyone had noticed my sudden zeal for physical activity. Most everyone, after they got over their initial shock, greeted me with open arms. There was one guy in particular, however, who did. His name was Matt, and he was very much a football prep. He'd never really liked me, and had on a few occasions bullied me. But after I became a werewolf, after I stopped standing awkwardly at the edge of the field during our soccer games, he took it as a challenge. I guess, from his perspective, I was one guy he would never have to worry about to subvert his authority, and that I was doing just that seemed to bug him on a very fundamental level.
Well, one day while playing soccer, he was making a run down the field and I kicked the ball out from under his feet and rushed it to the other side of the field. He ran to catch up with me and shoved me to the ground, stealing back the ball.
The coach, of course, was not watching, and there was no penalty.
I watched Matt run away from me, already pissed off, already in a foul mood thanks to the moon, and the bastard gave me the finger and laughed. If it had been one or the other, I might have been okay. But that was not, by any means, an okay thing for me.
So, I stood up. I dusted myself off. And I pushed my heels into the ground and ran at him faster than I'd ever run before. I angled myself behind him, and I jumped.
I looped an arm around his neck in mid-air and put the full force of my body against his back, which knocked him over. When he hit the ground, our forward momentum continued, and I rode him a sled.
Then I flipped him over.
I had no intention of punching him, biting him, or hurting him in general. I just wanted to express, as calmly as I might, that if he wanted to keep his testicles he might want to stop being such a dick to people he didn't have the grey-matter to comprehend.
What Caroline had yet to tell me is that, when furious, a werewolf's eyes turn red. And their demeanor turns very specifically animalistic.
So, when I spoke to Matt, what I thought were a few encouraging words turned out to be the most terrifying experience of his life. Turns out he was a home-brewed Christian who, despite his outlook regarding me, was actually pretty simple and pretty okay.
The coach, who must have heard the outcry from the peanut gallery, tore me off the bastard, and Matt cowered that I'd threatened to kill him, and that I'd been punching him. The latter of the two, thankfully, could be easily verified as having been a complete fabrication. The former was a subject of some investigation, but because of my recent push in standing amongst aforementioned peanut gallery, my actions were vindicated.
Matt threw the first punch.
It's very strange, looking back on the events of my life, seeing the twists and turns that led me from one place to another... If I had just let the offense go that day, I wouldn't be talking to you right now.
If there's any regret I have about the course my life has taken, the closest I'd come would be tackling Matt and letting him see what I was.
So, Caroline reprimanded me for my actions, and explained to me what happens when a werewolf gets angry. I was worried, but I said, “I imagine he's too scared to do anything about it. And anyway, after a couple days he'll probably convince himself it was a trick of the light, anyway.”
She more or less agreed, and the matter was dropped entirely.
A little less than two weeks before the full moon.
Even less until... Well, you'll know soon enough.