I woke up the next morning face down on the end of my bed, with tear-streaked mascara dried to my face. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed that no one came to check up on me during the night. I mean, I did get into the biggest and most painful fight of my entire life last night. It certainly seemed worthy of some kind of attention. Even bad attention was better than nothing. At the very least, I expected Mom to either storm in my room accusing me of being insane, or come and get my side of the story. I bet someone checked on poor Aiden. God forbid I leave any permanent damage to his precious face.
After washing off the evidence of my pitiful cry-myself-to-sleep act, I wandered down stairs to fill my empty stomach, and found my brother sitting on the kitchen counter with a bag of frozen peas on his swollen eye. I was so not ready to deal with this yet. Without a word, I quickly snatched a Coke from the refrigerator, ignored eye-contact with Aiden completely, and hurried back up to my room. My muscles were achy and tired, and the scratch on my face was throbbing. Plus the anger that was only beginning to brew moments before was quickly mounting.
I couldn’t believe Aiden. He should have stood up for me. He would have never let someone treat me like that a year ago. Apparently, this whole werewolf thing has turned Aiden into a complete jackass. It was like I didn’t even know who he was anymore.
***
Just as I was about to dramatically slam my door shut I heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. It was Aiden. I would recognize those heavy footsteps anywhere. I gently pushed the door closed and hurried over to the window, sure that he was headed my way.
“Al, can I come in?” he said after a light tap on my door.
“Really Aiden, I’m not ready to talk.”
“Come on Al. We need to talk, don’t you think?”
This time I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to really go away or barge in to talk, with or without my approval. I turned to sit down on my bed figuring the old Aiden would come in, but, at the same time, wondering if this new were-Aiden would just turn and walk away.
He came in, just as I had secretly hoped.
“I know you don’t want to talk, but I do, so I guess you’ll just have to sit there and listen,” Aiden ranted, and he tromped over to the other end of my bed.
I didn’t comment, but decided to sit there and give him my attention, at least until he pissed me off again. As mad as I was at him, I didn’t want to fight anymore.
He sat there for several seconds staring at the floor before he spoke. “Al, I really am sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I never thought I had it in me to hurt you, and I just can’t… I just can’t believe I got that out of control.”
He looked away as his eyes began to water, surely not wanting me to see him this way. Aiden doesn’t cry, like ever. Not even when we had to put our dog, Greg, to sleep a few years back, and he loved that dog more than anything.
I was about to say something, though I wasn’t really sure what, when Aiden continued, “I should have punched Thomas in the face. He’s such an asshat. I shouldn’t have let him get away with that shit. I don’t know what I was thinking, Al. Really. I was smashed, but that is no excuse for what I did.”
Before he could continue, I admitted, “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have attacked you like that. I don’t know what got into me. I was just so pissed off. I could have killed Thomas. He’s lucky that light inside came on when it did.”
Aiden laughed which, in turn, made me laugh. He reached over to slug me on the arm and said, “Yeah, he’s one lucky son-of-a-bitch. How did you learn to fight like that, anyways?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Lots of practice I guess. That makes four fights this year, you know.”
Aiden looked at me, his expression suddenly becoming serious.
Uh-oh, I know that look. This can’t be good.
After an extended moment of silence, Aiden finally said, “Last night, after I sobered up a little, Mom and I had a very interesting conversation.”
“I’m sure. I mean it is not every day that your kids are trying to kill each other in the front yard. How pissed was she?” I asked, actually curious about how she took the whole thing since she hadn’t bothered to come talk to me.
“Very, but that wasn’t really what we talked about. Anyway, listen, she wants to be the one to tell you, okay. I just thought I should warn you. It’s pretty heavy,” he said.
“Just tell me, Ad. I can’t take anymore drama this week.”
“Alright, but don’t shoot the messenger. We are probably going to be moving.”
“What? Are you serious? To where?” I shouted.
“Don’t freak until we talk to Mom, okay. Come on. Let’s go find her and get this over with.”
Just as we were about to walk out of my bedroom, Aiden turned to me and said, “And, hey Al… I think it’s a good idea.”
Before I could respond with What the hell do you mean, a good idea? he shot down the stairs and into the kitchen.
Mom was just hanging up the phone when I got there, and Aiden was already seated at the breakfast table ready for “the talk.” We sure have been having a lot of those lately.
I took a seat next to Aiden just as he asked, “Who was that, Mom? It sounded serious.”
“Actually, it was your grandmother.”
And to that, Aiden and I gave a simultaneous, “What?!”
Mom couldn’t seem to hide her smile. “My mother, your grandmother.”
“Why were you talking to her?” I asked. I thought y’all didn’t talk.
Just as mom opened her mouth to answer my question, Dad walked in the front door with the newspaper, a dozen donuts, and four venti Starbucks coffees.
“Hey! They live.” He paused. “But look like hell,” he added as he lightly ran his thumb over the cut on my cheek.
“My baby girl, your poor face. Looks like it hurts,” Dad said before he kissed the top of my head.
“No, I’m fine Dad.”
“Okay then, are we all getting ready for another Wright-family talk? I brought some serious-talk food,” Dad said.
“I was just about to start without you, honey. I talked to Mother. She and Dad are planning a trip to Rome. Doesn’t that sound fun? By the way, Mother says to tell you hello,” Mom said smiling at Dad.
“No she didn’t. Don’t even try to butter me up,” he immediately responded.
We all settled in at the table, and Aiden and I started in on the box of assorted donuts. There was definitely one perk to being a werewolf. I could eat all the donuts I wanted and not gain an ounce. Nothing better than a speedy metabolism.
Mom cleared her throat, preparing to begin her speech. “Kids, we’re moving to Red Ridge, New Mexico. My hometown. And before you go all ballistic, the decision has already been made. I will not risk your safety, or the safety of others, for that matter,” Mom said looking directly at me. “And I don’t want to watch you suffer anymore, baby. You both need to be around other kids like yourselves. I went through my change a long time ago and things are different now. I’m not going to sugar-coat it; it’s not an easy adjustment. It’s going to be hard on all of us, but your father and I agree that it is necessary,” Mom rambled on, hardly pausing to take a breath.
Aiden reached over and tapped my hand, “This really is a good idea, Al.”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at Aiden. How could he? Was he seriously trying to be consoling? Like I didn’t already know that this was all my fault. That I was the one who couldn’t handle the whole werewolf thing. Perfect little Aiden would probably handle everything, well… perfectly. It was me who was the big screw-up. Me, who everyone now hated. Me, who was going around kicking everybody’s ass. No one needed to say it. I knew this was my fault. Did they really think that they could make it all better by uprooting the whole family to a new place? Did they really think this little move was going to fix all of my problems?