realized it was more awkward for her – you took control of the situation when we first met, he thought, I guess one good turn deserves another. He reached down blindly and took her hand in his and saw her look up at him. He reached out and gently slid the green headband off her forehead and set it down on her pile of clothes with his other hand, and met her eyes. That’s the real reason I chose you, he realized, those eyes that see so sharply into other people.
“C’mon, let me show you the way the island really looks… through a bear’s eyes,” he said grinning.
Wordlessly she let him lead her over the sand, both of their feet slapping the damp sand. He seemed fixated on something. She took the moment to examine his features. Certainly, there was more of a boy to him than man. Chris, on the other hand, seemed to inhabit everything that an adult was supposed to be. She wondered what exactly those qualities were. Certainly, Chris seemed harder, edgier, while hiding that edge with a grin and fierce sense of humor.
Have I lulled myself into believing that the only way we – Dylan and myself – can ever call ourselves ‘truly’ adults is to embody so much hidden pain in our past that it forces us to wear a mask around others?
The thought made her suddenly sad and she almost forgot that she was naked and being led by the hand over a dark swathe of beach. Dylan looked over his shoulder just once to see if she was still following of her own accord. She somehow managed to flash a tight-lipped smile which did little to betray the deluge of emotions that seemed to pile on her at that moment.
No, she tried to assert, a vocative in her own mind. Tonight, just let me feel the bear and forget about how or why or how long I’m to stay on this island. Dylan had done much, more than she thought was possible, to make her feel welcome and to put her own fears at risk. Even so far as to be able to share something as intimate as a bear-form together. And yet, he hadn’t really done anything at all.
“Here,” he said at last, panting, and let go of her hand. “From here, it’s on all fours…”
CHAPTER THREE
The following morning Dylan woke early. There were two bedrooms in the cabin, and Chris had politely moved his own futon into his room in anticipation of Sarah’s arrival. He was passed out heavy on the floor, snoring dreamily and loudly, his eyes shifting under their eyelids. If he starts barking or running in one spot, we’re in trouble, Dylan smirked to himself, standing up forcing the floorboards to creak under his feet. He rubbed his eyes, and saw the creamy light of the sun hatching through the clouds. The buzz of mosquitoes outside, somewhere a distant loon call, laughed back.
The events of last night flooded back to him. It was always this way, after changing back into human-form. While as a bear, there was little in the way of human thought, there was only the present, the now, as Lilah liked to call it. Scents, sounds, taste. All the senses burning like a margin of flame. It wasn’t until he slid back into his muscular arms and sculpted chest and dark black hair that things began to reorganize, the mind trying to sort its way through thought processes that were distinctly different. He could recall his time as a bear like any other memory.
And yet, there was always something hallucinatory to it, like looking back on an event you hadn’t actually been there to witness. He remembered Sarah, the way she undressed, each article of clothing deliberate. The shy way she had tried to hide the small horns of her breasts, the limpid gaze of vulnerability. And then, they had both turned. She was smaller than him, a shade lighter, like auburn that had been touched with sunlight. They had run along the cliffs above the beach, embracing the freedom of the bear-form. It had been quite late when they’d finally returned, and as if reversing time, she had put on her clothes again with a touch of hesitancy and they had returned to the cabin without a single word.
I think I made the right choice, he wanted to confide in Chris, as he walked into the kitchen, feeling rejuvenated from his experience with