I couldn’t keep my parents happy and live the life I wanted. I couldn’t be a good werewolf and a good girlfriend. I’d spent too much time trying to play both sides of the card and it finally caught up with me.
I was right back where I started, without having moved at all.
I scrubbed my hand across my cheeks, my palm wet with tears I hadn’t even realized were there.
I sniffed and tried to tell myself to be brave about it. I would just have to find new places. The fact that I’d managed it was proof that I could. And maybe I could find a place of my own that I wouldn’t have to lie about, friends that I could have, while also holding on to parts of my own life. Maybe this would be better. I doubted it was possible, but maybe.
But I would really miss Dick’s coffee drinks.
10
“Sometimes, to hold an important relationship together, you will be asked to do things that uncomfortable. Whether you’re willing to do those things is a measure of whether you’re committed to the relationship. Either way, if those uncomfortable things are illegal, you should probably rethink the relationship.”
—A Gentleman in Any Era: An Ancient Vampire’s Guide to Modern Relationships
* * *
My next Friday night was spent staring at an eight-foot-tall carved wooden possum, holding a pepperoni pizza.
I didn’t have to lie this time. I was really babysitting Jolene’s kids. She and Zeb wanted a nice quiet evening out, so I agreed to take the twins out for pizza. There was a place in Murphy called The Hungry Possum run by a possum shifter named Barnaby who didn’t ask questions when a party of three ordered five large meat lover’s pies.
We sat in the rustic wooden booth, munching on triple-cheese bread, talking about their weeks in school. Spending time with the kids was surprisingly relaxed. They didn’t have high expectations. They didn’t ask difficult, emotional questions. They just wanted to eat and complain about fourth grade math, and how unfair it was that they had to do math at all.
And toilet humor. There was a lot of toilet humor.
Jolene, however, looked at me like she was afraid I would fall apart any minute. She knew something was going on, but when she asked if everything was okay with Alex, I just shook my head and changed the subject to the twins’ dietary restrictions. She kept trying, telling me that Jane was worried about me and wanted me to call when I was ready, but I was sure it was just something to do with whether she should withdraw the UERT unit following me around town. It was hardly necessary anymore. I mostly stayed on the compound, trying to work. And dodging my aunts’ attempts at ambush makeovers.
I managed to get out of the conversation when Joe spilled grape juice down the back of his shirt and had to be mopped up.
“So, school is good. Math is bad. Recess is your only refuge in this cruel, cruel world,” I said, dropping a wad of grape-soaked napkins on the table. “What else is new?”
“We started music lessons again,” Joe said. “The school opened up.”
“Oh?” I said, carefully. “That’s great, sweetheart. I’m glad for you.
“Mr. Alex seems sad, though,” Janelyn said, staring at me. “He’s had us playing nothing but Samuel Barber all week. He only plays American composers when he’s depressed.”
“Well, that sucks,” I replied. Even though a tiny vicious part of me was glad to hear Alex was as dejected as I was. Even if I was alone, at least I wasn’t alone in my misery. “You guys want another order of cheese bread?”
“I’m gonna stick with the meat lover’s,” Joe said, grabbing his seventh slice of pizza.
“Probably wise,” I said, picking up another piece of cheese bread.
“You seem sad, too,” Janelyn noted.
I attempted a smile for her. “Do I?”
She nodded. “Yeah, and that’s not a real smile. It’s a scary thing adults do with their faces when they’re trying to convince children we’re too dumb to know a sad person we they see one.”
“Dang it, Janelyn,” I winced. “Could you be a little less observant, please?”
“Probably not,” Joe told me. “Just think of how annoying it is to live with her.”
“You have my sympathies,” I replied.
“So why are you sad?” Janelyn asked.
“Grown-up problems.”
She lifted a brow. “And now I’m too dumb to understand grown-up problems?”
“No, I’m too private a person to share them,” I retorted.