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I had just finished talking to the waitress when she walked in like a cool summer breeze, the night entering the twenty four-hour diner with her. It was just past three AM, and so far the population of the diner consisted of two very high twenty year-olds, an old man holding yesterday's paper, a pair of truck drivers, the waitress, and the cook.
And now her.
The waitress gravitated to her instantly, letting her know she could take a seat anywhere and she would be right over. She smiled bright and broad in return, the flourescent lights hitting her canines with a gleam. I turned my gaze back down to the table as the tap of her bare feet made its way into the restaurant and past my booth. She smelled of grass and rust. Deciding I was in the clear, I let out a breath and looked up to reach for my milkshake.
Our eyes met like two planets colliding.
"What are you doing up this late?"
The longer it took for me to respond, the wider her smirk got until it was a full-blown smile and she started to giggle.
"How do you know I haven't just woken up?" I replied, returning my gaze to the table and finally taking a sip of my milkshake.
She rolled her eyes. "You have that 'I was only going to read one more chapter, but now I've finished the whole book' look under your eyes."
I resisted the urge to touch my eye bags, knowing full well they weren't that bad, but that I definitely had the appearance of someone who hadn't slept in two days. Which, I hadn't- slept that is. In two days.
"Why are you up still?" I redirected, looking back to her face, the smooth tan of her cheek, the sharp angle of her jaw, her deep, almost black eyes.
"Out for a walk." It was an obvious lie; she didn't even try to hide the lie, just smiled as the waitress swung around to greet her. She ordered pancakes, which apparently was her usual. "Why'd you come here? You strike me as more of a midnight McDonalds or Taco Bell person."
"The McDonald's is being renovated, and I didn't have the energy to run across town for Taco Bell." I twirled the bendy straw, noticing the dirt under her nails. "You a regular here?"
"I am. Not usually this early, though."
"Weird night?" I quirked up my lips into a smile.
She nodded, her claw-length nails clacking on the table top. She thanked the waitress when she came by to drop off her drink. "Lunar eclipses always mess with my sleep. The moon, sun, and earth don't care that I have a calculus test in the morning."
I nodded in sympathy, rubbing my eyes as a wave of exhaustion hit me. "I have an AP US History test in the morning, so, I feel."
"Oof," she caught my eyes again, her sympathy evident. "Better eat quick then."
"Maybe try to slip into a small food coma before school," I joked, knowing full well once the eclipse finished, I wouldn't be able to go back home until the sun was up.
"Wouldn't that be nice."
We both looked out at the sliver of moon that was slowly creeping behind the earth's shadow. She checked her watch quickly, her foot beginning to tap against the floor.
"How fast is the service here usually?" I asked, trying not to seem antsy, even though she wasn't even hiding her own jitters.
"Your food should be out in like two minutes, mine will be a couple more."
"We'll be fine then, we got time."
She nodded along, dipping to take a sip of her own milkshake. The fifties diner music playing over the speakers blanketed the silence between us, muting the hushed conversation the truckers were having. The old man's newspaper crinkled as he turned the page. I noted that she hadn't pulled her phone out to make the moment less awkward. I wondered if she had left it at home like I had left mine. Another minute ticked by.
"How have you been doing? Since," she asked quietly, a moment of potentially sincere tenderness.
I looked at her, then to the ceiling, the last six months weighing on me like dirt on a coffin. It had been hard to see her again with all the time that had passed between us. All the stolen glances in the halls, the notes we stopped passing, the texts I stopped receiving... It was weird, honestly, how much she seemed to have stayed the same.
"Here you are," the waitress spoke, placing both of our breakfasts before us. "I know you had ordered before her, honey, but I figured it made sense to bring them out together, hope you don't mind."
"No, it's fine, thank you," I mustered a smile for her, happy to have been ripped out of my thoughts.
"Let me know if there's anything you need, okay?"
"We will, thank you," she spoke up, offering an appreciative smile as the waitress, satisfied, walked off to hand the truck drivers their check.
I picked up my fork and stabbed a solid chunk of waffle, digging in to put off answering. She moved her attention to her pancakes, pouring each kind of syrup they had on them and eating. It wasn't an awkward silence; we had been too close to ever have another one of those. I just... didn't know how to tell her- how to convey all the sleepless nights, all the torn shirts, all that time spent without her, how it was affecting me- without being cracked open like a rib cage. I glanced up at her, ours eyes catching again. God, I felt like a deer in headlights.
Swallowing my bite nearly whole, I let out a humorless chuckle. "I've, uh," I started quiet, poking the waffles, not able to look at her. "I've been fine. Once a month I'm not so fine, but I mean I've been dealing with monthly pain since I was like ten." I looked to her, caught in her earnest eyes as she rolled them at my poor attempt at a joke. I shrugged, picking up another forkful. "It's not too different. In fact, since... Since then, I don't even get periods anymore. Kind of a plus, honestly."
Her eyebrows furrowed as she took a sip. "Really?"
"Yeah. After a month they synced up and then I just stopped getting them."
"What the-" she stopped to smile at the waitress when she came by to check on us. "Fuck? I literally get them one after the other," she continued quietly, shoving food into her mouth and muttering "What the hell."
"That's what you get for turning me," I teased without thinking, the grin on my face freezing as she grew pale, her fingers fidgeting with her napkin. I turned back to my food, wolfing down the last couple bites.
Once we were both done, plates nearly licked clean, the waitress came by to take them away and drop off my check. I watched the waitress drop off the stoner's check before turning and quirking my eyebrow at her.
"Am I paying for you?" I asked as I picked up the bill; her food wasn't on it.
"She puts it on my tab when I come in at night. I usually pay her the next afternoon." Her claws tapped against the table top, a nervous habit I was relieved to see she still had.
"You really are a regular, huh." My lips quirked into a tired smile.
"Have been for almost a year now." She let out a huff. "God it's been almost a year."
"Almost six months, for me."
She crossed her arms across her chest, leaning far into the booth cushion, away from me.
"I never apologized to you, back then," she started, holding my gaze captive. "I'm sorry."
My leg bounced quietly under the table. I let out a puff of laughter. "For what? Making me a werewolf, or for ghosting me for a month and then breaking up with me?" I hated the hurt I heard in my own voice, my own vulnerability making me sick.
"Both."
The waitress swung by to pick up my cash; I told her it was all set, and she wished us a good night. We sat in silence for a minute longer.
"I'm sorry."
I turned to look out the window, at the moon peaking out from behind the earth. I couldn't look at her anymore. "You already said that."
"I'm sorry. I mean it."
"Okay." It felt like I was gonna cry.
"I didn't mean to turn you, that night. It was the night before the full moon, and I was so caught up in... in us, in." She swallowed, fidgeting the way she would when I would run my fingers up her sides at night. "In you. And I forgot what I was for a second. Forgot to be careful."
I nodded, hands moving to hold myself together so I could look her in the eyes again. "I get it. I don't blame you for turning me. Hell, except for the hunger pains and the wardrobe malfunctions, being a werewolf hasn't been awful, it's been... kinda nice. Not having a period has been fucking fantastic." We both shared a soft laugh. "It would have been better with you, but." I wish I could have bit my tongue off.
This time she looked away, down to the strawberry stains on the table, growing stickier by the minute. One of the stoners coughed.
"You looked so scared and horrified when I transformed the next night, and when you started to transform, too, you were freaking out, and your face when you realized what had happened..." She took a deep breath. "I felt so guilty, and afraid, and I, I just didn't know what to do. It was stupid of me, and selfish, to just dip on you like that. I have no excuse. I can't apologize enough for leaving you to figure it all out on your own like that." She sighed, huffed a somber ghost of a laugh, and looked to the ceiling. "It's so silly, too, 'cause we could talk about anything back then; we were so open with each other, if I had just told you I was a, a werewolf, if we had just talked about it, it wouldn't've even been an issue, but."
But here we are.
"Yeah, we could have talked about it. And it would've been fine, even after I was turned. But you wouldn't answer any of my texts, my calls. Anything. You wouldn't even look at me in the hallway." Tears were burning up behind my eyes, up my throat.
"I'm sorry." Her brown eyes were glassy with tears, her voice so honest, a little raw. "You don't have to forgive me."
I wanted to, though.
"I'm sorry."
A tear ran down my cheek.
"I know."
"I'm sorry," quieter, more urgent this time.
"I-"
"I'm sorry." Her hand reached across the table towards me, stopping just inches from mine.
"God, stop," I croaked, pulling my hands away to wipe at my eyes, looking around to make sure none of the other patrons were noticing me crying. Thankfully the stoned twenty year olds were too far gone to care, but the old man with the newspaper was definitely eavesdropping. "You're making me cry."
"I'm sorry," this time a little teasing.
"Stop," I laughed, my voice a little watery, placing my hand down next to hers. She looked down to our hands, then back to me, tapping the space between us.
"I missed you." She whispered for only me to hear.
My eyes drifted from hers to our hands as I wrapped hers in mine, my thumb tracing circles on her calloused palm. "I missed you, too."
Her face broke out into a full, beaming smile, canines glinting white in the flourescents, her hand squeezing mine. We sat, enraptured in each other for a minute, bathing in the moment. She glanced out the window.
"The moon is almost back out," she mentioned, a sadness coming over her expression.
I swallowed down a new wave of anxiety. "Guess we better head out then."
"We?" Her eyebrows wiggled suggestively.
"Unless you wanna go full furry in a diner, yeah, we," I joked. She rolled her eyes as she got up, offering her hand to me.
I took it, letting her lead me out of the quaint diner's air conditioning into the humid night. She didn't let go of my hand until we were deep enough into the woods to not be seen. Then she pushed my hair behind my ear, resting her hand against my face.
"Your hand is sticky," I teased, taking in the smell of maple, grass, rust.
"I'm trying to be romantic." I could feel her claws growing longer against my skin, her other hand finding my waist.
"Didn't you used to be more slick?" I could feel my clothes getting tighter, the seams pulling taunt.
"I'm out of practice, but I can still rock your world." She leaned her forehead against mine.
"Oh, can you now?" I wrapped my arms around her, my joints aching with each moment.
"Mhm," she hummed, her lips hovering just over mine, the tips of her canines grazing my lips.
Her kiss had me burning up, her full lips soft against mine, our growing teeth making it clunky, but sweet. The searing in my bones spread up my limbs and through my core, my overwhelming need to keep her close challenged only by the shifting of my skin, the tearing and mending of my bones. We separated to finish our transformations, making peace with the tattered remains of our clothes lying in the dirt at our feet. Butting heads, we cackled in the silence of the woods, just the two of us and the full moon. The breeze felt good on my fur, something I was still coming to terms with still. It was nice to know that I had her beside me, knowing she was feeling the breeze, too, smelling the pine needles and wildflowers, seeing me through the transformation and letting me witness hers. Seeing the tenderness behind her eyes, knowing that she still saw me underneath the fur and claws and fangs, and that she wasn't afraid of how I saw her through it all. It was nice, being together again, almost like she'd never left.
She bumped my shoulder, pulling me out of my daze- I had been staring at her for almost a minute, how embarrassing- and asked me where I wanted to go.
"Anywhere." As long as she was there, too.
-End-