Blue

Chapter 18

The sun was too bright in Elaine’s closed eyes. She unwittingly snuggled into the mass that lay next to her. Wrapping her arms around it, she moved closer. It was when the distinct and fresh aroma of coffee and rain hit her, did she vaguely realize where she was. She buried her face into the crook of his neck, blocking out all sunlight. A content sigh escaped her lips.

She did not know how long she lay there, but had no plans of drifting out of her comfort zone. She recalled the first time she saw Neill. Recalled how she did not think there was a person other than Ian, she would ever want to compromise for. Now that she thought back to that time, she recalled Ian as a distinct, pleasantly cruel memory. She felt as a child does when she is hooked to a cartoon and the last episode ends, and the child feels as though in the vast world out there, there would be no television show that would match the excellence of the one she just finished. The child is overwhelmed with the perfect ending, yet feels punished and depressed that it ended. Elaine thought she would have felt differently towards Ian had she not met Neill and had Neill not been a bipolar teenager who forced a date onto her and had her house not caught fire and had Maire not kicked her out.

Elaine’s blood froze.

Her heart started pounding rapidly in her ears and her throat.

Her mind replayed again and again the image of two creatures, green and blue.

Everything else that happened last night was a blur. Before she knew it, Elaine sat up, straight as a rod and stared at Neill. Neill was, unlike she expected, awake. He stared calmly, as if bored to death, at the ceiling.

Elaine thought of hypnotizing him, blindfolding him and running. She wanted to put as much distance as possible between herself and the hybrid creature in front of her. She tried to ignore the tugging feeling at her heart, from loss of contact with Neill.

After a while, he spoke, in a bored, monotone.

“I can explain.”

“Explain what?” Elaine found herself stuttering.

“Explain why your best friend and I turned into animals,” Neill said still looking at the ceiling. This annoyed Elaine.

“Are you going to eat me?” Elaine asked stupidly. At this, Neill slightly chuckled.

“Maybe,” he shrugged.

Elaine quickly put some more distance between herself and Neill.

Neill finally looked at her and sat himself up.

Elaine froze, but did not move.

“I don’t know how to do this,” Neill spoke honestly, looking her in the eye.

“Do what?” Elaine asked, feeling incredibly stupid.

“Tell you stuff. Tell you the truth. Justify the truth,” Neill said slumping his shoulders and putting his face into his hands.

“What is the truth?” Elaine whispered wanting to desperately scoot over to him and hug him.

“The truth is Elaine,” Neill spoke into his hands, “that I care about you, and I am not going to hurt you, but I am a fucked up person and I’m not good at doing or saying stuff I want to. I think I’ve already hurt you and this is so messed up.”

“And the truth is that you are not human?” Elaine asked trying to gloss over the fact that her heart just broke into a happy dance; Neill cared.

“I’m human,” he said looking up, “a species of human, at least part human.”

“What are you?”

“Do you know what a lycanthrope is?”

“Am I supposed to know what a leg-throw is?”