A Monster's Heart

Part 8: The Talk

"Hey, Jimmy," Danny stood up and gave a firm handshake to my boyfriend. "It's nice to finally meet you."

As soon as Jimmy took a hold of Danny's hand, he jumped – not enough to be rude, but enough for me to know why he jumped. A werewolf may look like they have normal human skin, but it feels hairy and has the exact same texture as a dog's paw. Jimmy tried to recover quickly but Danny already knew what had happened.

"Relax, Rainy was surprised herself when she figured out exactly what I was." Danny shrugged. Jimmy looked at him with utter bewilderment.

"It's normal now for people to come out as gay," Jimmy said misunderstanding completely.

"Whoa! That's a jump! First of all, I am VERY straight. If I was to come out gay, a lot of bad junk would happen. I mean about my skin. Yeah it feels weird to you, but I PROMISE this is how my skin feels when I am not in my wolf form."

"Wo-what?" Jimmy looked at me like Danny was crazy. "What is he talking about?"

I took a deep breath and said. "Just say the first thing that came to mind when you saw him and shook his hand. It's okay, neither one of us are going to take offense to it. Just please don't embarrass yourself by assuming someone's sexuality again."

"That is not a normal human, if it is human." Jimmy said quickly while looking only at me.

"I'm not." Danny said. "I'm a werewolf. Along with my mother."

Jimmy laughed nervously, waiting for the punchline that never came. When he saw how serious Danny looked and saw that I looked very uncomfortable and worried, he stopped realizing the full effect of what exactly was just said.

"Will you still sit down with us so we can talk?" I whispered. Jimmy nodded slowly and took my hand tighter in his own. Once we sat down, Danny did all the talking so I wouldn't have to.

"You have to understand first, Jimmy. All the people you humans traditionally call 'monsters' can trace their heritage back to Transylvania. And all monsters can intermarry with each other. My Frankenstein dad, who is the Transylvanian consulate here, married my werewolf mom. The risk with intermarrying is that you don't know what kind of kids you will have or if you will have kids at all. I was the easiest one to have. When Mom got pregnant with Rainy, that pregnancy did a lot of harm to Mom's health. A lot of people actually encouraged her to kill Rainy before Rainy was born so that Mom would be okay. But Mom and Dad chose to keep fighting. Rainy was born a human, which made more sense later why our werewolf mother had so much trouble in her pregnancy. She was so excited that Rainy made it and saw her as a miracle, but someone in our family did not. Our grandmother was a very proud Transylvanian and saw Rainy as a mistake. So without my parents knowledge, Grandma Llewellyn stole Rainy out of the hospital and put her through the system. By the time we figured it out, Rainy was out of our reach and Grandma was stripped of genie powers she possessed. She was cut off from our family and our grandpa promptly divorced her and moved in with us to help try to locate Rain. It took Mom and Dad seven years before they had our sister, Chaney. Recently, Llewellyn found out that Rainy had come home and tried to have her killed. Boppa had to cut Rainy's hand to show that she had the black blood of Transylvanians and not normal human blood."

"That's your blood!" Jimmy stared at my hand. "I thought you had been using sharpie marker or was trying out a new tatt."

"I had to be at Llewellyn's trial and she said a lot of hurtful things about me." I said staring at the black scab on my palm. Yeah it was smaller now, but it was a constant reminder of something I didn't want to be reminded of. "But I can't deny just feeling a part of this family I'm with now. And I know they would have never put me in the system." I stopped talking. Not because there wasn't anything else to say, but because I could feel a sob lodged in my throat. As if to prove my point, my brother spoke up again.

"In the end, Jimmy, we can't make you accept who we are or if what we are affects your view of Rainy. You need to decide that for yourself. Listen, our mom is having a dinner party tomorrow at 6. Just our family and our dad's parents. She wants to meet you and my girlfriend. If you choose not to come we'll understand. But if you choose to keep on loving my sister like you do, you need to understand that you are dating the Lande family now and not the Morris family."

Jimmy took a deep breath. "I appreciate you telling me all of this. And thank you for acknowledging that this is...different. It is hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that my girlfriend comes from a...unique family." Jimmy turned to me. "Rainy, this is not a break up, but I do want some time to think about this."

I nodded looking down at my lap. I was ready to cry. Jimmy kissed my cheek and whispered softly. "I love you, and nothing will change that." He shook my brother's hand again and walked away leaving us at the table.

"Rain," Danny said moving his chair to sit closer to me and put his arm around my shoulder. "Are you mad at me?"

"No." I whispered almost inaudibly. "I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at me."

"You don't have to be mad at yourself, Rainy. Okay? How are you supposed to tell someone who loves you that much that you're not technically a human? True-blood Transylvanians are such...myths...to the humans that no one can expect you to know how to tell another human you exist. There is another reason I wanted to be the one to reach out first. You know how Mom and Dad are just so excited that you even have a boyfriend?"

I nodded, not sure where my brother was going with this.

"They already assume you've told everyone what we are. Unfortunately, times have changed since they started dating. I figured pretty quickly that you hadn't told anyone."

I looked up at such a simple reason. "You're kidding, right."

"I wish." Danny rolled his eyes. "Mom is more than ready to start planning your wedding and Dad is gearing up to give you 'the talk.'"