Canine Cyborg Boyfriend

Chapter Eight

It was mid-morning now and the basketball game had long ended. 

Matteo happened to glance out the window of Tequila Mockingbird. The trees were swaying, the wind was blowing in a storm. The overhead clouds were blankets of milky fog, brewing darker with each minute. Then a couple on the street caught his eye.

He saw his friend and his crush walking hand in hand. They were walking to Cindy's house, Ben carrying a bag of soaked clothes. They were also soaked to the bone with remnants of soap suds in their hair. Cindy laughed and leaned against Ben.

Matteo's heart felt a pang, his stomach in knots. Hadley was working beside him at the counter, her eyes following his. Before she could say anything, he ran out to the back to get some air.

Outside, he ran his fingers through his hair and took deep breaths to calm himself down. He felt so foolish for longing for her for so long, but never doing anything about it. He felt trapped by the pain in his past, unable to really move on and never wanting to drag someone new into it. He heard the back door open and looked up.

"It sucks." Hadley sighed and leaned against the wall with him. "Did he know how you felt about her?"

Matteo blinked, staring at Hadley. He had never told her how he felt about Cindy.

"Please," she snorted. "You stare at her every time she comes in. And, I always see you with the books she reads a week or two after I see her reading them."

Matteo sighed and gave a reluctant shrug.

"No, he didn't know. Ben's a good guy."

"You're a good guy too, Matteo. And you deserve to be happy." He rolled his eyes, crossing his arms and pushing his back into the wall. "No one blames you for what happened to Bianca. You were sixteen and it was a senseless, tragic accident."

When his grandmother passed away, Matteo was sent to his next of kin in Stars Fall; distant cousins of his father's. They were a nice enough couple, but they left him to his own devices. Never took a real interest in him and the general feeling was they were just waiting for him to turn eighteen.

After a lonely summer reading library books in hidden corners and closets, his first high school year in Stars Fall he met Hadley and Bianca, twin sisters. They were all outsiders who had just arrived and became thick as thieves, as childhood friends often do. But, there was a bond shared between Matteo and Bianca, some would call her his childhood sweetheart.

He shook his head, still unable to talk about what had happened, especially not to Bianca.

Hadley turned to Matteo and pulled him into her arms. She gave him a tight hug, whispering in his ear.

"It's okay to let the past go."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Thunder cracked and lightning seemed to split the sky open. A torrent of hot summer rain flooded down on Ben and Cindy. They both yelped, holding each other's hands tightly. They had just passed Tequila Mockingbird when the streets began to clear, townspeople retreating from the storm into the closest shop.

It was just them running down the street when they turned the corner. The curtain of dense rain impeded their long distance view and before they realized what was happening... 

A deafening screech echoed in the air!

At the end of the street, countless oozing translucent tendrils unfurled before them. It was a great monster the size of a four-story building. It stretched out its tentacles like an undulating jellyfish. At its center was a great eye amidst a forest of limbs. In between its limbs were small holes, which seemed to be the source of its screeches.