Never Cry Werewolf (16 page)

“When you get to a town? Then what?” I asked, that empty feeling starting again.

“At the town I make a collect call to the chemist in London, have him wire me money and FedEx my serum while I hang out in the local hotel.”

It sounded like a terrible plan. He was running. From camp. From me. I could feel tears brewing.

“I’ve gotta go.”

“Shelby,” Austin said, reaching for my hand again. “If things were different, if I could stay…”

“I know. Life sucks,” I said coolly.

“Don’t forget to meet me tomorrow,” Austin whispered.

“Yeah.” I stood up and walked down the path alone. Alone wasn’t anything new to me. And I knew it wasn’t anything new to Austin, either.

I just didn’t expect it to hurt so bad.

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W
hen I got to girls’ group the next morning, most of the girls were already there and Dr. Wanda was riffling through papers at her makeshift desk in the corner, no doubt preparing to lead another scintillating discussion.

Ariel patted the seat next to her. “You missed breakfast,” she said.

“Felt sick when I woke up,” I explained. I left out the part about not wanting to get out of bed, not wanting this day to start because it was my last day with Austin. Actually, last morning with him, since he’

d be bailing after lunch. Who knew if I’d ever see him again? Once he was loose in the woods, he was out of my life, probably forever. That made me incredibly sad.

“Today we’ll be writing letters home to express everything we’re learning here at camp. I want you to choose the person you communicate the least with in your family to receive the letter.”

Groans sounded around the circle.

Dr. Wanda held up a hand like she was warding off the negative comments. “I want you to write the letter as if you would die tomorrow. Tell that person everything you’ve always wanted to say.”

I raised my hand. “How’re we supposed to pick the person?”

“You pick the person you can’t talk to,” Jenna said, breaking it down as if she’d done it a hundred times at a hundred other brat camps. “The one who really needs to hear you.”

“Okay, so what if you don’t talk to
anyone
in your family?” Ariel said.

Dr. Wanda let out an exasperated sigh. “Choose a family member with whom you’d like to communicate better.”

I raised my hand again and said, “What if you—”

“Just pick someone!” Dr. Wanda said, completely losing her cool. “I’m sorry,” she added after noticing our shocked faces. “This week at camp is always tough. Does anyone want to talk about their feelings?”

“I felt hurt when you screamed at us,” Sue, a big girl, said.

Dr. Wanda frowned. “No, I mean—”

“I felt betrayed,” said Callie, the thin blond girl from my cabin.

“You really did hurt my feelings,” Sue complained.

Dr. Wanda ran a hand through her frizzy black bangs, trying to smooth them, when it was obvious only some leave-in conditioner would have any kind of positive effect. “Girls, I’m proud that you’re developing the emotional vocabulary we’ve been working on.” She took a breath. “Shall we concentrate on writing those letters now?”

Everyone shut up after that and got to work, writing on the sheets of cheap notebook paper Wanda passed out.

“Who should I write to?” I whispered to Ariel.

“How should I know?” she whispered back.

“Shh!” said Jenna, tears rolling down her skinny cheeks. “I’m trying to write here.”

I gaped at her. She’d gone from zero to sobbing in, like, two minutes.
Okay
…

“Who are
you
writing to?” I said, leaning Ariel’s way again.

“My mother,” she said. “She lives on Park Avenue with her new boyfriend, Kip Kensington. He’s that dweeb from that stupid game show. Makes Alex Trebek look studly,” she added with a shrug. “Just pick your mom. It’ll be easy.”

Since my conversation with Austin the other night, I actually had been thinking about my mom.

Take away all the therapy junk and werewolf issues, and this camp would have been somewhere my mom would have loved. Even when she’d been really sick from chemo, Mom used to have Dad help her to the bench in our backyard garden so she could watch the sunset. She really dug nature stuff.

“You okay?” Ariel was staring at me because obviously I’d zoned out thinking about Mom.

“Yeah, um, the thing is…my mom’s dead,” I said quietly, so only Ariel could hear.

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It felt weird to tell her that. I totally expected to see pity in her eyes, but when Ariel looked at me there was only kindness.

“That sucks,” she said. “That really, really sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“You should’ve told me. I mean, all that stuff I said about Austin’s mother,” she said gently. “If I’d known…”

I managed a little smile because I didn’t want her feeling like crap or anything. “It’s okay. Really.”

Ariel nodded, then glanced down at her paper. “So, um, what about your stepmother?”

“Ugh. Priscilla, a.k.a. Honey Bun.”

“Write to her. Look.” She pointed at Dr. Wanda, slowly moving from girl to girl around the circle toward us. “Just choose someone.”

“Okay, okay.” Right then I wrote the date on the top of my paper and then doodled in the margins, pretending to write, but really I thought about how I was so relieved Ariel didn’t make a big deal out of my mom. For some reason it felt good that she knew. And that Austin knew. Neither one had drowned me in pity.

“You could still write to your mom,” Ariel said, looking up from her half-completed page. “That would be kinda cool, you know?”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said. Then I saw how she was totally right. Writing to my mom, even though she

’d never be able to read the letter, would be way better than writing to Priscilla, the one person I never spoke to at home.

Then again…

I paused, chewing the eraser on the end of the pencil. That stuff about Priscilla was totally wrong; I was pretty much forced to talk to her a lot. She was the one who criticized my outfits in the morning, demanded to see my homework, screamed at me to get off my cell phone and to come down to eat my so-called dinner.

But Dad? It was almost funny how far away he felt most of the time. If he wasn’t working late at his lab, he was snoring in the family room in front of Discovery Channel specials (mostly on snakes, ugh!). He barely noticed if I got my hair cut, tried to sneak another piercing, or was wearing green nail polish in honor of Saint Paddy’s Day.

Mom may have died, but Dad was the real missing person in my life.

Suddenly, the pencil seemed smaller in my hand, or else I was gripping it really tight. I didn’t know that I’d ever give him this letter, but I started with the words “Dear Dad.”

When Dr. Wanda called out it was time for lunch, I glanced down and my eyes almost bugged out of my head. I’d filled two pages. Two pages of all the things I’d wanted to tell him, the things I thought he should have done, the things I wished he’d asked me. I wasn’t telling this to anybody he paid to talk to me—I was telling him.

Dr. Wanda patted me on the shoulder as I set down my pen. “It feels good to get it all out, doesn’

t it?”

I didn’t want her to think she’d actually done something that’d kinda helped, but I had to nod. It did feel good. Well, weird but good. It was, like, for once I was talking and no one was interrupting me or asking stupid questions. Me writing it all down was like my dad was listening to me. Maybe if we had tried harder to talk to each other since Mom died, I wouldn’t have had so much to write. Seriously.

Maybe I wouldn’t have even been there in that stupid camp in the first place.

“Do you want me to mail that for you?” asked Dr. Wanda.

I shook my head. “Um, I’ll hang on to it,” I said, folding the letter into a tiny square.

“That’s perfectly fine.” Dr. Wanda gave me a warm smile and walked back to her desk with a stack of notes to mail.

Ariel told me one time that her mom admitted something important in a mother-daughter therapy session: Adults don’t always get everything right. So my question is, if they aren’t always right, then how can we be the ones who’re getting everything wrong?

Maybe both sides make choices that don’t turn out to be the smartest. But if you’re afraid to
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make mistakes, you can’t learn, right? Maybe that was where I had something my dad didn’t. I’d taken some risks, and I’d definitely messed up. I was kind of fearless in that department. At least I had been until I got to camp. There were consequences here—like Red Canyon—that totally sucked.

Of course, there had been consequences at home, but I’d ignored them. I hadn’t taken them seriously. I’d broken rules just because. And I was starting to think that wasn’t being fearless, it was being stupid. I mean, what had been the point of any of it? To get my dad’s attention? To show Priscilla I wasn’t afraid of her, when obviously she didn’t care what I thought? What a waste of time.

I shoved the letter into my pocket and walked out of the classroom into the glaring light of the summer day. I wasn’t sure I’d ever mail that note to Dad, but I felt like something in me had changed.

Just after lunch, it was time to say good-bye to Austin and get back to living my normally scheduled werewolf-free life, so I took the path toward the cabins like I was going back to get something before arts and crafts. Halfway there, I veered off onto the smaller trail, which led to where I was supposed to meet Austin. The trail wound through evergreens, and in the distance to my right, I could see the outline of some of the cabins. I breathed in the piney scent no floor cleaner could ever copy along with the warm earthy smell of things growing. Summer smelled so good, even at brat camp.

It was warm, so I slipped off my red zip sweatshirt and tied it around my waist. As I moved farther into the woods, the trail cut to the left through ferns, huckleberry bushes, and dense rows of scrubby firs. I battled through the vegetation, my bare legs taking a fair share of scratches. At last the path got really narrow, like an animal had made it. Standing in a clearing twenty yards ahead was Austin.

“Brilliant,” he said, smiling widely. His amber brown eyes always looked amazing, but today they reflected bits of the green forest around us. I took a mental picture in case I never saw him again.

“You didn’t think I’d leave you hanging,” I said.

“I hoped you wouldn’t. I wasn’t certain.”

I gulped back the nervous feeling in my throat and said, “Um, I know you like meat, but here’s some gum I got from Price, and here’re two oatmeal cookies I saved from lunch. I figured you might get hungry, you know, before the moon shines.”

Austin took my gifts, looking happily surprised.

I fished a piece of paper from my pocket and shoved it in his free hand. “So…there’s my number if you want to call me.”

He stared at me, not moving. I couldn’t read the emotion on his face, but it kinda looked like complete shock and horror.

Oh, man. I was a total dork—it was official. The absolute uncoolest way to say good-bye ever.

Giving my cell number to a werewolf? Total insanity.

Austin folded the paper small in his hand. “I’ll ring you at the end of the summer. I promise.”

I nodded. Now that I felt like an idiot, I wanted Austin to, like, run off. “Okay, so good luck.”

“Wait. That’s not a proper good-bye,” Austin said, brushing his bangs out of his eyes. “Come here, you.” He caught me by the hand, bringing me toward him.

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t an idiot or a dork. I licked my bottom lip, wishing for real I had some lip gloss because Austin was going to kiss me, and kiss me good. It would be all right because it was a good-bye kiss, I told myself. It was totally safe.

For a moment he stood there, looking at me. “Thank you,” he said finally, his low rumbly voice and his accent making the two simple words sound like music.

My heart pitter-pattered in my chest. It was unnerving staring into Austin’s eyes. He was more than a boy—he was also a beautiful, dangerous creature.

“You’re welcome,” I managed to say. “I was just doing what I’d hope someone would do for me in that kind of situation, you know?”

He dipped his head closer. The heat of his breath feathered against my cheek. I licked my lips again and tried to remain calm. And standing. I tried to remain standing. The swoony feeling in my legs was getting worse, and there wasn’t a tree trunk in sight to lean against. I’d been waiting for this kiss and terrified of it at the same time. And now it was here.

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“You’re beautiful,” Austin said. “I never got a chance to tell you that.”

“Oh.” My legs drooped a little. Swoon alert! “Um, thanks.”

“No, thank you. For everything.” He moved in to kiss me, but stopped halfway to my lips. He raised his head, sniffing at the air.

I’ve had guys do lots of weird things in the middle of trying to kiss me—answer their cell phone, wave at their friends, even take a bite of a double-cheeseburger—but sniff? Was it me? Oh, no. Had I pitted out my T-shirt or something? I tilted my head to smell myself without him noticing. Whew. I was good.

“Um, Austin?”

He whirled around on the trail. “Shelby, we have to hide. Someone’s coming.” He sniffed the air again. “Bloody Charles.”

“I’ll run back down the trail.”

“No, it’s better if he doesn’t see you. There’s no reason to endanger yourself.”

Austin was looking out for me. Nice.

“Good point,” I said.

“Come on, there are trees this way.” Austin pulled me down the trail. The chain-link fence loomed twenty yards ahead of us. Unattached fencing curled away from one of the support poles, making a hole big enough for Austin to crawl through.