"You didn't have to come with me, you know."
Despite what Rory and the others had said about not being able to go back to her life, and despite her bone-deep feeling they were right, Demarco wasn't willing to just walk away from her life. She'd set out for her car and made the trip back down the mountain roads to Evergreen Harbor.
Rory had insisted on coming along.
"I told you, I took responsibility for you," Rory said, simply but firmly. "You may need me. Besides, I have a few things to pick up in town. I can always call Lou and get a ride back if you decide to stay."
Demarco didn't like the way Rory's tone made that seem so unlikely. Unfortunately, Rory had also just reminded her of the further bad news she'd already discovered.
"I can't believe I was out for a week," Demarco muttered.
Finding an old charger in the car, she'd managed to bring life back to her phone's battery. Worse than discovering the date were the voicemails. Annie and Knox had managed to cover for her for a couple of days, but the last voicemail from her manager, the Rotten Josh, made it clear she didn't have a job to go back to anymore. No job meant no rent money which, unless she could solve that quickly, meant no apartment.
Being unable to return to her old life was starting to seem as inevitable as Rory suggested, for purely mundane reasons.
"I've seen first changes go a lot harder," Rory offered.
"So you're saying I'm lucky? I sure don't feel lucky," Demarco snarled. "And what is that smell? And that noise?!"
"Evergreen Harbor," Rory answered.
"What do you mean?" Demarco groaned. "The Harbor's a pit, sure, but it's never smelled this bad... or been this loud."
"It's not the Harbor that's different," Rory said firmly. "You're a wolf now. Your senses are all dialed up to eleven."
"How can you stand it?" Demarco said, struggling to breathe through the pervasive stink.
"I've been a wolf since I was fourteen," Rory smiled. "I've gotten used to it... but there's a reason we don't come into town much."
Whatever Demarco's response to that might have been was lost as her neighbor, Annie, spotted them and hurried over.
"Lux!" Annie gasped. "You're OK... you're here!"
"Hey Annie," Demarco said, a little flustered. Like most of her friends in the Harbor, Annie usually called her Demarco. She'd only used her given name on a few - rather intense - occasions.
"Hey Annie?" Annie blinked. "You disappear for a week and all I get is 'Hey Annie'? What happened!?"
"Sorry, it's been... well... a lot," Demarco said honestly. During the drive down, she'd thought about what she would tell people and had settled on the truth, if not all of the truth. "I had a kinda accident wandering around the woods after dark. Some of the folks up there took care of me for a couple days. I know I should have called but my phone died."
"My God! Are you OK?" Annie asked.
"Yeah, I'm good," Demarco answered, a little surprised by the simple truth of that. "Hey, I heard you tried to cover for me at the store. Thanks for that."
"Yeah, for all the good it did," Annie said. "Rotten Josh said you shouldn't come back. What are you going to do?"
What am I going to do, Demarco wondered. She'd been arguing with herself about that since her head cleared and she found herself standing naked on a mountaintop with a bunch of werewolves. After all, she had a a job, an apartment, friends... a life. Right?
Only now, everything was different. She was a werewolf. Could she really go beg Rotten Josh for her job back, or try to find another one? Could she scrape together rent money or, failing that, crash on Knox's couch until she got back on her feet?
Could she put up with the stink and noise and the soul-crushing grind of day-to-day life, knowing what it felt like to run under the moon? To catch a wild scent on the wind? To be really, truly, free?
All those thoughts ran through her head in a moment, and with them came the answer she already knew to be true. Rory was right. She couldn't go back.
"I'm going to crash with friends for a while, up in Moonwood Mill," Demarco said, nodding at Rory.
"You're... you're leaving?" Annie stammered. "You're just packing up and leaving?"
"I kinda found something up there," Demarco said. "Something... amazing. Something I need to figure out."
"Oh. Oh! You and... her?" Annie gasped, nodding at Rory. " I mean... that's... that's great... for you. I guess... I mean... I hope you're both really..."
"What? No! No, it's not... we're not," Demarco stammered.
"You're not?" Annie looked confused.
"No. No, no, no. No!" Demarco said firmly.
"But you are leaving?" Annie asked.
"Yeah, I am," Demacro nodded, knowing the truth of it deep down.
"Well, OK," Annie said. "Maybe I'll see you around... sometime."
"For the record, sister, you totally screwed that up," Rory said.
"Yeah, but I pretty much screwed it up long before today," Demarco sighed. "So... help me get my stuff before the landlord changes the locks?"
"Sure," Rory smiled.
As they moved her stuff down to the car, Rory never once questioned Demarco's change of heart.
----------
"It's like what we were talking about before I left, about waiting for life to start," Demarco said to Knox later at the Caboose, having filled him in on the non-werewolf parts of the story. "I feel like I'm finally done waiting."
"Wow," Knox said. "You know, when I said go up into the mountains, clear your head and breathe the air, I didn't think you'd do the whole 'tune in, turn on and drop out' deal. Crazy!"
"You have no idea how crazy," Demarco said earnestly.
"You do you, Lux Demarco," Knox said, "and if that means ditching the whole daily grind to go live up on the Mountain, I say go for it."
"Knew I could count on you for stoner wisdom, Knox," Demarco smiled.
"Always," Knox smiled. "And don't forget your friends here in the Harbor. Bring down of some of those Mountain vibes from time to time. I bet it'll help me clean up this town."
"You got it, man," Demarco laughed.
No comments:
Post a Comment