“So,” I started, “for the next month or so until your mom and dad get back you will be teaching me… something.” I paused, trying to think about what I was even getting at. “What can I expect out of this next month? Is it going to be me trying to continue working my job normally and then coming home to hours and hours of tireless studying or training or something?” 

Liz looked uncertain and didn’t answer right away so I shook my head and added, “What I mean is, how high priority is this going to be? Long, sleepless hours of work for weeks at a time of little to no rest, or is this going to be a routine session thing that we can build into an average day? If I’m about to be put through a supernatural bootcamp, I want to be told about it now when I’m expecting it instead of later when I’m not.”

Furrowing her eyebrows, Liz thought for a moment as she looked off to a random wall. It wasn’t long before she seemed to come to some decision and looked back over at me. “I think it will be more like the second than the first. At the beginning we might want to dedicate more time for lessons, but after the most important stuff is out of the way we can tone it back to mostly meditation.”

Hearing her tone, I had trouble believing we weren’t talking about taking piano lessons or something similarly mundane. That things were very unreal still hadn’t quite settled for me. The fact that I wasn’t about to get worked to the bone was a good sign from what I understood. I didn’t quite expect meditation though.

Curious about that part the most, I decided to ask about it. “What is the meditation for?”

Confidently Liz answered, “Meditation is how a Were learns how to control their animal aspect and their shifting as a whole. We have a few steps to start with before we get there though.” 

It was welcome to hear Liz talking without all of the hangups from before. Maybe it will be easier to talk to one another in the context of these learning sessions? I hope that it makes it easier for us to interact over time at least. I was also interested in the matter that meditation was apparently going to be very important to my Were training, yet the ache in my chest still stood at the forefront as I listened to Liz.

Trying to dispel the sense of yearning in my chest, I refocused on the more important stuff. “Okay, that’s a good thing to remember. Are there any hard rules that I should know about? Anything that could present an immediate danger due to my ignorance?” I asked.

Puzzlement crossing her face, Liz talked while still thinking things through. “I suppose… as a baseline rule, don’t do anything in public that would draw undue attention. Shifting around other people, talking about magic, feats of superhuman strength or speed. Avoid that at all costs. That’s a really easy way to end up dead or worse.” 

I swallowed a lump that suddenly formed in my throat, not quite prepared for the serious turn in Liz’s tone. My previous confidence at addressing the supernatural situation that I found myself in was wavering, and my knuckles were white where they were clenched on my knees. The severity of her words sent a small edge of panic in my chest.

Liz continued while I tried to hold myself together, “Besides that, there are a lot of things that are worth being wary about. I’ll be paying attention to our surroundings though, so you won’t have to learn everything while being at risk.” Not knowing what she would be on the lookout for was kind of terrifying, but I stayed silent while she kept speaking. “You probably can’t do anything that would cause harm to yourself either. A Were is very durable and doesn’t have much that they can do with their powers to actively damage or hinder themselves.”

That was great and all, but I was more worried about some other related issues which I decided to voice. Shakily I asked, “What about… others? Will I be a risk to other people? Have to worry about accidentally scratching them and having them become a Were? Be at risk of losing control of myself during the full moon or something?” I was pretty sure that we already covered the losing control part back with her parents, but it never hurts to receive additional confirmation.

Looking conflicted and no longer making eye contact Liz didn’t respond right away. After a short pause she said, “You won’t be able to accidentally awaken someone. There has to be a concerted effort and direct penetration of bone. I don’t actually know how it’s done, only that it’s incredibly painful when it happens.”

As I was trying to let that sink in Liz added, “As for losing control, no that shouldn’t be the case for you.” Her face fell in defeat and I suddenly regretted bringing this back up. “I’m a special case because of who my parents are.” She finished remorsefully.

Seeing Liz so downcast caused a spike of pain to shoot through my heart. I desperately wanted to hug her and tell her everything would be okay, but the more rational part of my mind realized how inappropriate that would be. Somewhere in the middle of the rational and the reactionary I came to a decision and stood from my chair.

Having seen me stand, Liz turned back towards me tensely. Concern and maybe a small note of fear played across her face. That only served to make me want to clear the air all the more. I walked the few paces that led me from my chair to the couch and sat down.

Retaining a respectful distance from Liz yet being closer than we had ever voluntarily been before, not counting the necessary nature of being in a car together, I looked Liz in the eye and prepared myself while she seemed to be holding her breath. “Liz,” I began, “I understand that what happened was… shocking. For both of us.” She swallowed wordlessly, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on mine.

“You were put in a position where your body acted without your input, and it did some things that were pretty bad while you were out of it.” Liz’s posture drooped, but still looked only at me. “I recognize that the being that did those things to me was not you. It was separate from you. The girl I see feels guilty for the actions that something else took in her place, and is going out of her way to make things right. Her parents are even contributing to the cause, doing what they can to help atone.”

With more confidence than I was aware that I could ever feel in my life I continued, “I don’t want them or for you to atone though. I am grateful that you are willing to help, that is more than certain, but I don’t want it to just be as if you are repaying some debt incurred by an unfortunate circumstance. I would like it if we were to be able to work together.” My eyebrows scrunched up. “Though, I’m not sure if there is anything that I can really do in exchange.”

Silence stretched out for a long time, my thoughts having reached their conclusion. Or… maybe that was just my perception being a hot mess. It was hard to tell. Liz just kept staring at me, and I had to wonder if I had gone too far. This boldness that I’ve been feeling around Liz recently feels like a double-edged sword.

After what felt like minutes, though maybe it was only a few seconds, Liz broke the deafening stillness with a sniffle as her eyes started watering up. I felt panic try to rise up again, much different in form from the panic from earlier. Seeing Liz’s enchanting eyes well up with tears flipped some kind of switch in me.

Carefully, and with purposeful slowness, I wrapped my arms around her. I was watchful, keeping an eye out for any sign of her recoiling or tensing up. She didn’t though, and I pulled Liz into a hug. Her head was on my shoulder and her hands still rested on her own lap.

Her sniffling had stopped, and her whole body froze stiff for a few agonizing moments where I wasn’t sure if I had gone too far. Though instead of shoving me away as I had feared, she returned the action and held me tightly with her arms under mine. 

Embracing Liz and having that embrace returned lit a fire in my heart. Liz started sobbing, and I unconsciously reached one of my hands up to gently rub the back of her head. Even with my sole purpose being to comfort Liz at this moment, I couldn’t help but marvel at how soft her hair was and how warm she felt. My cheek was resting lightly against her and her scent was so powerful this close that my head was getting a little fuzzy.

Like this, we spent a very long few minutes. It pained me to hear Liz crying, so I dedicated myself to helping her work through the tears. One of my hands kept moving through Liz’s hair and the other stayed as an unmoving anchor on her back. I was aware that she had clenched her hands around the fabric at the back of the sweater that I wore, fists full of fluffy wool.

After what felt like far too long, Liz’s crying lessened. I could almost physically feel a weight lifting off of us. Butterflies fluttered about in my chest, spurred on by the physical contact that we shared. Lingering concern for Liz did still stay with me along with the wet spot I could feel on my shoulder, which muddied the feeling.

Much to my disappointment, the moment did have to end at some point. Liz took a deep, steadying breath and disentangled herself from me. I let her go and returned my hands to my lap. Neither of us said anything yet, just watching each other. 

I was the first to break eye contact this time, grabbing my purse that had been set on the coffee table and taking the tissues out of it. These really came in handy. I should remember to thank Delilah when she gets back. Though a nagging feeling in the back of my mind told me that Delilah might have expected one or both of us to need them. Oh well, she has shown that she has a really good read on people so I should expect something like that.

Handing Liz the tissues, I let my lips widen into a caring smile. She took them after a brief hesitation and blew her nose. With another tissue, she dabbed the moisture from her eyes and wrapped the other tissue inside.

More steady now, Liz met my eyes again. “How are you… handling all of this so well?” Her voice was even, though clearly carrying an undertone of uncertainty. “Your life gets flipped on its head, and yet somehow I’m the one that is getting cared for. Reassured by the person who was affected the most by all of this…” 

She let her words hang in the air, but it didn’t take me long to figure out how to respond. “Honestly? A lot of unexpected optimism has been helping. Being treated so nicely by your parents, having some kind of fantastical miracle transition, and a ton of curiosity about magic being real has been a really good set of things to focus on.” What I was leaving out at the moment was all of the fluster about my interactions with Liz, which were stronger than ever thanks to the very recent hug.

“The only thing that keeps coming back as a negative,” I continued while pursing my lips, “is the lie I had to tell my friends. And the lies that I know I’ll have to keep telling my friends too. That makes me feel pretty bad.” I quickly added, “I still don’t blame you for that though or anything. That’s my own issue, to manage my friendships.”

Liz smiled in a somber kind of way and commented, “You’re pretty tough.” 

Coming from the girl who I was convinced could bite through a steel bar if she put her mind to it, based on the display of muscles that I saw last night, I couldn’t help but quirk a smile. “Says the one with super strength.”

With a more relaxed smile Liz countered, “You never know. You might have super strength too.”

I reeled back a little in disbelief. “Wait, I might have super stre-” I was interrupted by my phone buzzing on the arm of the recliner where it slowly started to slide off. I sprung from the couch and grabbed my phone before it had a chance to slide any further. To my horror, the caller ID stated that it was Jenny that was calling. Speaking of managing my friendships, I had completely forgotten to let them know that I had gotten home. 

The drivetime itself was as expected, but then we spent an hour walking around the neighborhood and another fifteen minutes inside and still without even sending a text. It was definitely late enough at this point that they were probably getting worried about me again. Resolving myself, ready to face the music, I hit the green button to answer the call.

“Hi Jenny!” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.

“Don’t you ‘hi Jenny’ me! What part about telling us when you get home safe do you not understand?!” She sounded upset. Not angry, but definitely upset. She took a breath. “You are home safe now right?”

Cringing as I said so I responded, “Yeah, Liz and I are at my place now. We are waiting for some Chinese food to be delivered for dinner.” 

“YOU HAD TIME TO ORDER CHINESE BUT NOT TO SEND A TEXT!?” Jenny howled, causing me to move the phone away from my ear.

I have made a dire mistake. 

Thankfully, I could hear the sound of scuffling as somebody was clearly trying to take the phone from Jenny before she could continue on a rant that I felt like I probably deserved. I could still hear Jenny protesting in the background as Alex cleared his throat into the phone.

“I think what Jenny was trying to say is that it’s not like you to forget about something important like that. Is everything okay with you right now? What happened with the fire?” Alex, the voice of reason said calmly.

Thankful as I was, I still had to keep up some of the act as to why I even was home right now to begin with. I almost forgot about the fire part of the excuse, which would have been bad if that had slipped my mind. Alex’s coolheadedness saved me more than he could know. 

“The fire turned out to be a false alarm. A small garbage fire was in the alley behind my house. No big deal, so uh… now Liz and I are relaxing in the living room until dinner gets here.” I recounted nonchalantly. Or at least I hope it came out that way.

Alex let out a breath of relief. “That’s good. You sounded really broken up when you were on the phone with Lexi earlier and we were all pretty worried for you. You worked really hard to get that house. It would be devastating to lose it while you were away on a trip.” Alex said genuinely.

His honest concern for me was evident and I couldn’t help but feel another lump in my throat at telling such blatant lies to people who cared so much about me. I swallowed it back though, and replied as evenly as I could, “Yeah… I’m really glad that it was nothing serious. Sorry to make a big deal out of no-” The doorbell rang, and I noticed that Liz had already been up and walking towards the door. “Oh, dinner is here. Sorry again, I’ll talk to you all later.”

“Alright, talk to you later Sam.” Alex replied simply.

I ended the call and joined Liz over at the door. She was already burdened with two heavy-looking bags of food, and the driver was coming back with a third. Liz took the third bag as if it weighed nothing, but the driver clearly sagged under the weight until Liz took it so I knew it was probably heavier than Liz made it look. 

We bid the delivery person a good night, then closed and locked the door. I gestured towards the dining room, which Liz then followed me to and placed the bags on the center of the table. 

“I’ll go get some plates.” I stated.

Liz nodded in understanding with an ‘okay’ and went about emptying the contents of the bags onto the table. I was kind of surprised she was taking this in stride as she was. The house that she lived in didn’t exactly scream ‘Chinese takeout for dinner.’ Using the breakfast Damian made as an example, I couldn’t imagine it. That breakfast was just too good.

I entered my nice modern kitchen in search of a couple plates and smiled as I really felt at home again. The white cabinets with simple square doors kept the room bright, and the darker gray veins of the imitation marble countertops provided a nice contrast. The floor was a similarly shaded gray wood-looking vinyl plank. There was plenty of counter space along the walls, along with a nicely sized island with some bar stools along the back of it. The kitchen was easily one of the larger expenses from when I had this place remodeled, but it was worth it.

Shaking myself of the admiration I had for having my own functional kitchen, I grabbed two plates from one of the cabinets next to the sink and returned to the dining room where Liz had already nearly unpacked all of the food. She looked at me as she was grabbing the last box of rice out of one of the bags.

“That’s a lot of rice.” Liz professed, looking at the little army of rice boxes off to one side of the in-home buffet that was on my dining room table.

Giving Liz a pointed look I retorted, “Yeah, I figure that we have a lot to do this weekend. I need to go shopping for some new clothes at the very least on top of whatever kind of lessons that we start on. Having leftovers instead of having to cook sounds pretty good for tomorrow.” I blushed as I added, “And also you didn’t tell me what you liked, so I wanted to make sure that you had something you enjoyed.”

The smile that she returned with hit me with the force of a ballistic missile. “I’m not picky. Most food is good, and I like a bit of surprise with it sometimes. Thanks for thinking about me though. In a lot of ways…” her words faded away and my head was spinning with the sudden emotional turmoil that they caused.

In a non-subtle effort to change the subject, I pulled out a chair across from Liz and sat down. “Thank me once we’ve had our fill of dinner. I’m famished.” Which I was. I had been trying to ignore the rumbling of my stomach for a while now. It was a convenient excuse that I made excellent use of.

Taking the cue, Liz sat down on the other long side of the table in front of me. I handed a plate to her and we each grabbed one of the sets of disposable cutlery that came with the order. Both of us reached for our first helping, which just so happened to have our hands land on the same container of sweet and sour chicken. Or well, mine was on top of the container and Liz’s was on top of mine. 

Otherwise unmoving, we looked at each other with matching blushes. And kept looking for what would have been an uncomfortable amount of time if not for the way that her hand continued to rest on mine, with seemingly no intention to change that yet.

“Sweet and sour is a classic.” Liz sputtered in an almost casual manner. “You get first dibs though since you paid for it.” She unfortunately lifted her hand and started to reach for a different box.

“I ordered two!” I exclaimed a bit louder than I had meant to. “I mean uh, there is a second order of sweet and sour chicken. You can have it.” My stammering at least was able to form words. At least I’m pretty sure they did.

“Oh.” Liz muttered. “Okay, thanks.” She searched for a moment for the other box labeled s&sc, still blushing.

Not doing any better at hiding my embarrassment, I devoted my attention to gathering a box of rice and a couple egg rolls. Liz and I both filled our plates up with sweet and sour chicken atop rice, though Liz also grabbed one of the bowls of soup, and started eating in hopes that it would help our awkwardness die down. 

It helped a little bit.

MegaSuperKami

Ohmygoshohmygosh, they are making progress! I didn't really expect it to turn so cute so fast. Sam bludgeoning Liz over the head with care and understanding seems to be a winning play!

When your crush also reaches for the sweet and sour chicken, you know it's meant to be <3

Jenny scares me though. She is the mom friend that you do not want to be on the bad side of. I wonder how Sam will make amends?

Also, shopping trip soon! I'm excited for that. I hope you are too!

As always, thank you for reading and I hope you are having an awesome day!