Look at Me

“Hayden,” Paige said lacings her fingers with his longer paler ones.
“Yeah?” he asked as he looked down at her, a tense expression on his face. His lips were knit in a thin line and his smooth pale forehead scrunched up like origami.
“I don’t want you to go, “she said almost too quietly to hear.
“Why?” he asked, obviously determined to make her say what she was really thinking.
“Because…I care about you to much for you to just disappear…” she replied helplessly.
Jesus, why was it so hard too say it out loud! Maybe because she should not care about him so much…But it wasn’t really up to her. The way she felt was like fate, destiny, or a hundred other inadequate words. It was simply was. An undeniable and unexplainable truth standing alone in a room crowded by lies.
“It’s not really my choice Paige. I have to go, but… I love you too much to just disappear,” he said as a smile transformed his angular brooding face into something beautiful.
Love….Paige’s heart seemed to stop inside her chest. Had Hayden actually said love?

***
Ooops….
That sort of slipped out.
Nice job, Hayden thought as his cheeks grew heated. Way to NOT pressure her.
Paige was looking….sort of pressured? Her bottom lip lowered in an almost gape and her narrowed in what might have been confusion. Hayden really hadn’t meant to say love, but….yeah…
I’m just that much of dumbass, he though as he waited for Paige to actually react. The weak, uncertain part of himself wanted to change the subject and brush the L-word off, but he made himself just wait…
“You love me too much…”Paige finally said, repeating his words. She glanced down at their hands that were still twisted together and then back up at him. And there was a smile on her face. Not a cheesy OhMiGod grin, just a gentle curving of her delicate pink lips.
Acting purely on [certified dumbass] instinct, Hayden leaned down and touched his mouth to hers. Her eyes stayed wide open and she stared at him as they shared a single breath. It was strange and sexy and for a moment, nothing existed but them.
Then, someone else spoke.
“Hayden,” a strange male voice behind him said.
Turning, he saw a boy with pale grey hair and disturbing feverish eyes. Hayden instinctively stood in front of Paige as he replied warily, “Yes?”
The boy looked strait at him and said, “You can’t go to Our Lady of Sorrows, Hayden. They’ll know exactly what you are and they will HATE you for it. Just like they hated me.”
Direct? Yes….
Completely confusing? Ummmm….Yes.
Hayden’s brain had to process the words themselves for a second and then he said, [Not so nicely.] “What?”
The boy moved closer so he was officially breaking the laws of personal space. Number one being…
Thou shalt not stand two inches away from someone unless you’re dating!
His eyes burned with a strange intensity as he said, “I’d like to inform you at this point that you are not unique. You’re not even the only freak of nature in the county.”
Another shape shifter, werewolf, or whatever the fuck ever he was. Hayden’s brain tried to wrap itself around that as his mouth said unthinkingly, “Prove it.”
The other boy said with obvious pleasure, “Absolutely.”

***

The strangely beautiful stranger…
Paige had thought he’d looked familiar. As she saw him standing beside Hayden she realized why. And as he spoke, she felt a cold wave of unreality wash over her.
“Paige,” Hayden said quietly. “Could you please ask Terry to escort us to the woods?”
“Like now…” she asked imagining exactly how she would phrase that request.
Yeah, I just want you to drive Hayden, some werewolf dude sputtering fire and brimstone, and me to the woods. So, we can prove he is actually a were wolf dude and not just a random crazy. Even though Hayden is probably still supposed to be in police custody and the guy I don’t know might be a monster who might rip us into bite size bits.
But Terry wouldn’t know that, because she still had no idea what was going on.
Awesome.
And of course, this all just had to happen seconds after Hayden said he loved her.