If Only We Could Be Us

Mitch gave my hand a quick squeeze and I took a deep breath in.

“You don’t have to do this Munro,” Shayne said quietly.

“It’s fine,” I gave a weak smile, “I want to. When I was younger my dad and me had a… different relationship. He kinda hated me.”

I laughed at my comment, but no one else seemed to find it even remotely funny. I cleared my throat awkwardly and continued on, “He never knew about shifters because it skipped over my mom’s generation. Unfortunately when I received the gene he didn’t take it too well. The first few times he just yelled a bit, but when I turned four he got much much worse.”

I stopped to take a breath because I could feel my eyes start to burn and a few tears fell down my cheek. Mitch must have noticed because he let go of Louis’ hand and wiped the tear away. Shayne walked over to the bed and put his arm around my shoulder. Jack, Liza, and Landon all sat on the same bed all trying to look anywhere but at me. They must have felt awkward hearing this story.

“If you guys don’t want me to tell you I don’t have to.”

“No!” Jack protested, “We want you to be able to tell us stuff like this. I’m sure you’re sick of always acting strong and keeping this to yourself. Go on.”

“Thanks. So anyways, he started to get abusive with me. He would take me downstairs and lock the door so that no one could stop him. He would punch me, whip me, cut me, and one time he even starved me for a week. He did this so often that I eventually was trained not to shift. I could only do it when I was scared or extremely angry.”

“Can you still not shift?” Liza asked me. I looked at her to see Jacks arm around her and her arms resting on one of his shoulder. Her head was next to his neck and you could only see one side of her face. Jack, Liza, and Landon looked like they were hearing a scary story.

“I’m not sure. The last time I shifted was right after the banquet when Tommy was being a jerk.”

I wasn’t sure if I actually wanted to know. I was scared to find out.

“Well, why don’t you try?” Landon asked. Wow it’s like he was reading my mind.

“I don’t know…” I said still scared.

“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Shayne whispered into my ear, “Just finish your story and we can try later.”

“Thanks,” I said and gave him a quick kiss, “So-”

“Wait,” Louis interrupted me, “Why didn’t your mom and you just leave?”

“We tried to a few times,” I explained, “but he would always stop us before we could. We actually made it out of town once, but he found us. When he took us back home he beat me so bad that I had to go to the emergency room. When the doctors asked what happened I told them that some people jumped me. I would have told him the truth, but how would I be able to explain that I was some monstrous freak? No one knows about shifters except for shifters and their families.”

“Why did you come here?” Jack asked, “Don’t get me wrong, I love having you here and you are one of my best friends, but it sounds like he liked having someone to beat up.”

“He had my mom. He had never hurt her before, but when he found out about this school he decided he would rather get rid of me and just beat her. The night he told me about the school was the worst night of my life. Once he told me what he was going to do to my mom when I was gone, I lost it,” I tried not to think about this part of the story to hard, “I punched him in the face and grabbed my mom. I was going to get him out of our lives once and for all, but he was too fast. He grabbed her hair and threw her onto the floor. When I saw him kick her I flipped out. I was so mad that I shifted and pulled him off of her.”

This was the part of the story that was going to be the hardest to tell.

“She didn’t want me to kill him so she distracted me. He had a gun in the living room. He grabbed it and tried to shoot me. I was too quick though. I ran out of the way before he could kill me, but my mom was in his way. She-she-she,” I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. I was hiccupping and crying to the point where I couldn’t see anymore, “if I didn’t move than she would still be alive!”

“Munro! Shh,” Mitch tried to calm me down. Shayne looked shocked. I could tell he didn’t know what to do right now.

“I ran away after that,” I sniffled, “They couldn’t find me for two months. I was in New York when they got to me. I got my mom killed. She died because of me.”

“Munro you did not get her killed. That man did,” Shayne said to me, “That jackass was too stupid to realize how amazing you are just because he didn’t like you being a shifter. He didn’t get to know the guy I love.”

That last word he said made my head snap up, “What?”

He wiped the tears away from my eyes and said, “I love you Munro.”

“I- I love you too.”