Ecclesiastes

I tried to fight off my dirty thoughts, but then I asked myself, What’s the use? He can definitely hear my heartbeat. He has already smelt me. He’s holding a couple of bags on his lap, so clearly he’s more focused on not being embarrassed than focusing on me.

I look at Isaac from the corner of my eye and grin. We drive the half an hour back to Beacon Hills listening to music and not talking. I pull up in the McCall driveway in no time; I carry half of Isaac’s bags and he carries the other half up to his room. Scott walks into the room as I carefully start unpacking.

“Whoa,” he stops after walking a few feet in, “Where did you guys go?”

“Saks Fifth,” I reply and collect a bunch of hangers from Isaac’s closet. I carefully hang up the tops and gently set them down on his bed.

Scott walks over to the bed, “Why?”

“Why not?” Isaac says while pulling old clothing out of his drawers. He tosses the pants he has out grown onto the floor and walks over to the bed, unpacking the pants we bought.

Scott shrugs and starts to put the hanged shirts up in the closet. “Are you playing lacrosse this year?”

“Yeah,” Isaac nods, “I’m imagining you’ll be team captain again?”

“I think so, but we’ll see what coach wants.”

They babble on about what to expect this Monday from their coach and the readings for his economic class. I guess they asked me a question because Isaac says, “Selamawit?”

I turn my head to the right to look at him. “Yea?”

“You’re staying here for high school, right?”

“Yeah,” I breathe in deeply and go back to organizing the shirts in his closet.

“Good, good,” Scott sighs and then runs his hands through his hair. “I have a feeling this is going to be a stressful year, and with Jackson gone, we need all the people we can get.”

I laugh, “Was he really that useful?”

Scott grins, “Well, the numbers help.”

I nod and then say, “It’s important to keep in mind that I am not a part of your pack. I am literally only obligated to Peter and Derek, and even then, my responsibilities are few.”

Scott sits on the foot of Isaac’s bed. “That’s true, but I think you’ll come around and help us a lot.”

I laugh and shake my head, “This shit is not for me.”

“It wasn’t for me, either.”

Isaac and I look at Scott at the same time.

Scott looks at Isaac and then me, “I just got bitten in the forest, everybody else said yes.”

Isaac breathes in sharply, “Not all of us had good lives.”

I lean against the frame of the closet door and watch them talk.

Scott looks at Isaac, “I don’t blame you for your choices.”

Isaac shakes his head and continues putting his new pants away, “Being a werewolf has not solved my problems…” I can hear him swallow his spit, “Honestly, Jackson solved my problems.”

I look at Scott’s tensing body, then at Isaac’s head, which is hanging in shame. Scott sits straighter; his face looks strained, like he’s looking for something to say to Isaac, who is frozen in place against the open dresser. I watch them for a moment, but nothing changes, so I slowly walk toward Isaac and toss my turtleneck onto his bed. I feel my bra straps and make sure they’re secure in their diamond shape before tightly hugging Isaac from behind. I press my face between his shoulder blades and do my best to quiet my groan while my wings slide out of my spine and through my skin. I hear Scott gasp – he must have never been around the few times I’ve whipped these out. But this isn’t the time to explain anything to him; I close my huge wings around Isaac and loosen my grip on him as he starts to budge. Without lifting his head, he turns and falls onto his knees. Isaac buries his face into the warm flesh of my stomach; I do my best to not flex my muscles as he is probably looking for a pillow and not my forming abs.

Isaac sobs as quietly as he can into my flesh; his cool tears, warm mucus, and hot, quivering lips soak the tender flesh of my stomach. He wraps his arms around my legs and ass tighter than I’ve ever been squeezed in my life, but it’s not for too long. After a few minutes of sobbing, Isaac starts to control his breathing and rests the left side of his face against the flesh just above my vagina. I lower my wings for a second and check to see if Scott is still here – he is, and his eyes are wide and still staring at me, so I mouth at him, “harp.” He slowly nods but then bolts off of the bed. I look back down at Isaac and start to swirl the fingers on my left hand through his short, curly hair. I gently beat my wings in rhythm with my breathing to cool him down a bit; it gets got in here, and even hotter if you’re upset.

A few silent minutes pass before Scott tip toes into the room and gently places my Kissar near us. A few more silent minutes pass before Isaac sighs and murmurs, “I’m sorry.”

I gently run my fingernails up the back of his neck, through his hair, and back down to the base of his neck. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

Hot breath escapes from his mouth and absorbs into my skin. “I’ve slobbered and oozed all over your stomach.”

I smile down at him, “That’s nothing to be upset about.”

He looks up at me – his forehead squeezing in the middle, his brows trying to mesh together, his eyes pink and puffy. Isaac doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t have to. I can see a life’s worth of pain, of self-loathing, of disappointment, of fear, in all his pores, in all his tearstains, in the depths of his eyes. He rests his face against my stomach for a moment and then rolls his eyes as far up as they’ll go. He locks eyes with me and whispers, “I can smell your desire.”

I blush.

He breathes in deeply through his slightly open mouth, “I can smell it all the time.”

I laugh and smile at him, my cheeks burning with embarrassment.

His face softens a bit and his lips stretch into a small smile, “I know you want me, but…but…”

He trails off, so I ask in my softest voice, “But what?”

He licks his dry lips and says, “But do you love me?”

I feel my heart shatter in my chest. I slowly drop to my knees so that I may be eye-level with him. I loosely rewrap my wings around us while cradling his face in my hands and say, “When I first met you I couldn’t tell if my heart twitched or my clitoris exploded.”

His eyes and brows scrunched with horror and humor.

I laugh, shake my head and then look back into his eyes. “I watched you dress today and promised myself that I’d save on airfare and ride you across the ocean.”

Isaac laughs once, but loudly.

I slide my left hand from his cheek to the back of his head toward his ears and neck; I slide my right hand from his face, to his shoulder to the middle of his back and press his body against mine. I run my fingers through his hair and lightly against his skin while I whisper into his right ear, “I see you sweat in practice and I’m amazed by how much you exert yourself; I see you find your anchor faster than any of the other wolves and I’m in awe by your indomitable will; I see your tiny mannerisms and I wonder why they’re never jerky – not when you’re talking, not when you’re putting things away, never. And when I sing I can feel your blood dancing in your veins, swirling through your body, holding on tightly to your soul, and I can’t feel that during practices, I don’t feel that when I’m tricking other wolves or other people. I feel like you let me tap into your heart and I sing the things that it’s hard for you to tell yourself rather than me luring you to a possible death.”

Isaac chuckles a little, his body relaxing against mine.

I lift my left wing a bit and use it to push the Kissar close enough for me to grab. I beat a light breeze onto Isaac’s face for a second before wrapping him back up in both of my wings; I feel his head relax onto my shoulder as my feathers tickle his ankles.

I let go of his back instead of stopping playing with his hair. I use my newly freed hand to strike a few notes on the Kissar. I focus deeply on his heartbeat, the pace of his breathing, the feeling of his warm breath, the sound of his blood rushing through his body, swirling all around his core; I focus absolutely on him; my fingers create a sound with the strings and I can feel my lips part, my breath settling deep in my lungs just to softly slip out of my heavy lips, “I used to bite my tongue and hold my breath, scared to rock the boat and make a mess. So I sat quietly, agreed politely. I guess that I forgot I had a choice. I let you push me past the breaking point. I stood for nothing, so I fell for everything.”

Isaac wraps his arms tightly beneath my rips, pressing one hand into the small of my back and the other beneath a wing and against a shoulder blade.

“You can be amazing, you can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug. You can be the outcast, or be the backlash of somebody’s lack of love. Or you can start speaking up.”

I can hear his breathing starting to hitch; I can feel his chest tighten against my body.

“You held me down, but I got up, already brushing off the dust. You hear my voice, you hear that sound – like thunder, gonna shake the ground. You held me down, but I got up. Get ready cause I’ve had enough. I see it all, I see it now.”

His claws start to come out, but he doesn’t cut my skin. Rather, he further buries his face into the crook of my neck and starts to cry again.

“Say what you wanna say, and let the words fall out. Honestly I wanna see you be brave.”

Isaac squeezes me so tightly it becomes hard to sing for him – to let out the beat vibrating in his veins.

“Now I’m floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee I earned my stripes. I went from zero, to my own hero.”

He loosens his grip, but his breathing and crying stay the same.

“I just wanna see you, I just wanna see you, I wanna see you be brave.”

His body begins to tremor.

“Nothing’s gonna hurt you like your own words do.”

His quiet sobs turns into a single, loud wail, then quickly back into a quiet sob.

“I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire, cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me ROAR. Louder, louder than a lion – Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me ROAR.”

Isaac suddenly rips his face from my shoulder and neck and lets me go. I drop the Kissar from the sudden movement and Isaac grabs my face. He kisses me – hard, with passion, with fire, with need and with relief.