The Moon Can Be Silver or Black

I saw him on the steps coming up into the Center Court. He was abnormal, a fish out of water in this town. From where I was standing, I could tell he was handsome enough. Enough to know that every girl in school would be swooning over the fresh meat for the next two weeks. Soft jaw, tawny hair with streaks of mahogany, a nice straight nose, and a brow that wasn’t too thick. Just thick enough to add a hint of menace, but not a unibrow. He wasn’t a gorilla, let’s just put it that way.
Yeah, I know; if the eyebrows aren’t perfect, there will be no attraction of that type. Just one of my weird pet peeves.
But what really caught my attention was the way the people milled about him. As if there was an invisible force field that warded them away, like a rock in a stream, groups of chattering girls and faux-gangster boys swirled near, but not nearly enough to touch.
I shifted my heavy book bag to my other shoulder, gripped my beloved, ragged binder closer, and moved into the open hall just off the Courts, my stomach twisting anxiously as I dodged the crowds. God, I hate high school.
I’m a nobody; a person that can only come out of her shell and actually be a person with her closest friends. I have plain brown hair, straight as a board and just as boring, other than the blue streaks hidden underneath the first layer, an oval sort of face, and a weird mouth that always is too big or too small.
The only thing I really like about myself physically is my body; my doctor is permanently convinced that I’m a closet anorexic, though. Now, that would be completely impossible for me. If I go more than five hours without food, my brain will complain by feeling like it’s splattering against the inside of my skull. Ouch.
I made it safely to the library. I took a big sigh of relief, and moved towards the back with my reading buddies and all the glorious fiction books.
And why, do you ask, was I so relieved? No, I’m not a genetic experiment that ran away, nor some awesome fantasy creature paranoid about discovery; I wish. Nope, that’s just my natural freak left over from elementary and middle school, when I learned that outside my little bubble of security, life is hell. That the people to be worried about are actually just puny humans, not Dark Lords or Demons, but just average kids on the playground; and, sadly enough, that I cannot just shapeshift into a dragon and fly away from it all. Haha, yes, I really am that lame.
Back to my home away from home, my family away from family. Yep, the book club, and the library. A bunch of people just like me, obsessed with the books and discussing them, banding together in the school library to do homework and argue over whether dragons are really evil, or just get too much bad press. Whether Jacob or Edward is better (by the way, it’s Edward), or how it’s possible for something like the Undead to even exist. Good times, good times.
Today, it was reading day. None of us felt like talking, just getting into our happy place. I didn’t know what to read. The week before, I had found an R.A. Salvatore book. A Star Wars. You may have heard of it; the poor guy got death threats because he was told to kill off Chewbacca in the story, plus, sci-fi is just not his thing.
There was nothing much that caught my eye. At the beginning of the year, I had been introduced to Stephen King by the two Castillo brothers. Right now I was a bit disgusted with him. I had been waiting longingly for the book Misery a good while, and when I finally found it newly checked in, I was pretty disappointed. Not that it was him; I just didn’t want a torture story that ends miserably, I wanted one that at least gave the guy a break. Duh, me. I forgot who was writing. Turns out the guy really did have a happy ending, though. Someone ripped out the last few pages where the guy has a dream about finally finishing his story, then dying.
So now I was just trailing my fingers lightly across the books, title-scanning. A shadow appeared in the corner of my right eye. Another person. I moved closer to the bookshelf to let them go by, but edged to the left as well. They came closer, but slowly. Too slowly for comfort. I didn’t recognize their silhouette, not at all. New kid? Or just someone looking for Accelerated Reader points?
“Um…” Came a teenage boy’s soft voice. Hesitantly I looked to the person’s shoes. Could come off in two ways; one, that I’m just ultra-shy, and two, I want him to go away. For me it was both.
Shoes can also give a good description of one’s character. He had on simple black converse with white rubber. The tops were grass-stained, with words etched in with a very sharp pen. Either that, or he had a lot of time to scratch away at his shoes. Worn shoes, well-loved, with tied laces. Not too petty, not wasteful, but a bit of a perfectionist; none of the laces had a twist in them as they bound together the shoe.
“What?” I asked quietly, trying to blend into the books, look as uninteresting as possible. I couldn’t quite make out the words, or symbols, whatever, on the shoes.
“I was, ah, wondering…” Hah, I was making him uncomfortable. I looked up, and my heart stopped. Oh.
It was the kid from the steps.
Well, he wasn’t as scary any more. He looked confused, probably by my weird actions, a bit bemused, and maybe put off. And he had pretty eyes. A happy golden color, with specks of amber, circled by earthy brown on the fringes.
“Do you read a lot?” His voice was still quiet.
I shrugged. “Yeah, I like it. They have a lot of good books here, not very new ones, but a good variety. All the classics, the big hits, and even some manga.” A manga sort of guy? You could never tell. “The Anime Club is trying to get all the Fruits Basket manga, and a few others. And the Book Club has been petitioning for a few novels.” Okay, I was now officially talking for the sake of talking.
He turned half-away, then back. “Have any werewolf novels? They’re my friend’s favorite, and he’s a crazy reader.” He grinned, “I want to finally say that yes, I can read a novel, and find a damn interesting one at that.”
I shrugged again. Default reaction. “Blood and Chocolate came in a while ago. That one’s good, even if it is a bit weird. I guess that anything fantasy is going to be weird, though. The Twilight series has werewolves in it, and vampires, and there’s probably some more around here. I’m not that much into werewolves.”
He raised his eyebrows in slight interest. I bet he was wishing he had never asked, by the way he glanced around every few seconds. “Why not? Werewolves aren’t that bad.”
“You can never find many good novels about them. They’re always the enemy, the predator, the monster that everyone hates.”
“And you don’t like that?”
I smiled slightly. His attention was on me, and even though it made me nervous, I liked it. A potential good friend. “No. I think that every creature should get its chance at glory. Or, at least, doesn’t always have to be portrayed as a vicious beast. Werewolves have minds, too, don’t they?” Wow, did I sound sappy and romantic.
He smiled back, “Glad someone agrees with me. Werewolves are my favorite creatures out of the norm. They always seem to get the hate.” He looked thoughtful a minute.
“What would you think if werewolves were real?” He looked carefully disinterested. Probably worried that I would laugh at him for such silly, fanciful question.
Lucky him, I love those types of questions. I never shut up when I get to consider scenarios like that. “I think that would be cool. I mean, being able to turn into something that powerful, and just run. Not always being weak and helpless, but knowing how it feels. And it would be great if you had friends to run with, to be able to have that freedom and people to talk about it with.” I went quiet, but my mind kept on thinking about how living like that, on the edge and wild, would be possible.
He let out a breath, and said, “Wow, you really think about that kind of stuff?”
I bobbed my head. “Yeah, stupid, huh? Once I get an idea, my imagination goes into overdrive.”
He looked thoughtful again. “I don’t think it’s stupid. You’ve got an open mind, even if it’s only in the imagination. Careful, though,” He turned teasing, “Some werewolves don’t care how much you accept them; you’re still human.”
I cocked my head to the side. “You mean I’m too weak to even have a hope of fighting back… or that I’m too dangerous, what with my silver bullets?”
He burst out into a full grin, “Could be either, depending on your personality.”
The bell rang. Darn. And I don’t even have a book. I grabbed one off the shelf that looked interesting. The Joy Luck Club. I turned back to him, said quickly, “Well, see you around, I guess,” and went up to the front desk.
I stuffed my latest find into my bag once it was checked out, and shoved against the heavy metal-and-glass doors of the library. It suddenly lightened, and I fell forward and out of the building. I caught my footing before I fell, clinging to my book bag but dropping the binder.
I reached down for it, but a big hand picked it up first and handed it to me. Surprised, I took it, and thanked the person.
It was that guy again. “I never caught your name.”
“Oh,” I stuttered. Already, the panic of being late was rising, even though the bell had barely rang two minutes ago. “Um, I’m Meara. Meara Black.”
“I’m Riley. See you tomorrow?”
“Ah, sure.” Please don’t make me late, or make me go to a weird place to meet you, I whimpered in the back of my head. Nice or no, he was still kind of scary.
“’Kay,” With that, he walked in the opposite direction up to the science rooms, his plain black backpack looking much lighter than mine.
I scurried away to U.S. History. What had just happened? A guy that liked werewolves had asked me to help him look for a book, and it had come to… me finding an Amy Tan book, and him leaving bookless? Him agreeing to meet me again? Okay, he seemed like a cool guy. Not a pervert, and actually liked that fantasy stuff. And I liked his eyes and shoes, which is an excellent sign.
So I guess my morning was going good.