Delusions of Grandeur

Preface -

Anything worth having is worth the fight.  And anything worth the fight is going to hurt sometimes.  Yet, without the fight and the pain, we can never truly appreciate happiness.

There are so many stories out there.  You’ve probably heard some of them before.  Werewolves, vampires, shape shifters, ghosts and the boogieman; all the stories of myth.  But, what if they aren’t myths?  What if these beings walk among us?  What if you could really see past the facades of the strangers walking past us or those of our closest confidantes?

Sometimes it’s easier to remain unknowing.  When life evolves before your very eyes, and becomes something you never imagined, coupled with an existence that has delved far into a black hole of nothingness; well, it brings one word to mind.  Nevertheless, fair is not a word I think should be attributed to life … ever.  It doesn’t mean I’m bitter.  I’m not.  And, believe me; my life has turned out far beyond what I ever could have dreamed.    Maybe pain and heartache is what makes us who we are and maybe I accept and even embrace that.  Still, fair would never be a word I’d use. 

As I said, there are many stories out there.  Some are scary, some are creepy and some … some are dangerous.

Here is mine.

I was a normal girl.  Nothing exciting.  I went to school at the university in my hometown.  But, I wasn’t one of those girls who’d never left home.  I’d lived around the country and wanted to be where my family was.  I was married and at 25 probably far too young to have just passed our third anniversary.  But, I had been ready for it.  Ready to settle down, have a family, be all domestic.  I thought I was happy.  Well, maybe not happy, but definitely content.  Content to go about my life, never looking too closely.  Always trying to make life better, pushing disappointments and hurt far away so that I could focus on; something other than the things that weren’t quite perfect.

I found myself blinded to what was happening to my life, to me.  Finally learning that I caused that blindness, with no one but myself to blame, was the moment I found myself at a crossroad.  That place where turning left or right means the difference between night and day.  However, sometimes there is a third option and sometimes deciding which way to go isn’t as easy as simply choosing left or right.  There isn’t always a map and when the lights were off, a map wouldn’t help anyway.

My life was dark.  The ability to see or feel had been nearly lost to me.  That is, until the day my wolf found me. It was unexpected to be touched in the dark, much less to have the awareness somewhere inside me that this soul knew mine. The light was so blinding. For a long time, I, again, was unable to see.

Chapter 1 -

I knew almost immediately that he was something … different. Maybe because he shifted right in front of me. Yes, that was probably what tipped me off. I was probably dreaming, tucked safely in my bed, most likely drooling a bit, over the vision that sat across from me. Keep telling yourself that, I thought.

“Are you cold,” his very normal voice asked me.

“Cold? No, I’m not cold.”

“I guess it’s normal to be shaking after that,” he said. His deep brown eyes were searching my face. I could feel it; I just couldn’t look up yet.

We were sitting in one of those all night coffee shops that typically thrived near universities. My guess was that it was quiet enough to talk, but that there were enough people to keep me, hopefully, from causing a scene.  The scent of coffee wafted up my nose and, I swear, nearly strangled me.  I’m sure it was the coffee smell and not some crazy hysterics that were reaching up to choke me.

I finally looked up, “what just …” I couldn’t finish the question.

Should I be surprised that he just chuckled? If he wasn’t safe, then why was I sitting here … alive?
A couple who had been sitting at a booth in the corner got up from their table.  She giggled and slid her arm through his.  He looked down at her and then whispered something else before she did it again … she giggled.  I supposed I shouldn’t have expected much else at two in the morning.  I just wouldn’t have expected it to be some bookworm-looking girl with mousey brown hair and dark glasses shoved high up on her nose.  The guy looked slightly familiar and was definitely a football player.  She was probably tutoring him and now he was returning the favor.
My eyes shot open and I returned my gaze quickly to my cup of coffee.  Where did that come from?!
He wiped his large hand down his face, “I’m in a bit of shock myself.”

“That’s never happened before?” He seemed calm enough, could he be as near to hysterics as I was?  I changed my mind and decided to look at him.  He wasn’t looking at me for the moment, so I felt safe enough to really see him.  His skin was definitely too dark for Minnesota in March and there was this odd look to it.  While it had the rough look of someone used to working, there was something almost soft about it.  There was some itch in my fingers to reach up and see if his skin felt as strong, yet soft to my hands.  Fortunately, it didn’t take much to keep my hands fisted in my lap. 
His hair, too, seemed a little different.  It was dark, but in this horrifying florescent lighting, I was sure I wasn’t seeing the true color.  Something just seemed a little set apart from what was expected.  I just knew, however, that it felt silky.  I didn’t want to analyze right now why I thought that.

“Yes and no. Yes, I’ve shifted before. But, I’ve never shifted in front of someone who didn’t know. I don’t know why I did it. I mean, I could’ve helped you without it, but something just,” he broke off and took a deep breath, “something just came over me and I felt the shiver before I could stop.”

A giggle escaped my lips and I clapped my hands over my mouth before it turned into a scene, complete with sobbing. I had nearly forgotten about the events that led up to this insanity.  I closed my eyes tightly.

Why I had to take the evening psychology class, I was now debating. More than that, it had been stupid to stay behind working on a paper that wasn’t due for weeks. When I realized the time, well after midnight, the parking lot was near to vacant. I didn’t live on the campus, so my car wasn’t in the full lots near the dorms. I was too comfortable in my surroundings. Too complacent that bad things didn’t go bump in the night, at least not here.

The hairs on the back of my neck knew, though. Footsteps quietly registered in my mind. I was a good fifty feet away from my car and knew I wouldn’t make it.

Turning, I saw something that may not be the monsters that keep little children terrified of their closets or the empty floor beneath their bed, but what does terrify women, walking alone in the dead of night. Two guys were walking toward me. It was obvious in their stride that they had been drinking, though, it sure wasn’t hindering them from moving faster than I could with my mountain of books and laptop bag.

As I thought back, it was odd that bits of the night weren’t registering. I didn’t remember them getting any closer than that, but the feeling of the ground beneath me was something I remembered. One grabbed my arms as the other grabbed at my shirt. Their voices were lost to me, but I could still feel their hands on me and smell their breath.

And then there was another one. He was bigger than both and my fear escalated. I’d wondered if they were holding me for him. I could feel the blood rushing back to my arms and legs when both were suddenly … gone. I watched as the newcomer started to ripple and shiver. My attackers were obviously ridiculously angry to have been torn from their prey and began to circle my rescuer. I wanted to yell to him. But, I realized I couldn’t move as I stared.

His clothes tore from his body and I had a brief glimpse of the muscles in his back, the line of his spine sloping down to a ridiculously firm ass. By the time my eyes traveled to his legs, everything was moving well past my realm of understanding. Before I knew it, there were no longer three men standing near me. There were two, drunk idiots who had suddenly stopped circling … because they were now circling a dog, no a wolf. A wolf the size of a horse.

“More coffee?”

I jumped and nearly knocked over the waitress refilling our cups.

That warm chuckle drifted quietly again. I couldn’t help but meet his gaze this time with a glare of my own, though, I bit my lip to keep quiet until the waitress had moved on.

“I find nothing funny about this. I was … attacked,” before I could say more, my cell phone rang. Once again I jumped and looked at briefly before grimacing and answering it. “Hi. No, I’m fine. I’ll be home soon.”

I’m fine? Why did I just say that as though nothing had happened? I shook my head trying to clear it.

“Your parents?” I shook my head. “Roommate?” I could see that some strain had worked its way across his features.

I didn’t know why, but I felt nervous to tell this stranger anything about the phone call. Stranger, I didn’t even know his name! I looked at his face. Up until the last few moments, he had seemed impossible to ruffle. It seemed as though nothing was serious to him, not even the fact that he’d obviously just shown off his amazing ability.

A feral growl ripped from his throat, “who called you?”

“My husband. I’m actually surprised he noticed I wasn’t home,” I shrugged lightly, “it isn’t odd for me to stay late after class and he isn’t the worrying type.”

He stood. He had to be near seven feet tall! He moved slowly as though he was fighting very hard to move his muscles. “You are married.” It wasn’t a question and I couldn’t figure out why he sounded so odd. I didn’t speak, just nodded my head.

“Don’t stay late after class anymore.”

I started to respond, but he stalked out of the coffee shop without even a wave. The door, thank goodness it wasn’t glass, rattled on its frame as he left. Every eye had been on him as he left and then those same eyes snapped back to me when the door slammed shut after him.

I shrugged and said, as though I actually knew him, “he’s got a temper.”

I sat there for a long time, thinking. What had happened? Why was the attack fading in my memory, replaced by the … wolf? At first my thoughts were about our very brief conversation, but quickly they turned back to the parking lot.

The two boys, as I now thought of them, looked as though heart palpitations were in there immediate, if not present future. They finally came somewhat to their senses and began slowly backing away until they were out of sight.

My wolf … no, not my wolf, the wolf, padded quietly away, back toward my car. I sat for a moment composing myself before I heard the sound of footsteps again. A scream bubbled up, before I realized it was the third man. I shook my head, blinking hard. Maybe I’d hit my head. And it would be like me to picture this amazing, gorgeous and perfectly naked man standing in front of me.

He smiled slowly, “I can’t leave you here, but my clothes,” he nodded to wear there was a pile of shredded material. “I have some nearby, do you mind?” He reached for me as though to lift me up. I was stunned for a moment and then realized that I was either dreaming or possibly near death. Maybe this was my transportation to the other side.

“By all means,” I half laughed. I wondered if it only sounded slightly hysterical to my ears alone.

He moved so fast. I’m not a slight girl by any stretch of the imagination and he acted as though he were carrying nothing more than a pillow. I could do nothing but hold on. How could I not? Not only was I terrified he’d drop me on my ass, but his skin was so smooth and I could feel the muscles moving beneath. I couldn’t forget, not for a second that he was completely naked. The image I’d seen right before he’d shifted was burned in my mind. Who could blame my mind for attempting to fill the blanks, the back of him had been breathtaking … could the front of him be any less spectacular? My mind said no!
And his smell.  Oh. My. God.  I had that ridiculous teenage girl giggle rolling up from my stomach which mixed somewhere before it hit my mouth with a sigh.  He smelled like a man.  Not like a nasty, single guy smell, but a woodsy, musky scent that wasn’t from a bottle. 

“Miss, are you okay, is there anything I can get you?” It was the same waitress as before, well, she seemed to be the only waitress at this hour. I looked at my watch, wiped at the drool and decided it was way past time for me to leave.

“No, thanks, I need to be on my way,” I smiled, though it felt brittle. The reminder that I was sitting here alone flashed with an unexpected stab of pain. Why had he left like that? I couldn’t imagine the answer.

There was no denying the fact that I was now a little scared to be walking out into the night. The night was no longer as dark, though, which helped as I quickly slipped my key into the lock, making sure I hit the button to lock the doors as soon as I was inside. I drove quickly down the road, heading for the apartment building I had lived in for the past two years with my husband. We lived close to campus, so the drive was short.

I debated for a moment as I sat in the parking lot before punching in the number to my husband’s cell phone. “What?” I’d obviously woke him.

“Can you come down and walk me in? I’m feeling a little nervous,” I said quietly.

“If you want to stay out this late, then you can be a big girl and walk the twenty feet in the dark to the building,” he said before I heard the line go dead. Well, that wasn’t a big surprise.

I looked around and quickly jumped out of my car, leaving all of my things behind. I jumped at a sound I couldn’t, but maybe should’ve, believed I was hearing. It was the most heart-wrenching howl I’d ever heard. I shivered and started walking quickly toward the building. I stopped, my mind reeling as I looked up toward the slowly lightening sky. No moon. I knew that. There would be no moon tonight.

So, what was he, I wondered, as the howl rent the quiet night one last time before I slipped into the silent apartment.

Chapter 2 -

My excuse was always that I didn’t want to wake him when I came in late, but for some reason I’d finally begun to see what lay behind that. The room was dark, though I could imagine it easily in my mind’s eye. The curtains were a pale white with faint roses scattered lightly at the top and growing heavier toward the bottom. The walls remained white, but I’d tried to minimize that with two large pieces of artwork that a friend had drawn in her skillful hand. The patterns were bold, yet somehow kept a feminine feel with whimsical lines swirling along the edges. The thick comforter matched the curtains, as did the small pillow resting on the dark red reading chair. It was all in my distinct taste. My husband rarely entered this room and while I’d originally planned it as a guest room, it had become mine with increasing frequency.

It may have been subconsciously, but I’d decorated this room and furnished it as though it were mine rather than for the non-existent visitors. This room was my sanctuary; my escape.

Not because of arguments or anger. Pillows and blankets were never thrown into another room followed by heated shouts of “sleep on the couch”. Passion would be required for that. It was a shock to realize there was bitterness lying beneath the calm façade … something I was only now seeing as fake.

I sat up in the bed and hugged my knees close to my chest. When had I become merely a smoke screen for what I had once been? It had happened; I was confident in that now. There was nothing left of the girl I‘d been two years ago. I searched and searched my mind trying to find her.

What had I done before? Before I’d met this man, where did I spend my time? I rubbed my hand over my face and looked at the ceiling. It was blank, stark. It was hard in this frame of mind to be sidetracked by the pretty decorations. What I saw was plain and boring white bleeding into white, interrupted by mere distractions.

This was my life … void and filled with a vast nothingness with the rare bauble attempting to move the viewers attention from what was really beneath. The reasoning behind this still eluded me. I had never expected anything phenomenal to happen after marriage, but I had expected happiness. Big bbq’s with friends, family dinners every Sunday, babies, and was it so wrong to have hoped for butterflies? Well, maybe not butterflies. Those shouldn’t be expected if they had never made even a single appearance.

I rubbed my eyes. They felt gritty and I had the heady feeling that crept up from a lack of sleep. Sleep. How easy it would be to just close my eyes and forget the angst that had crept up.

Ha! Forget. It actually made that anxious giggle bubble up again. It was apparent to me that this peculiar ache was not going to simply fade into the background because I fell asleep. It was like when you realized your favorite sweater had a string hanging from the hem. You knew that pulling it would screw the whole damn thing up, but the compulsion to fidget with the string was so strong that you realize an hour later that not only had you continued to fidget with the string, but that the entire hem in the front was open and beginning already to fray. Once it reached that point you could attempt to fix it, but it would never be exactly the same. You could never exactly match up the machine-produced stitching and it would forever be obvious, to you at least, that your favorite sweater was now broken and would always be so.

That inside part of me, the part that had gone missing - when, I couldn’t be sure - would never be the same. Irrevocably changed. I would never be able to match up the ends. And I would never be able to ignore it. The biggest problem I could see right now was that I had no idea where the hole exactly was, what had caused it or how long it had been there. How could I fix it if I couldn’t answer these questions?

Well, I wasn’t a complete imbecile. It had something to do with my marriage. I had no doubt of that, but it brought me no closer to answering those three questions. Just because the general category of pain-induction was this relationship, it didn’t pinpoint anything further. I mean, I didn’t take my vows or have a ring slipped onto my finger and then lose some fundamental piece of my being. There was something in it that gradually ate away at me, something that either came laced with a painkiller or was in and of itself fairly painless.

The desire to figure this out became a pulsing desire. I pulled the covers back, hopped out of bed and flipped on the light. Grabbing a notebook and a pen, I curled up on the chair and pulled back the curtain. I was a list maker. The trait had to help me now, didn’t it?

I had never been a social butterfly, but I did have friends at one time. I had friends now, I supposed, but they were the very superficial friends that are often made when the only commonality is being married. There weren’t all of those deep conversations that were often prompted by too much coffee, too little sleep and some seemingly important event like heartbreak.

It seemed distant now, but I could remember sitting with a friend or two and discussing some life issue that seemed so important that we were up through the night, finally curling up all together because we were too tired to move. There were those moments where you knew that someone else not only understood you, but really saw the person you were deep down. I guess those relationships were supposed to be trumped by that of two people spending their lives together.

So, where did I fall in all of this? Where had I gone wrong and how on earth could it all be fixed? I balanced, wavering back on forth, on the precipice between faith that I could fix this and despair that it was far too late.

I spent far more time staring out the window allowing my thoughts to run wild, than I did writing. But, it wasn’t because I was procrastinating or that I didn’t want to make this list of friends, interests and free time pre and post marriage. It was simply because I couldn’t quite remember much. I tried to let my mind lead me which didn’t seem to be working well. It was, however, becoming painstakingly clear that I could have been in a coma for the past two years and my list wouldn’t have changed much.

I watched as the night sky gave way to the morning light. It faded as I watched. That faint blueness creeping across the horizon as the sun worked its way upwards, pushing back the blackness of a moonless sky. It had once seemed such a natural occurrence, but now I couldn’t help but wonder if there was much effort expelled to change from one extreme to the other; was it always so painful to let the light in?


***********

The weeks went by and the semester neared its end. That night was never far from my thoughts. In fact, it seemed to repeat itself over and over. Sleep, something that I’d once relished, once thought would dissolve the quiet desperation, was no longer my friend and ally. It now evaded me with swift determination and constant victory. The only thing I knew was that it was long past time for changes. There was no point to living if there was nothing to live for.

It didn’t take long for me to admit that the relationship I had with the man sleeping in my bed was not the relationship I’d expected or wanted. I was sure that he felt the same, though we never talked about it. How could anyone be happy this way? So, I resolved to repair it and return it to something closer to what I’d thought it was. I made myself, once again, available to him and tried to be the wife I knew he wanted and thought I could be.

He left for work long before my classes started, but I pulled myself out of my sleep-deprived stupor when he woke at five in the morning. Coffee was made and I’d run out for a paper. I kept meaning to call and order a subscription, but for some reason it always slipped my mind until morning rolled around. I grabbed a cup of coffee for myself and curled up on the couch, waiting until he finished his shower. The paper rarely held my attention, but I skimmed over the front page stories.

“Morning, you’re up early,” he said as he walked past me. It was starting to grate on my nerves that he said the same thing every morning, as though it were the first time. He filled his travel mug with coffee and lifted his briefcase. “Finished?” I handed him the paper, trying to smile, “all yours.”

“See ya tonight,” he mumbled through a mouthful of toast, I’d left for him next to the coffee pot.

I started to get up, but he was already waving and out the door.

This, I finally admitted to myself, was my life.