pri (19) ❦

The whispers follow your steps down the school hallways. You hear that something's missing in the hushed cadence of Grandma whispering into the phone's receiver.

You sit on the top of the stairs, hidden in the shadows, knees pulled to your chest as you wonder what weight those soft words carry. What silent statements are being exchanged when looks are shared between your teacher and your guardian at school conferences.

"She has some of the top scores in her class. She's a smart kid," they say, and hesitate. "Just…quiet."

Gran nods, and smiles down at you. A tight-lipped smile, with almost enough reassurance in her eyes to outshine that assessment, that disappointment. Trying to figure out what was wrong. How to fix it.

On the playground, you draw circles in the sand with a stick. The kids take wider circles around you. A large berth to evade that vacant look in your eyes, in case it was contagious.

Maybe it was.

Who knows? Maybe they'd catch it if they got too close.

If one of them touched you, maybe they'd be like you. All empty eyes and unsettling smile.

Or maybe you'd just suck all the life out of them. Maybe—

"Pipsqueak!"

Your head lifts, eyes finding your sun.

There he stands, at the center of everything, with scraped knees and a band-aid across a lightly freckled nose. His hair is in desperate need of a trim, a smudge of dirt on his cheek from roughhousing with the other kids, the ones closer to his age. The ones who Gran encourages him to spend more time with.

So he does. Because if he doesn't, he'll have scheduled playdates. He'll be taken away from you for an afternoon, or a whole day.

Instead, he gives it ten minutes of playtime. You feel listless, floating in empty space, but you wait. You try not to count the seconds in your head until he returns, tugging you gently back into his orbit.

His fingers wiggle out towards you, and your eyes—too expressionless, too empty, too wrong—flash down to his hand, extended to you this whole time.

Waiting for you to drain his life too.

You hesitate.

He catches it, the slight shift of your smaller body away from him, and he frowns. His other hand rests on his knee, leaning towards you, hand thrust right in front of your eyes. He keeps waving it right there each time you try to turn away.

"Pips, c'mon," he encourages, poking you in your round, freckled cheek.

A smile catches on his face when you huff, and your lips feel like they're tugged up by gravity in return. You think about blaming him for using his Evol, but it's not that. It's just him.

Your Caleb, easing that baring of teeth into something softer. Something less wrong.

He'll catch it, you think when you lift your hand. You stop. He'll catch all that wrong if you're not careful.

That's what all the other kids say. They talk about it when you're in the back of the class, not noticing you in the dark, waiting for your sun to return.

Poor Caleb, they say. All that light with the shadow trailing behind. His brilliant galaxy eyes mirrored by the wide, unblinking stare peering around from behind him. Couldn't get rid of her if he tried.

The gentle call of your name has you looking up again to see him crouched in front of you. He's frowning, so you're frowning, because you don't like it when his smile goes away. You don't like it at all when clouds try to make him a bit less bright. You want him to shine, always, and you want to always be the one to see it.

His hand is still there, inches from yours. His fingers are a bit longer; always have been, and always would be.

He could just take yours if he wanted. He could tug you after him, make you play. It's not like you would complain. You would do whatever he wanted.

But your Caleb was always like this. He always wanted you to choose.

And you always wanted to choose him.

He'll catch it.

One day, your golden boy would catch all the darkness curled up inside you.

You hesitate again. Then you look up and oh, no.

Now his eyes are big and wet, the purple shining all glossy like the gazes of those puppies in the sad commercials on TV, the ones that make you run from the living room when they play. It reminds you of something else, something you can't name, and it makes your skin crawl and you hate it.

Seeing it on Caleb was even worse. Too real, too much like that unnameable thing.

It hurt.

Your fingers land in his, and his despair at you not wanting to play with him anymore evaporates like puffy clouds. You relish in the sunshine of his gaze fully focused on you, feeling the warmth of it in your chest when he holds onto you tight, pulling you up after him, and away.

Away from the kids who sneer, the adults who whisper. Away from what you know you should be but can't, have never been able to be.

Each step away, and you feel a bit lighter, a bit warmer. Each time he squeezes your hand and smiles back at you, you feel less wrong.

He'll catch it.

You feel bad, because you feel good. Because he makes you happy, he makes you forget, he makes you normal.

You feel bad, because you know he's taking the darkness from inside your heart to give you his sunlight. You know he'll succumb to that emptiness, that darkness, too.

You don't want him to lose his light.

You just want to be as much a part of him as he's a part of you.

It's not as bad once you're a bit older, a few years down the line.

The feeling is still there, that unnameable yawning chasm in your chest, along with the heart that flutters and struggles to beat.

But you've buried enough of what's unsettling that your smiles aren't all sharp teeth, ready to tear into flesh. Your lips are shut tight to hide them, and the smiles are small, but it's better.

Even better when Caleb's gravity pulled them from you.

Those smiles were real. Those ones had you fighting to keep the points of your teeth hidden, had you smiling wider when he poked and tugged at your cheeks until the points of your canines showed.

He never looked scared. Never looked like he would do anything but offer his own skin to your lips and say, here. Bite down. I'm not afraid.

Caleb never did say it, but you saw it. It was in the gentleness of his gaze, the way his palm always found yours when he walked you home after school.

It was there in the way he pinched your cheeks, poked each freckle to count them instead of counting the stars when you stayed up too late, gazing out his window. So close to your sharp bite, and never flinching.

He would let you bite if you wanted to. He'd let you do it until you had enough, or until you got tired. He wouldn't shake you off, even then.

You knew. He knew you knew.

And you did bite, a few times. It got worse in those years when he started going to a different school than you.

You'd look at the marks left on his hand, and you wouldn't feel bad. He'd look at them too, and wouldn't hide it.

He'd just smile, ruffle your hair, and buy you candy from the corner-store with the money he'd earned with the little jobs he did around the neighborhood. He could do that now (older, bigger, one step ahead), and he'd always spend it on you. For your happiness, for your smile.

You wondered if it was an obligation. You wondered if it was just habit.

But your smile would make him smile, too, and it was so bright. So, so bright, and all for you.

And sometimes you think that maybe, just maybe, he revolves around you too.

Kids don't shun you as much, once you and Caleb are in the same school again. But you're still weird.

Your eyes aren't as wide and empty, but there's something just a little bit off. Practice doesn't quite make perfect after all.

So they still don't really like you—but they don't hate you, at least.

And of course, Caleb does help. Because if he likes you so much, if he truly adores you, then there must be something about you to like.

So some of them try and talk to you. Except you don't really know how to talk. Not to them, not to anybody that's not your Caleb.

You know very well, at this point, you're way too old for this. You've grown too much, your body changing and shaping in the places that tell you that you need to be your own person. You need to stop being his shadow.

Gran said he wouldn't want you to tag along forever.

It made Caleb mad when she said it.

He hid it well, with a smile as charming as ever. But you saw the flash in his eyes, the tension in his jaw. The twitch of his fingers around his fork, holding on too tight.

Anger looked wrong on him, like how a smile used to look wrong on you.

You liked how it looked.

You felt wrong again, for liking it.

You felt worse, knowing that you liked him not just angry, but angry for you.

Like you were really part of the flock. Like he was really made to look after you, to guard you from harm.

To protect you from the wolf, from yourself.

"No one's gonna take me away from you," he tells you when you sneak into his room late that night.

Both your backs rest against the foot of the bed, knees bumping together. Your head finds his shoulder, and his head rests on yours. You always fit like this. Comfortable. Right.

The well-loved apple plushie rests between your arms, his longer fingers idly picking at a small hole worn into the red fabric.

"How do you know?" you ask, and he frowns deeper, brows pulled together.

You like the anger less when you know something you said brought it back.

"I just do," he mutters, and looks back at you. His irritation is gone so fast with one look at you, replaced by a bright smile. "It's gravity, Pipsqueak. We don't gotta worry about it."

Smiling back is a new, happy habit now.

You find that you like it more than the anger, when your smile makes his own just a bit brighter.

You keep growing older, and so does he. You're tall, but he's taller. He's bigger, stronger. Pretty growing up, and even prettier now, in a way that makes your throat tight and your heart hurt, more than it usually does. Different than it usually does.

He's always just a bit ahead of you. Always reaching back with a smile.

When he walks you home after school, on the days he doesn't have practice for some sports team or another, the other girls giggle when he passes them.

Sometimes you want to giggle, too.

When he looks for you after scoring a point in a game, eyes lighting up when he finds you cheering for him in the crowd. Fingers even longer now, rougher, pushing back the hair from his sweaty forehead before waving with a grin.

Your classmates sigh around you, and you feel the same flutter in your heart that they must when you get to be the one who waves back.

One of them leans over to you, daring to steal your attention after Caleb scores another point. You frown when you have to look away from Caleb's searching gaze again, denying you the rush of it meeting yours.

"We're all heading out to the lake this weekend." The girl in your class, whose name you don't even know, smiles at you. Even as she glances towards where you were supposed to be looking right now. "You should totally come!"

"I—"

The buzzer sounds, cutting you off. You frown, glancing around the gym as people start to rise. Caleb must still be on the court, and your gaze cuts through the busy crowd, searching for him as surely as he searches for you.

"Bring Caleb!"

You flinch as the words land next to your ear, a command more than a question, with another giggle that makes your stomach turn.

Why would she want Caleb?

You stand, pushing your way out of the bleachers, following that familiar instinct, that tug of gravity to him.

You find him with all the others pulled into his gravity, helpless but to be drawn to him. His friends slap him on the back in approval of his winning point—the one you'd missed, your nails biting into your palms at the realization.

Girls are there, too. Pretty girls, older than you. They smile up at him, and bat their eyelashes and giggle the way that you want to giggle, and you dig into your palms even tighter.

Why do they all want Caleb?

It's a stupid question, really. Of course they want the sun to shine down on them, to warm their skin, to light up their days.

Your sun.

"Caleb!"

It's selfish to call out to him.

You know it is, when his universe is bigger than yours, when he deserves to explore all it has to offer.

When you know he'll come running right back anyway just at the first call of your voice.

And here he comes. Running, bright-eyed and eager, smile splitting across his face so wide it looks like it hurts.

"Did you see that last one, Pipsqueak?" He asks as he leans down towards you, another clump of sweaty hair falling in front of his eyes.

Surrounded by all that approval, that praise and worship, and he only sought yours.

You smile and push the stubborn strands of hair back from his sunset eyes before he has to.

You realize belatedly, when his lips twitch higher at the brush of your fingertips against his forehead, that he didn't even try to fix it himself. He knew you would.

And then you remember the answer to his question.

You remember you're not the only one circling him. And that maybe you're just the one that he's used to.

Obligation? You remember those questions that used to linger, like the indentation of your teeth in his skin, back when you both were smaller. Habit?

And there it is again: your name, falling softly from his lips. Like he was never meant to say anything else.

No matter what he called you, you'd look. You loved whatever he did call you, whichever nickname he latched onto, the affection that laced through each syllable.

But your actual name, any slight variation of it—that's what always brought you right back, with an inexplicable force that nearly had you crashing into him.

Or wanting to.

Your mouth opens, and closes. You struggle in resisting his gravity, in knowing you were just another speck of cosmic dust floating around in it. Knowing you shouldn't be selfish.

Knowing how selfish you'd always be.

Why did they all want your Caleb?

"Hey." There's a gentle tug on your chin when your gaze wanders again, callused thumb turning your face back to him. Clouds cover the rays of sun in his gaze again. Because of you. He'd catch your wrong. He'd lose his light. "What's up?"

You suck in a breath, feel it piercing your lungs, and the words rushing out feel like knives in your tongue.

"Want to go to the lake this weekend?"

You hated the lake.

Watching as they all flock to him, tugging his precious attention away every time it barely started to drift back to you.

You hated this.

They laugh at something he said, and he smiles at them.

You hated them.

In one of the longer lulls where he can't glance back at you—somebody clinging to his arm and taking all the attention that was your birthright, with another two giggling—you sulk off to the little public bathroom nearby. You pull your legs up on the closed toilet seat in the stall, staring at the graffiti on the door, words spelling out crushes and curses alike.

They all had crushes on Caleb, didn't they?

And you—

"Did you see that look in her eyes?" Laughter between a couple girls echoes into the empty bathroom with the bang of the opening door, and you hug your legs tighter. "It's scary."

"Haven't you heard about when she was younger?" You watch their shadows pass on the ground, stopping at the sinks. "She's always looked like that, but it used to be worse."

"Worse?" A sharp laugh, and your skin crawls, because you know. You know what they laugh about. You've always known. "How could it be worse?"

"She looked soulless. And when she smiled, she just showed her teeth—like this!" More laughter, and you hug your knees tighter. Nails digging into your skin, chills down your spine. "We thought she'd bite us."

"Did she?"

"No, but Jake said she bit Caleb."

"What?"

"I mean, we don't know if she did. But he saw the marks once."

"Ugh, poor Caleb." You don't like how they say his name. Don't like how they draw it out, how they sigh the string of letters meant for your mouth. "He's stuck with her. Couldn't get rid of her if he wants to."

You feel it again.

"Do you think he wants to?"

Laughter echoes.

You feel the wrong under your skin, thrumming. Coiling. Aching.

He's your Caleb.

"Wouldn't you? She's like a ghost! God, could you imagine living with that?"

He's your Caleb.

"Oh, man! Waking up in the middle of the night and seeing her in the mirror—"

Your feet slap against the floor, the world burning too bright when you slam the stall door open.

The screams that echo when you glower into the reflection they're vainly gazing into is far too satisfying.

They stare, petrified, as you walk up between them to wash your hands.

It doesn't make you feel better. Doesn't wash away the feeling of wanting to rip their throats out any less.

You shake the water off your fingers, feeling the points of your teeth grate together when they yelp and jump back at the flying droplets.

You don't remember walking out. You don't remember how far you got from the lake before he was there; arms around you, voice urging next to your ear.

"Pipsqueak?" You don't stop moving, not even at the press of his warm palm against your heated cheek. He pokes gently at the freckles that didn't fade as much as his, the ones he used to count like stars. "Pips, hey. Hey. Slow down."

You do, because he doesn't make you. Because he always gives you the choice.

Is it because he's always known what your choice will be?

Your head shakes.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if he knows. It couldn't change the truth that he's your world, that he's all you've ever wanted.

Your hand isn't even halfway reaching for him when he's already taken it.

"Let's go home, yeah?" Caleb murmurs, brows knit together in concern. It warms that hollow feeling in your chest, and you sink into it.

It's only when you nod that you feel the streak of tears dripping off your chin.

What you hate most about the lake is how it changes things.

How it changes you.

Suddenly you're much too aware of Caleb's place in the universe. How he has wings untested, never stretched to fly, because he's stuck on the ground with you.

You are selfish, and he lets you be. He loves you so much that he lets you take and take, and you love him so much that you don't want to. You don't want to be that selfish. Not anymore, not when he can have everything.

So you try to grow some distance between you, even as it tears you apart.

It's easier when he graduates high school. Easier to tell yourself he's got that whole wide world, that he deserves for it to all be all his.

Easier to realize you were a wolf in sheep's clothing, clinging to the loyal dog that tended to the flock.

You learn better, how to pretend to be normal. You get so good at smiles and burying the thrumming and aching so deep below your skin that you start to feel normal.

The wolf still adores what it cannot be, what it cannot have. You still adore your Caleb. Still bask in the sun when it returns home.

You still have your moments when you want to sink your teeth in until he stays, until he forgets about ever leaving again.

But you get better at being better.

Or just better at pretending, you think whenever you feel his absence again. Readjusting to it, aching with it so deeply that you think you might die.

Eventually, you're so good at what you've become that you start to really believe it.

You get your own life, you make your own friends. There's a dream you've always had stirrings of, one you start to believe in.

You throw yourself into college, then a career, and you find purpose within it until you're circling farther and farther out of his orbit. Until you feel like you're finally what they've all always wanted you to be.

And your Caleb flies higher, and higher, until he doesn't come home.

Until you realize he wasn't the sun, but had gotten so close to it that he came crashing and burning back down.

Darkness returns.

It is all you know.

And when he comes crashing back into your own orbit, he doesn't bring the light back with him.

There's a look in his eyes that you don't recognize. The face you had memorized like the back of your hand twists in ways that make your heart stutter, make your mind spin, your stomach turn.

He says the things you used to feel, things that you realize you still feel. It's easier to accept, when your obsession and desperation are reflected back at you. When it's even darker and hungrier in him than it had ever been in you.

You sink deeper into it. You sink your teeth into that longing, drunk off every taste you get of being his center of gravity.

You don't know what's changed, exactly.

You don't even know if anything had changed at all. The longer you circle each other, the more times you come dangerously close to crashing together. And the more you wonder how it couldn't have always been this way.

And it's addictive, when you finally fall apart, to fall back together.

The touch of his lips against your aching skin; the sweet, desperate call of your name from them.

To sink your teeth into your entire world; to feel him do the same to his.

To feel him be the same. To know you had always been the same.

One night, tangled up in the sheets and in him, you hear his quiet whisper of confession. One of many sins committed in your name, finally revealed into the dark.

"Remember when you had just started high school?" Caleb's fingers trail up and down your spine with the words, tracing each notch, reverent in how it made you. "And that kid asked you out as a prank?"

You rifle through your memories, thoughts sluggish under the warm comfort of his touch.

"Mm," you hum in acknowledgment when you've found the mental image. "I didn't know you had come up behind me until he and his friends ran away. Must've been some glare you sent them, but you were just smiling at me when I turned around."

"Yeah," it's a deep sigh, still husky in the evidence of how you'd come together. His arm wraps around your waist, dull nails gently scratching at your soft skin, and you shiver when they dig in. "I broke his nose."

You freeze, fingers pausing where they trace circles over the rapid beat of his heart through his heated skin. "You...what?"

"It was so easy," he mumbles, voice taking on that new shade of darkness. Emptiness so familiar in yourself that it makes you shiver in pleasure you'd never voice out loud. "All it took was an extra twist of gravity when he tripped during a track meet. Fell forward just a bit too hard, enough for it to snap."

You swallow thickly, wrapping your arms around him tight. Pressing your skin to his until you could never be apart again.

Caleb's eyes meet yours in the night, searching for fear.

He smiles, hesitant; then sinking into relief, adoration, when he never sees it.

Another night beckons another confession. Another moment where gravity bent so easily under his fingertips, just for you. Even if you never knew.

What nearly drives you crazy is that you were never supposed to know. He would've kept himself as your sun forever, leaving you happily oblivious of the black hole he'd created as a buffer around you.

He slowly combs back through your memories. Happy memories with him, overshadowing the things he did in the dark. All in your name, all to protect you.

Sometimes you trace the familiar lines of his face, the crinkle of his eyes when he smiles, and wonder, was it really always there? His darkness always lurking, always lingering, just as sure as yours.

Or perhaps his obsession ran even deeper than yours. Sinking into the marrow of his bones, as crucial to his bloodstream as his love for you, rushing through his veins to keep his heart beating.

Were you truly too dazzled by the radiance of his smile to notice his teeth were as sharp as yours?

What if I told you I was always like this?

Maybe you had just been too blind from gazing into your own sun to see all the darkness the light cast on his own.

Too in love with one side of him to see both, to see that you were never the only wolf hiding among the flock.