I put on my normal plaid shirt and sling my backpack over my shoulder. I haven't texted Kira or Scott yet and I'm not planning on it. I'd rather wait to talk to them in person about it. Kira seems to know more, since she has a similar experience every time she takes a photo of herself. The only thing I can tell myself is that it is not the same thing. "Leaving early today?" My dad asks me when I greet him in the kitchen.
"Yeah, gotta help Scott with something." He nods his head and licks his thumb. A pancake mess is strewn around the kitchen and his hands are dripping with syrup.
"Fast food?" He puts two done pancakes on a saucer and offers them up. My dad has always made small versions of my mother's. The ones she made were big and fluffy, and they would soak up so much butter and syrup you'd swear you didn't put any on. But I love the way he tries. How he piles on the toppings anyway and lets himself make the kitchen messy. Mom always destroyed it, every Sunday morning and when we had breakfast for dinner on days that Scott and Melissa came over. I was so small then. Scott and I would put the mini sausages under our top lips and chase each other around, up and down the stairs, while our parents talked. Melissa came over more after Rafael left. My mother supported her on the nights when she couldn't keep herself together. Scott would tag along and we'd stay up all night, sneaking around the house. Building forts was our thing and there wasn't a time when they weren't built in the bathtub. We'd fall asleep sitting up but it was worth the pain.
"Looking forward to your game tonight, kid," dad says before I reach for the door handle.
"Me too, dad."
I remember the moment the house felt different. Mom's sickness became unbearable on the same night. The night we admitted her to the hospital. I flipped through her books lying on the coffee table of the living room, trying to understand the topics. She'd always been interesting in mythology and I'm glad for that. Her collection of books makes my research much easier. "I want to go to Japan so badly, Stiles. It's gorgeous, isn't it?" She pushed the book to me and pointed to a picture of a beautiful, lush garden full of thick plants, towered high with flowers and a plentiful fountain spouting in the middle of it all. It'd been the topic she'd been invested in the most. She kept the books dusty and they'd lay about the house, but she treasured them. "You hear that, sweetie? They're talking," she'd whisper and lean close into me. I tried my hardest to listen, to hear what she was hearing, but it never came to me.
I down the pancakes and a cup of orange juice in the jeep to make sure I have enough energy for the day. The gentleness of the drive puts me back in my living room. "You'll remember all of this for me, right? Since you're so smart," my mother spoke as she handed me a pile of the leather bound encyclopedias. I knew she forgot things often, but I tried not to think about it. I would dismiss it when she'd forget to get me from school and tell Melissa that she probably just got busy when she picked me up along with her own son.
"I'm sure you're right, hon," Melissa would say and drop me off at the Sherriff's station.
"See you tomorrow, buddy," was Scott's speech. It's hard to remember him with a fragile body.
My arms chill when I remember the way her hand tightened on my arm, and the way she used my real name. "Go get your father, baby." She hadn't wanted me to panic, but I did.
"Daddy!" He raced in, still in his Deputy uniform, and grabbed her when her eyes rolled back.
"Claudia, wake up. Help me pull her up." I'd never seen my father cry before then. I'd never heard the shakiness in his voice. It all makes me wish the walls hadn't been freshly painted a week before then. It makes me wish they still had her on them. It took a long time before they even held photos again.
I meet Scott, Kira, and Lydia in the library, where we have an excuse to whisper. "I can't really tell if it's shaped like anything." Kira places two fingers on the screen of her phone and pushes them out, zooming in on the orange aura. "Maybe it's just a light leak or something. It's too bright out to try again."
"You've been feeling fine, right?" Scott looks at the picture over Kira's shoulder.
"Yeah, everything's normal." Well, normal in my standards.
"There's really no sense in asking Deaton, then. There's nothing to work off of." Lydia uses Kira's phone to send the picture to her own phone. Nowadays, it's Lydia or Malia. They are hardly ever in the same room as the other. It gives me equal doses of each, though. In ways, it's easier that way. "Kira, if you give me your camera, I'll take more at the game tonight," Lydia says.
"I'll put it in your locker after lunch. I need it for yearbook." Kira has joined a few clubs at the encouragement of Mr. Yukimura. She's made a few acquaintances but she really only sticks with us.
I have my next class with Lydia and Scott. Textbooks are open around the room but no one is really paying attention. Lydia is scribbling in her notebook as always. She probably already knows all of this. When I lean back in my seat to see what Scott's doing, I receive a quiet text.
A message from Derek Hale reads: Scott sent pic, we'll figure it out. Great, so everyone knows. I just want to play the game tonight and sleep my ass off after. I try to focus on the lessons between memorizing the plays for tonight.
During free period, I help Malia with some homework she's been having trouble with. All signs points to frustration when she tosses her pen down on the desk. "Hey, hey, it's going to be fine. You'll get it. I promise." Malia just stares down at the papers and bites her lip. "How about I do this one for you. And then I'll teach it to you later, when there's less pressure." She stands up and presses her lips to my face, then to my mouth and I know her eyes are turning blue.
"I'll see you tonight. Thank you. Really." Malia and I stand right before the bell rings. I just want to know what we are. When she kisses me, it's like she only kisses me because she likes how it feels. It's almost the same as when she sneaks in my room at night. What I want is confirmation. It's all I'm asking for.
Night pulls in with fog and stars overhead of the playing field. The locker-room is electric with energy like fire. Freshmen to seniors, boys line the lockers with bodies ready to shred the grass and take down our opponents. I strap on my pads and pull the jersey over them. I change from pants to shorts and lace my shoes. "Greenberg! Your jersey's on backwards. Son of a bitch. You'd think after all these years; you'd know how to dress yourself!" Coach tugs Greenberg out of his jersey with difficulty. "Your arms, Greenberg!" When it's finally on Greenberg correctly, Coach proceeds around the room, showing us all his teeth in a vicious grin. Scott, Danny and I prep the freshmen while Coach finishes. "Today is the day we celebrate…our Independence Day!"
Thundering feet pummel the ground along with the ones in the bleachers. Metallic thumping and yelling comes from the crowd. "Twenty-Four!" Lydia and Malia scream, buried beneath too many people. "Eleven! Fifteen!" I spot them. Malia is wearing quilted leather and I notice because I love it on her. Lydia's a trooper, still in heels. But she's put tights on over her once bare legs for the weather. How do I focus on first line when they're in eye-shot?
I feel like Scott must have on his first game after the bite. The terrified feeling that was starting in my stomach has made its way to my throat. Before I know it, the game's begun and Scott's looking to me to send me the ball. "Stilinski! Look alive!" I hear Coach yell from the sidelines. The ball is flying straight towards my net and it's like it slows down for me. The once fast forwarded game is now traveling through thick air. I can see the ball rolling through the path Scott created for it.
I raise my stick.
The pressure of the reception pushes down in the net and I take off. This is not adrenaline. This is my entire body creating a system to search and destroy. "Stiles!" In the corner of my eye, I see Kira stop behind another player. She must feel it.
"Behind," a voice whispers inside my helmet.
It was barely audible through the amplified sound of my breathing and the sweat coating my ears, but I hear it. I turn in time to dodge an attack that would have rendered my shoulder useless. I speed forward and easily put players of the opposing team down in the dirt.
"I don't know." Somehow, Lydia's voice makes it into my helmet, a different kind of loud than the undetectable whisper from earlier.
"Stiles!" Someone's yelling again. Is it Danny? Scott? Maybe my dad? He took a place next to Melissa before the game started but this sounded closer.
I swing.
I see the ball get caught in the goal before I hear a high pitched scream that seems to vibrate; a scream that is not cause by the excitement. It cuts off when my body cracks underneath the weight of six men.