Catrina Billowson

When I’d arrived home, my dad wasn’t there. My guess was that he was off, drunk in a bar, like he was every pretty much every day. Great role model for his little girl, especially when her mother was nowhere in sight, nor had any recollection of her after the age of twelve. Since then, all I could remember is the beer in the fridge taking up valuable refrigerator space. Running away sometimes felt the right thing to do, but I would never be able to. Where would I go? Who would I turn to? The rest of my family lived in Florida, and I was all the way on the other side of the US. I was smart enough to actually get a decent job, but I was also too young for most places, and that would prevent me from making a decent living. I’d also never be able to live on my own at fifteen. So what was the freaking point?

I sighed and threw my bag on the couch, shaking the words Harvey said out of my system. I shuffled to the kitchen, pulled the refrigerator door open, and took out the orange juice carton. I didn’t bother putting it in a glass, I swigged it right out of the carton.

The front door slammed open. I ran and peered around the corner, holding a knife I’d grabbed from the kitchen drawer, afraid an intruder had barged in. Is it paranoid to think it was Harvey that had broken in?

“Dad?” I dropped my arm in awe. “What are you doing home? You’re never hear this early.”

He looked at me with sleepy, drunken eyes and said, “I’m done.”

I snorted and slammed the knife onto the counter right next to me, over everyone’s crud. “With what, Dad? Your drinking problem? You’ve tried that before remember? It didn’t work.” My volume was rising. “Last time you said that, you were drunk, just like you are now. Three minutes into it, you grabbed another beer out of the fridge, and sat down to watch Family Guy until two. So if that’s what you’re trying to pull, then don’t even try.”

I flung myself through the kitchen and thrusted into the hall at the back, threw my bedroom door open, stormed inside, slammed the door, and collapsed onto my bed, a few stray tears dribbling down my cheeks to wet the pillow beneath my face. Maybe I was being overdramatic. Teenagers tend to do it at times, I realized then, but I also realized I wasn’t stopping the explosion of emotions raging through my body like a fire. I let it consume me as if I were gasoline.

A few long moments later, my dad cracked the door enough to stick his entire lolling head through. It took him a second to collect himself and pull his scattered, drowning thoughts to the front of his brain. My frustrations grew all-the-more, the room freezing cold with tension.

“Can I… come in?”

I glanced up and glared at him, my one desire for him to stay where he is and not come any closer. Possibly even turn around and walk the other way. My voice comes out as a growl. “No.”

He grunted and stepped inside my room anyway, making himself at home at the end of my bed. I continue to glare at him, sitting up now as I gritted my teeth, biting into every word that floated off my tongue and resonated between my teeth. They must not get out.

“Get out.”

He shook his head. I could see the defeat in his eyes, but I knew it would be gone the moment he sobers up. That’s what alcohol does to you. It’s a depressant, not a stimulant like other drugs. And it is a drug because he has a problem with it.

“You know I can’t quit it without your help, right, Catrina?”

“Yeah, but I won’t be much of help if you don’t have the motivation to help yourself,” I turned slightly, trying not to rest my eyes on him.

He looked at me in disbelief as a stray tear I’d been so carefully holding back jumped ship. I didn’t budge.

He got up and walked to my door, about to step out, when he turned to say something else, the entirety of my being pushing him out and away. He was not my father. Not anymore.

“I love you.”

He lingered there for a moment, the tension making goosebumps rise along my arms as I said nothing, gritting my teeth so hard they began to hurt.

He slammed the door shut on his way out.

I flopped down on my bed and implanted my head into the pillow, slamming my fists into the mattress. I was throwing a tantrum, wasn’t I?

I rolled over to stare at the ceiling.

You can’t just get upset like that… I tell myself.

Eventually I fell asleep, because I was dreaming.

I was in a large forest and it was dark. I was scared, lost, confused, and didn’t know why or how I got there or what I was looking for.

I heard a twig snap.

“Who’s there?” I cried out.

Virulent laughter echoed everywhere around me.

“This isn’t funny!” I yelled. “Who’s there?”

“Hello, Catrina.”

I turned to where I’d heard the voice come from. It looked like Harvey standing there all alone in the darkness in a defensive posture.

“Why are we here?” I asked.

He was at my side circling me faster than my eyes could catch him moving. His red eyes were dark as the day I first saw him.

“Well, I’m here to eat dinner.” He said, still circling me.

“But there’s no place to eat, let alone a… house… or people...” I caught on to his game right when the word ‘house’ came to my mind.

Scared, I started running through the plethora of trees. There was an uprooted tree root I hadn’t seen, and I tripped over it. My shoe was stuck, and I couldn’t get up, so I twisted around onto my back to defend myself if needed.

Harvey was standing above me, a hungry look in his eyes.

Was he really going to eat me?

He bent down towards me, and I covered my face with my hands and screamed, “NO!”

That morning I woke up in a cold sweat.

I looked out my window at the dawn and shuddered.

Time for school.

I got ready and headed to the front door. While on my way past the kitchen, I reached into the box on the counter for a packet of Pop-Tarts and opened the wrapper. I stuffed them into my mouth, as I stepped into the living room where my dad was passed out on the couch with the TV tuned into George Lopez, volume on full blast, and I wondered how I didn’t hear that last night.

My dad murmured something in his sleep and rolled over, snoring. I took the remote out of his hand, turned the television off, and grabbed the blanket that was strewn across the floor. It resembled the surface of a placid pond that had been disturbed by a rock splashing into it as I placed it over my sleeping father.

I swiped my house key off of the entryway table, stuck it in my pocket and stepped out the door. The sun was just starting to reach through the clouds. I grabbed my bike and peddled hard and fast to my school. When I got there, I locked it up and turned towards the front of the building. There, I saw Harvey waiting for me.

I shuddered.

The nightmare was still fresh in my mind.

He was leaning up against the front wall, his eyes trained on my every movement. He was waiting for me.

I wiped the sweat from my brow, and as I walked up he said to me, “So have you decided to join my new world, Catrina?”

When I didn’t say anything and tried to keep walking, he went on, “It’s more glorious than you could ever imagine.”

I didn’t see any fangs.

“What’s so great about it? Do you drink other people’s blood?” I said partially as a joke, shivering again as the dream boiled in my mind. The second half of me meant it as a jab toward him. Maybe if he saw I didn’t like who he’d become, he’d leave me alone.

It seemed like he caught my drift.

The second reasoning’s drift, anyhow.

“I’m trying to do something nice for you,” he growled, pinning me against the wall with his long and slender hand, his eyes flaring a bright red. My heart leaped in my chest and my stomach dropped. He was dangerous, and… could it be—not of this world? “And you just come over here and insult me?”

The warning bell rang.

“I’ve got to get to class,” I said quickly, ducking below his arms and clutching the straps of my backpack with dear life as I walked away as fast as I could.

In homeroom we were always talkative, and Mrs. Callaway didn’t mind at all. But this morning, she told us to quiet down almost immediately after the tardy bell rang. In the silence, I swore every person with ears could hear my heart as it slowly decrescendoed in my chest. I took a long, deep breath, focusing my thoughts on whatever news my teacher was about to place on our shoulders. Hopefully not a self-reflection survey or whatever crud homeroom teachers give to the students to get more in-touch with them and figure out who needs psychiatric help.

I am a ray of beaming sunshine when it comes to pessimism, aren’t I?

“We have a new student joining us in homeroom today, and for the rest of the year. This is Koby Smith.”

A boy walked to the front of the class, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. He was so handsome… His face distracted me from whatever it was the teacher was saying. She was drowned out as he took up the space I’d been pushing Harvey out of for the past ten minutes. I could actually feel the words Harvey who? slinking up my throat like an inchworm.

He had short, spiky blonde hair, tan skin, and he was very muscular. Not as much as Harvey had, but it was enough to make the girls drool. Or at least me. He had deep, green eyes, and he had a shy smile. He wore a long-sleeved red Hollister shirt over a pair of black cargo pants. Ah, cargo pants. The only negative thing about him.

“Koby is from Germany. It’s a part of Europe, which is where the Werewolf legends grew from in the seventeenth century,” she looked at him with hopefulness. ”It’s actually said that when a Werewolf either bites or scratches a human, that human will also become a Werewolf. But if the Werewolf kills the human it bit, it is said that if you cut the flesh of the corpse, you will see fur under the layer of skin. Another saying is that you can turn into a Werewolf by the removal of clothes, and a wolf-skin belt around the waist.”

The class snickered at this bit, their minds dipping into places they should stay away from.

“Also, there is another one that they can turn into a Werewolf by night, when the full moon lights up the man’s or woman’s face.”

Koby smiled a half-smile as his face turned somewhat red. I noticed other girls sighing and giggling at the sight of him, and a lick of fire provoked by jealousy ignites inside me. Quickly, I smother it.

“Tell us about yourself,” Mrs. Callaway smiled.

“Uh,” he said, and I could already hear the slight German accent slipping off his tongue. He shall be mine and we shall be wed. Just kidding. I got too indulged into my boycrazy thoughts. Not that I was boycrazy…

“I like to write and tell stories.”

It wasn’t as thick as I’d hoped. But it would do.

“Now, would you please take a seat next to…” she thought, then finished. “Catrina? Catrina, raise your hand, please.”

I did so, quickly and awkwardly, and he nodded, moseying on over sat down in the seat next to me. The air pushed the smell of his cologne to me.

“Hey, I’m Catrina,” I said politely, my hand shaking as I held it out. What in the world was I thinking? People don’t shake hands.

“Well, you already know my name,” he said to me and laughed, taking my hands and shaking it. I smiled with him, positive he could feel my pulse as my face grew hot.

“What made you move here?” I asked in wonder, disgust at the thought of this place in comparison to Germany.

His expression shifted, a slight intensity of sadness seeping through. “They kicked me out.”

I laughed.

Until I noticed the seriousness lingering in the air between us.

“Oh! You weren’t joking!” I gasped. “Why did they kick you out? I didn’t know countries could do that.”

“No, I wasn’t joking,” he responded quietly. “Complications. Complications are why they kicked me out.”

I nodded and didn’t say anything further.

“So, why did Mrs.…?”

“Callaway,” I said quickly.

“Mrs. Callaway,” he said, correcting himself, “get so carried away with her speech about werewolves?”

I sighed. Here we go.

“We’re doing this group assignment thing. We have to pick one mythical creature. You know, Mermaids, Vampires, Kelpies, Unicorns, along that road. One of the groups had Werewolves, and that particular group only has one person, and they have to find out everything they can about lichens before Friday.”

“Are you that ‘particular group’?” he asked, a smile playing on his lips.

“Yeah,” I laughed.

“Maybe I could help you,” Koby said to me, flashing a big toothy grin my way.

“I don’t know if Mrs. Callaway’ll let you…”

“Well,” he said, heaving himself off his seat. He leaned close to my face and said, “We’ll just have to ask and find out, won’t we now?”

“But I don’t know if you have my class or not, I—”

I stopped talking, realizing that he wasn’t going to listen to me. I watched as he talked with Mrs. Callaway at her desk, his back towards me. The look he had given me replays in my head, making my fingers tingle. His eyes… were mesmerizing.

I sighed and looked down at the desk as I felt my face turn red. Trying to distract myself, I focused my eyes on a pen mark that had bled onto the wooden desk top. I unsuccessfully tried erasing it with my eraser, and, since it wasn’t working the least bit, I finally gave up. My mind wandered to a dark, depressing place where Koby would friendzone me and choose one of the hot girls in our school to date as I would fall deeper and deeper in love with him, to the point of no return.

Like I said, ray of sunshine.

Finally, Koby came over and sat down with a large grin on his face. “Well, she said yes.”

Of course she did. She would’ve said yes to any lichen-knowing or knowing-so-much-about-a-Werewolf person, plus he was new. So of course she did.

Hah. That’s probably why she sat him next to me. He’s from a place where werewolves originated.

You ain’t slick, Mrs. Callaway.

“Cool, then. But what class do you have her?” I asked curiously.

“Fourth period, same as you,” and when I looked at him weird, he covered it with a “She told me you were in it,” and laughed.

Of course you are.

“Okay, so tell me all you know about werewolves.” I said as I took out a pen and my notebook covered in drawings of the wolves. For research purposes.

“Can I tell you a story about one instead?” He shifted uncomfortably. “A recent one that was heard of a few weeks ago.”

I shrugged. “People still believe in that stuff, huh?” I said as I scribbled it down on my piece of paper.

He nodded.

“Okay, shoot,” I told him, ready to copy everything down he was about to say.

In hopes I could understand it all with his accent.

You wouldn’t be able to hear it, but I was frustratedly sighing internally.