Page 79 of Such Sharp Teeth

She won’t look at me. She’s still just staring at the ceiling.

“You lied to me and now my life is over.”

“Aurora,” Mom says. “Please.”

“Fine,” I say. “I’m leaving.”

I pass Matty on my way out. He’s talking to Seth, who sees me but doesn’t wave. His eyes are dark, his brow furrowed. I listen. I don’t need to be close to hear what they’re saying.

“She’s crazy, man,” Matty says. Me. He’s talking about me.

“She can be aggressive,” Seth says. “She can be intense sometimes.”

I force myself out to the parking lot before I really lose it.

I drive around for a while. I don’t want to go back to Scarlett’s. I don’t really want to be anywhere. I pass the high school and see that the field lights are on. There’s a track there that I used to run on weekends. I pull in and get out of the car. I slide out of my leather mules and walk barefoot across the cold, cracked pavement. I start running the track, my legs alive beneath me, moving in a new way. The wind whips my hair back. I cut through the night like a knife.

I can see everything. My peripheral vision has expanded. My hearing. Smell, taste. It’s all intensified. Someone smoked weed here earlier today. They had on brand-new sneakers. Axe body spray. There are leaves decaying. Dog shit. Dead birds. There’s a collection of expired milk cartons in the fridge in the cafeteria. Someone left a turkey sandwich in their locker. It’s got Dijon mustard and tomatoes.

In the houses nearby, everyone’s getting ready for bed. I hear running water, the foaming of toothpaste, the swish of brushes. Heartbeats slowing. Bedtime stories.

I see lights going out in first-story windows. I see the wind journeying through the trees, leaves abandoning their branches. Stars burning. Airplanes blinking.

I run and run. It doesn’t matter how fast I’m going, which I know is fast, animal fast, my senses are not dulled by the speed. My pace amplifies everything. There’s no outrunning any of it. Not my senses. Not my feelings. Not myself.

The werewolf thing only enhances all the parts of me that were already broken and wrong. It’s trapped me with the worst of myself. It’s my reckoning.

I crave destruction, desire consequence. I want to rip the world apart, limb from limb, and now I can. Before, it was an urge, one I could quiet and conceal. One I could hide behind a slick facade. It’s not an urge anymore. It’s a need.

I drop down on all fours and go.

—

When I get home, I wash my hands and feet in the tub. I cut my dagger nails. Then I open my laptop and Google “werewolf cure.” I scroll through weird subreddits and random blogs, read about plasma therapy, about wolfsbane. I oscillate between moments of hope and devastation, between grim acceptance and righteous fury. I breathe through the moments of wanting to smash my laptop and scream at the top of my lungs. I breathe.

It’s eleven twenty-eight p.m. and I’m starving. I go downstairs and find the fridge empty of meat.

I decide to venture out to the 7-Eleven in hope they have hot dogs.

They do.

“Hi,” I say to the clerk. “Can I have all the hot dogs?”

There’s a long pause.

“I’m sorry. Did you say you wanted all of the hot dogs?”

“Yes,” I say.

“You want all of the hot dogs?”

“Yes. Please.”

Another pause.

“Okay,” they say, shrugging.

I eat them sitting on the trunk of my car while watching traffic whiz past. I can swallow them whole. A whole hot dog easily. Without ketchup or mustard or any lubricant. It’s pretty incredible. I’m in six deep when I hear, “Rory?”