I must have stood there staring at him, because he glanced up and said, “What are you looking at?”
I shrugged. “I guess I’d halfway decided you didn’t know how to read.”
Ben, stretched out on the sofa pretending to sleep, snorted a chuckle.
Ah, the boy retained a sense of humor. Maybe there was hope.
“How are you doing?” I said to him, gently.
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not—” But what I’d meant and what it sounded like to him could certainly be two different things. I wanted to kick the sofa, knock him out of it. “You’re making this way more difficult than it needs to be.”
He sat up suddenly; I thought he was going to lunge at me. I even took a step back.
He almost shouted. “You know how to make it easy? You want to tell me how to make it easier? ’Cause I’d sure love to hear about it. You keep talking about getting used to it, so if you know any tricks, now would be a great time to share!”
We glared at each other, eye to eye. My Wolf thought he was going to start a fight right here and wanted to growl. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, to keep her in check. Let the human side deal with this. I just had to tell him to calm down. Had to be patronizing again.
Cormac interrupted. “Maybe I oughta shoot you both, put you both out of your misery.”
Why did that make me want to laugh? Hysterical, psychotic laughter, yes. But still. If it wasn’t so serious, it would have been funny.
I was looking at Ben when I said, “Who says we’re miserable?”
Something sparked. He thought it was funny, too. At least part of him thought part of it was funny. He looked away, but not before I saw the smile flicker on his lips and disappear.
I pulled the chair from the desk and sat. I was in front of my laptop, not facing him. I’d planned on pretending I was working.
“Broccoli,” I said after a moment. He looked at me. “I think about broccoli. And Bach. I think about things that are as far away from the Wolf as I can. Anything that keeps me human and makes the Wolf go away.”
“Does it actually work?”
“Usually. Sometimes. You ought to make Cormac give you the book. To distract yourself.”
“Don’t tell me that’s the only book you have in the house.”
I huffed. “What kind of English major do you take me for?”
I dug through the box of books and CDs I’d brought and set him up with a copy of Jack London. Which probably wasn’t the best choice, but oh well. The philistine had scoffed at Virginia Woolf. Maybe he’d thought I was trying to be funny.
I managed to write something that afternoon. I wasn’t sure how coherent it was. I didn’t have the patience to read back over it. Time enough for that tomorrow.
I wrote for so long that I didn’t notice when darkness fell outside.
“Kitty.” The word came out sharp and filled with pain.
Ben gripped the arm of the sofa; the fabric had started to rip under his hand. His fingers were growing c
laws. He was staring at his hands like they were alien to him.
I rushed over and knelt before him. I put my hands on his cheeks and turned his face, made him look away from the scene of horror to look at me instead. His eyes grew wide, filled with shock.
He said with a kind of rough laugh, “It really hurts.”
“I know, I know.” I hushed him, brushing his hair back from his face, which was starting to drip with sweat. “Ben, do you trust me? Please say you trust me.”
He nodded. He squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. “I trust you.”