Chapter 10 Julian
TEN
JULIAN
I made it home before the crying started properly.
Not the gentle kind. The ugly, full-body kind that came with hiccupping breaths and a face I wouldn't want anyone to see. I sat on my bathroom floor with my back against the tub and let it happen because I didn't have the energy to stop it.
Four dogs with signs on their collars. This. Wolf. Needs. You.
He'd walked into a dog walking company, signed a liability waiver and paraded through a public park with someone else's animals wearing a message meant only for me. Renard Conley, who could barely string together a sentence in our first three conversations, had done that.
And I'd told him I needed time.
I wiped my face with the heel of my hand.
What was I supposed to do with this? The man I'd been falling for could turn into an animal.
That was the fact sitting in the centre of everything, and no amount of sweet gestures changed it.
I'd watched his body reshape itself. I'd heard the sound he'd made when he was caught between forms, and I couldn't unhear it.
But the signs. The way he'd stood there with four leashes tangled around his legs, looking like a man who'd never held a dog in his life, doing it anyway because I wouldn't answer his calls.
I pulled my knees to my chest and pressed my forehead against them.
The next two days were hard.
I went to work. I walked dogs. I came home and sat on the couch and didn't turn on the TV.
My phone stayed on the coffee table and I kept checking it even though I'd told Renard I'd be the one to call.
Part of me wanted him to break that promise and just show up, which was unfair since I'd asked for space.
Rita noticed. She didn't say anything the first day but by the second afternoon she set a cup of tea on my desk and said, "Whatever it is, it'll sort itself out." I nearly cried again, which was becoming a pattern.
At night I lay in bed and my thoughts were running through the same loop. The wolf in the stream was beautiful and terrifying. The partial shift was neither. Renard standing in the water afterward, devastated, saying my name.
And then the park. His voice cracked when he'd said his wolf would die before hurting me.
I believed him. That was the part I kept circling back to. Despite everything, despite the impossibility of what he was, I believed him.
On Wednesday evening, Marshall let himself in with the spare key I regretted giving him.
"Right." He dropped a pizza box on my coffee table and stood over me with his arms crossed. "Talk. You haven't answered a group text in four days. Rita texted me. She never texts me. She doesn't even like me." He sat down beside me. "What happened with the goalie?"
I took a slice of pizza because I hadn't eaten since lunch and my hands needed something to do. "We had a fight. Sort of. He told me something about himself that I wasn't ready for."
"What?"
This was where it got impossible. I couldn't tell Marshall the truth. It wasn't mine to share and even if it was, how would that conversation go? "Hey, so Renard transforms into a large predatory animal, but he's really sweet about it."
"Something personal. About his past and his family." The lie felt terrible. "It caught me off guard and I reacted badly and left."
Marshall winced. "Okay. Was what he told you a dealbreaker?"
"No." That came out immediately and with a certainty that surprised me.
"Then what's the problem?"
I chewed the pizza and tried to find words that were honest without being specific.
"It changes how I see him. Or it should.
There's this whole side of him that's different from what I thought, and I don't know if I can handle it.
I can't explain it. Not because I don't trust you but because it's his thing to tell, not mine. "
Marshall picked up his own slice. "Okay. I'll respect that. But can I ask one question?"
"Sure."
"When you picture your life six months from now, is he in it?"
The answer was instant. Even with the wolf, the fear and the impossibility of it all, I couldn't imagine going back to before Renard, the park and the tangled leashes.
"Yeah," I said. "He is."
"Then you already know what to do." He bumped my shoulder with his. "You're just scared."
"I'm terrified."
"Same thing. Eat your pizza."
We watched a terrible movie and Marshall didn't bring it up again. When he left, he paused at the door.
"For what it's worth, I've never seen you like this about anyone. Whatever he told you, whatever's different about him, it hasn't changed how you feel. That means something."
After he left I stood at the kitchen counter and turned my phone over in my hands. Renard's name sat in my contacts. Missed calls, voicemails I still hadn't listened to, and unread texts that I'd been avoiding.
I opened the texts.
The first few were desperate.
Julian, please. Just let me know you're safe.
The middle ones were quieter.
I understand if you need space. I'm here when you're ready.
The last one, sent the morning of the dog signs, simply said: I'm not giving up on you.
I read that one three times.
Then I opened the voicemails. His voice in the early ones was raw and ragged in a way that made my chest hurt. By the later messages he sounded exhausted but steady.
The last voicemail was short. "I know you're scared. I'm scared too. But I meant what the signs said. Call me when you're ready. I'll wait."
I set the phone down and pressed my fingertips into the edge of the counter until they went white.
He'd waited days while I'd ignored him. He'd been benched from hockey because he couldn't focus. He'd walked dogs with signs on their collars in a public park for me. And through all of that, not once had he pushed past what I'd asked for. Every message said I'm here, not where are you.
I thought about what Marshall had said. “You already know what to do.”
I thought about Renard in the park that afternoon with tears in his eyes. And the way he'd let me walk away even though everything in him was telling him not to.
That was who he was. The man who showed up and stayed and waited and didn't give up.
I picked up the phone and typed I'm coming to the office tomorrow at nine just for a few minutes. Will you be nearby?
His reply came in four seconds. I'll be there.
It wasn't a promise or a plan. It wasn't me saying I'd accepted everything or that I wasn't still afraid. But it was a step toward him instead of away, and right now that was enough.