Chapter 09
9
HEIDI
W hen I wake up, the room is cold.
The curtains are open. Everywhere. The light of the moon spills down my floorboards, the covers, the abandoned clothes. And it’s so cold.
Turning sideways, I try to get back to sleep, but the cold licks up my legs and I find myself without a sheet. It’s useless to try to reach the sheets beneath me, and it requires too much wiggling. Giving up, I get to my feet and pull them down.
No wonder I’m freezing. I’m naked.
Scott, and sex with Scott, and coming so hard I blacked out comes back to me. Every moment of the night. Every second with him. His taste, his caresses, the way he kissed my hair as I drifted off to sleep. How he held me close and called me “love” when he thought I wasn’t listening.
He’s not here, though. The bed is empty.
His side of the bed is as cold as the rest of the night. He’s been gone for a while.
Betrayal claws up my throat. My heart shatters, though I know I’m being silly. He never promised me a thing. Everything happened so fast, yes, but he never promised to stay. To date me, marry me or whatever. I mean, a man like him sticking around? No. That makes no sense. He’s wanted me from the beginning, I accept that. But for a one-night stand. Something quick. Pleasure, and then he’s out.
I’m still hurting when I walk out of my bedroom to use the bathroom. Back to my wardrobe, I find my pajamas and enter them. The bitter taste of being abandoned rings in the back of my throat, but I refuse to let myself feel this. Maybe for tonight. Maybe just once. But I’m not crying over someone who has never promised me a thing.
He’s still going to be my neighbor and hell, it’s going to be awkward, but I’m a grown-up and I have to deal with it.
Scott never said he wanted more. That’s just me connecting dots that were never there. The way he looked at me meant nothing. The way he said my name meant nothing. I’m just a fool, clutching hopes that were never mine in the first place.
Talk about feeling lonely.
But then when I walk back into my room, I trip on something. His clothes. His shirt and his pants and his shoes.
“What?” I mouth, flicking the lights on and taking a second to allow my eyes to adapt. His clothes are still here. He hasn’t left.
Or if he left, he was naked. He wouldn’t do this, would he?
Just to be sure, I look around my house. Nothing is different. The lasagna is still on the table. It’s early enough we could still have it. Not midnight yet. But Scott’s nowhere to be seen.
Walking into the kitchen, I drink a full glass of water to wake me up. What is happening? Things are so off right now. His clothes are here, so this means I haven’t imagined it all. The ache between my legs also tells me he has taken my V-card. With honors. But where is this man?
Looking out the window, I see the silver glimpse of something from my dreams.
The fox.
It crosses between trees and darts out of sight. My heart jerks inside my chest, and, before I know it, I’m out of my door, running into the woods.
Not my imagination. Or am I this crazy? This insane I’m imagining a hot man making me feel good and silver foxes walking out of my dreams?
The undergrowth bites my soles, but I keep going. Running into the woods, following the silver light that crosses here and there. It could be a fairy luring me in. And I’d fall into a trap, for sure. I don’t care. I follow the sight of him, the only light in the darkness until I reach a clearing.
The clearing. The clearing from my dreams.
My heart thundering in my ears, I stop. The fox stops too, turning in my direction and sitting on its haunches. Just like my dream.
Just like my dream.
So many hypotheses cross my head. I might be dreaming right now. Never been one for lucid dreaming, but I can’t see other explanations. Maybe it was a prophecy? But I’ve never been one to believe these paranormal things either. They just work in movies, right?
What is happening?
I cross the last fallen branches to step into the clearing. The undergrowth gives way to grass, and the place seems taken care of. When I meet the fox’s eyes, he moves, cocking his head as if he knows me. As if this has been his plan.
Such intelligent eyes. I can’t even grasp how intense they are. How deep and real and... And familiar.
With another heartbeat, something else happens. Something that wasn’t in my dreams. Something I have never imagined.
The fox gets on all fours, and the sound of breaking and bending reaches me with stomach-churning cracks. The fox breaks and mends, and it’s something out of a class-B horror movie. Legs stretch, fur retreats, the jaw shrinks into his face. The ears grow rounder and move lower to the sides of a face.
A human face.
In moments, the spine has elongated and changed. In seconds, the fox is gone. The fox shifts entirely into a human being. I’m left gawking and gasping at the transformation that happens in front of me. Something out of movies, but in real life.
The human is crouched as the transformation approaches an end. The fur disappears in all parts of his body but his face and on the top of his head. In those places, it actually grows. The well-trimmed beard and the soft hair are as gray as the fox who had been standing in front of me.
My legs turn to lead. I can’t move. I can’t speak. The vision in front of me is too vivid to be a dream, too intense to be anything other than reality. It’s impossible, but it’s happened. As the rest of my night. As everything since I met this man.
It’s Scott. He’s the silver fox from my dreams.