The skies deepened from streaks of rose to a canvas of deep blues. Starless and bleak while the newly acquainted siblings were still in city limits. He flipped his phone open, anxious for a response. Rafe had sent a simple request, one that fell on deaf ears, it seemed.
Sydney parked her jeep up to the apartment, her black furred hand slid off the steering wheel. Her silver eyes looking up at the humble three-story complex with her cold frown.
"And you live alone here?”
“Uh, yeah,” Rafe automatically said, putting his phone away; giving up hope. “I mean, no. I’m with my brother. It’s really his place, actually.”
Her annoyance flattened her voice into a groan, “He has another—”
“No, on my mom’s side!” Rafe said. “We’re—they’re human.”
“Does he know you’re a werewolf?”
Rafe slumped into his seat. Unshapely shrubs lining the apartment barely hiding the tenet’s thrown-away bottles and wrappers. When he discovered more about himself, the label of werewolf still seemed so fantastical. Yet that shifting, painful stretching and growing into that monstrous being; and how good it has felt each time since. An unabashed freedom claimed him once transformed and Rafe knew it fantastic.
“No.” Rafe said, “I haven’t told him. Anyone really. I… don’t know how I would.”
“Hm. That’s always rough.” Sydney said, leaning back in the driver’s seat. She shut the car off with her claw, and in two shakes the fur fell away into nothingness revealing her brown, human hand underneath. “No chance to be alone and let the wolf take over.”
Her transformations were smooth and quick and concentrated. Able to slow the spread of her fur and not rip her clothes as her whole body changed. Something Rafe admired and the opposite to his own changes. But she had years of experience. Her—their father had taught her basics, and as she grew up, Sydney had learned to master her lycanthropy on her own.
“I was lucky, really.” Sydney said, speaking about her roommate, “Amber was so excited when I told her. Showed her really, since no one’s gonna believe you.”
Transforming and trying to speak with his toothy muzzle, explaining any of this made Rafe feel cold. That assumed he could keep focused long enough and not slip into that instinct-driven stupor. All the anger his older brother showed was nothing to the fury of the werewolf.
“But werewolves, we don’t tell a bunch of people.” Sydney was saying, “Even Garren didn’t tell my parents, which forced me to…” Something in the rearview stopped her. She swore in her throat and jumped out the vehicle.
“What the fuck!” She shouted into the parking lot. “You following me?”
Rafe was turned around, trying to see what had caught her ire. An older man dressed in an olive uniform, was walking toward the jeep. From his silver eyes, heavy dreads tied back, and a trimmed beard; Rafe scrambled out to greet his father. Hope rekindled. Garren had gotten Rafe’s texts! As a family, they could settle things.
“Nice ride, Syd.” Garren calmly said, “Looks new, so you must be doing well nowadays, yeah?”
“The hell do you want.” Sydney snarled.
Garren kept a distance and shrugged, “My son asked me to come over.”
“Your son?!” Sydney bent down like she was catching her breath, when she spoke the sarcasm was biting. “Well I thought I was an only daughter!”
Now Garren got to raise his voice, “Hey, I’m just learning about it too.”
“Fucking of course. Bet you have four whole families you’re just learning about.” Sydney’s smaller dreadlocks flared out when she spun to walk back to her jeep.
“Wait Sydney!” Rafe finally spoke up, rushing to his sister. Her firsts were tights and even in the dark, Rafe saw black hairs on her knuckles. He stammered, “Okay, yeah I did ask him to come, but—”
“But what?” Sydney glared at him. Her silver eyes glassy with rage and teeth clenched. Rafe could see her canines longer, sharper. “We spent the evening together, I fucking told you everything! So what possible reason could even have?”
Despite the tightness in his throat, Rafe blurted his plan out. “I hoped we could talk some of that out! So you too aren’t fighting forever.”
Sydney sighed, resting her arm and head on the driver’s window. She spoke up before Garren could interject, “Rafe, lissen. There is no talk - no words I or you need to have with this man who didn’t care and was too scared to bother raising either of us!”
There was hurt in her voice. The ten years on her own, the other ten with a foster family. The guilt kept Rafe from saying more, from adding onto his sister’s pain.
The pause between all three was broken by Garren. “She’s half-right, Rafe.”
Their father stood closer, enough that in the yellow outdoor lights, the glum wrinkles that ran along his face aged him. His uniform seemed shabbier, baggier on him despite his more muscular build. Even his voice seemed chipped down, more gravelly as he spoke.
“I was scared back then. Scared to bring up a little werewolf girl in the kind of unstable place me and your mom were at. But even when I couldn’t be there the full time I was trying. The moment things were stable I did try to be there. Support any way I could. Teach you how to control the wolf. Sydney, if you think at that time way back when, that I could’ve done a better job than the couple that raised you, with me going through jobs monthly: you’re giving me too much credit.
And Rafe, if your mom never told you the story, I’ll be brief. We met in a bar, two adults, fresh from breakups and at their lowest. She had a kid back, and maybe it was the alcohol but she invited me over. Then again, and - as a friend - was helping her find some footing in the world. And when she and her man were able to get back together…”
Garren paused, looking at his son. He cleared his throat and continued, “Had I known, had I been told what happened after. I would have extended the same love and support to you as I had with Syd, so you didn’t have to be thrown into this werewolf business unprepared. Had I gotten my shit together, I would have done it for both of you in a heartbeat. But even without me, look at you: grown up to be a kind young adult. Kind enough to think you could mend all this in a single night. I’ll never not care about you both. But that kind of forgiveness… for all those years, is something you,” and he turned to Sydney, who leaned on her door. Her steely gaze off to the main street. “And you will have to decide. And if you don’t wouldn’t love you less.”
The three of them were wordless for an endless moment. Rafe held his arms, digesting what he heard. His mom and brother’s dad never got into the details beyond there’d been a time they weren’t together. The resentment of not knowing his father had become apathy early on.
But right now, Rafe couldn’t reach for those feelings. This past week, Garren had shown him what werewolves were capable of—what he could be capable of. Rafe wanted to pipe up, bring them together, they were all here now! But ultimately, his dad was right. Even if Rafe could forgive, that was only speaking for himself.
Sydney nodded, “That’s it then?” She got in her jeep and turned the ignition. “Good night.”
Garren put on the tiniest smile, and said, “Right. You drive safe, Syd.”
Rafe moved to stand by his father, and see his sister go. Throat hurting, a mumbling “Sorry,” to her was all he managed.
Her hands were on the wheel, already wolfed into furry paws, but she sat there idling for moments longer. In a sudden jerk she peeled out of the parking lot, likely back home in Towson.
Then traffic and distant sirens filled the air between the two.
“Was that really what you wanted me to get over here for?” Garren asked. He regained some of his tenor. “For me and her to just make up?”
Rafe held his tongue, but his silence was enough.
Garren grabbed his son by the shoulder; a hug and with a chuckle in his voice. “Absolutely naive!” But the levity was gone instantly. “She’s lived more life without me than with me, you know. It’s just how it worked out. Same with you, I’ll give you whatever support you need. Even this late in life.”
A comforting thought, and when Rafe’s attention went to the third floor of the apartment building, he had to ask, “Can you, uh, come up and tell my brother about werewolves?”
The question was met with a slap on his back, sending Rafe stumbling.
Garren laughed, “There’s a horrible idea. Okay, look, you want to go into that conversation with confidence, comfortability, and control. If he freaks out, then it’ll be on you—the werewolf—to diffuse that.” He started backwards towards his parked car, saying, “Now I can help you get all three of that, but it ain’t gonna be done tonight. All right?”
“Yeah,” Rafe hid his disappointment. He called back, “Goodnight!”
He didn’t stay in the parking lot to see his dad leave. An overwhelming tiredness rested on his shoulders. Not to mention, all the yelling out here might’ve drawn his neighbor’s attention.
Bleak guilt festering in his mind, made his wolf hairs stand up on his neck. Rafe felt it spreading out, his que to leave. Rafe ran up to his unit, bracing for whatever garbage his brother would have for him.