Thirteen Read Free Page A

snores, the occasional whisper and laugh. I can feel warm skin against mine, a bare foot hooked over my calf, twitching in a dream of running. I can smell them: their sweat, their breath, mingling with the scent of blood, smears from a deer killed in the chase. The image shatters and I am staring into a shopwindow, seeing nothing but myself reflected back. My chest tightens in a loneliness so deep and so complete I can’t breathe.
    I turn quickly and lash out at the nearest object. A streetlamp quavers and rings with the blow. Pain sears down my arm. Welcome to reality—changing in alleyways and creeping back to my apartment. I am cursed to live between worlds. On the one side there is normalcy. On the other, there is a place where I can be what I am with no fear of reprisals, where I can commit murder itself and scarcely raise the eyebrows of those around me, where I am even encouraged to do so to protect the sanctity of that world. But I left and I can’t return. I won’t return.
    As I walk to the apartment, my anger blisters the pavement with every step. A woman curled up under a pile of dirty blankets peers out as I pass and instinctively shrinks back into her nest. As I round the corner, two men step out and size up my prospects as prey. I resist the urge to snarl at them, but just barely. I walk faster and they seem to decide I’m not worth chas-ing. I shouldn’t be here. I should be home in bed, not prowling downtown Toronto at four a.m. A normal woman wouldn’t be here. It’s yet another reminder that I’m not normal. Not normal.
    I look down the darkened street and I can read a billet on a telephone post fifty feet off. Not normal. I catch a whiff of fresh bread from a bakery starting production miles away. Not normal. I stop by a storefront, grab a bar over the windows, and flex my biceps. The metal groans in my hand. Not normal. Not normal. I chant the words in my head, flagellating myself with them. The anger only grows.
    Outside my apartment door, I stop and inhale deeply. I mustn’t wake Philip. And if I do, I mustn’t let him see me like this. I don’t need a mirror to know what I look like: skin taut, color high, eyes incandescent with the rage that always seems to follow a Change now. Definitely not normal.
    When I finally enter the apartment, I hear his measured breathing from the bedroom. Still asleep. I’m nearly to the bathroom when his breathing catches.
    “Elena?” His voice is a sleep-stuffed croak.
    “Just going to the washroom.”
    I try to slip past the doorway, but he’s sitting up, peering nearsightedly at me. He frowns.
    “Fully dressed?” he says.
    “I went out.”
    A moment of silence. He runs a hand through his dark hair and sighs. “It’s not safe. Damn it, Elena. We’ve discussed this. Wake me up and I’ll go with you.”
    “I need to be alone. To think.”
    “It’s not safe.”
    “I know. I’m sorry.”
    I creep into the bathroom, spending longer than necessary. I pretend to use the toilet, wash my hands with enough water to fill a Jacuzzi, then find a fingernail that needs elaborate filing attention. When I finally decide Philip has fallen back asleep, I head for the bedroom. The bedside lamp is on. He’s propped on his pillow, glasses in place. I hesitate in the doorway. I can’t bring myself to cross the threshold, to go and crawl into bed with him. I hate myself for it, but I can’t do it. The memory of the night lingers and I feel out of place here.
    When I don’t move, Philip shifts his legs over the side of the bed and sits up.
    “I didn’t mean to snap,” he says. “I worry. I know you need your freedom and I’m trying—”
    He stops and rubs his hand across his mouth. His words slice through me. I know he doesn’t mean them as a reprimand, but they are a reminder that I’m screwing this up, that I’m fortunate to have found someone as patient and understanding as Philip, but I’m wearing through that patience at breakneck speed and all I