Part of me thought that maybe Justin might have forced her to call me. I don’t know if he was crazy enough to put his sister at gunpoint to get to me. Who knew? But there wasn’t anyone outside.

A car rolled up and I recognized Charice’s Toyota Corolla. The headlights beamed on me and I had to squint to keep from being blinded. She exited the car not even bothering to turn it off. As she moved towards me she appeared to have a backpack on. She approached as if she would find comfort in between my arms. Then she stopped a few feet away from me.

“Charice? What’s wrong?”

She started to speak, then shook her head.

A drop of water hit my forehead. I looked up. It started to rain.

Instead of hiding in the hood of her jacket, she let the jacket fall to the ground.

Massive midnight wings expanded from her back.

My jaw dropped.

“Holy crow, right?” said Charice, using my own vernacular.

Suddenly all of the phone calls she had ignored, all the talks of back pain and needing to go to a chiropractor, all of it made sense. Charice wasn’t ignoring me because she didn’t want to date me anymore. She was ignoring me because she had been undergoing a strange transformation.

“How did — what — who?” But I was so befuddled I didn’t even know where to start.

She stood there with her head cocked to the side and slowly brushed her hair back out of her face. She winced as if unsure of herself, unsure of me. It seemed like she was waiting for some kind of reaction from me.

“Are you okay?” It was a stupid question. Of course she was not okay.

She shrugged.

“So this is why you’ve been ignoring me.”

“Yep.” She nodded, wincing more.

“Why didn’t you just explain what was happening?”

She shrugged and that’s when I understood. She wasn’t sure if I was going to accept her for what she was now.

“How was I supposed to explain this to you Sean? Even I didn’t know what was happening,” she said in a whisper.

I put myself in her shoes. I would not know how to explain myself either. So I did what any boyfriend should do. Walked up and confidently laid a sweet kiss on her lips.

After we broke away she teared up.

“Why are you crying?”

“I’m a monster Sean. Like the things you hunt.”

I shook my head. “Naw. You’re way hotter than those things. Plus I don’t want to make out with monsters.”

That got a laugh out of her.

“We don’t have to figure this out right now, I whispered in her ear. “Or ever.”

After that I just hugged her, held her in my arms, and she wrapped her wings around me.