Yes, I'm a bear.

A full-sized 700-pound brown bear, with fur and claws and everything. Haley is impressed. I can tell. He slowly walks around me, eyes twinkling with excitement, hand going up to his chin. He probably doesn't realize circling a bear is not the smartest thing to do, even if that bear is also a nineteen-year-old boy, but I am also a nineteen-year-old boy, so I forgive him. It's easier to remind myself he's only curious than to explain that his behavior feels threatening—a human teenager without weapons is not very threatening.

"I wonder . . ." he says, rubbing his bottom lip absently.

I tilt my head in question.

"I can't imitate animals. Normally, at least. I've tried, but it doesn't work. I could already tell it wouldn't work as soon as . . ." He shakes his head. "I wonder if it would be possible to imitate you. Like, as a bear."

Right. Better to remind myself he's not a human teenager at all.

You don't wanna know.

I haven't heard of shapeshifters having inhuman strength or anything like that, but I also haven't heard of that not being the case. The truth is: I don't know what Haley is capable of. I have to resist the urge to lunge at him, to make him back up and put distance between us. He probably wouldn't understand that, either.

Does he even know what he's saying?

I take a step back and grunt at him. Just a warning.

He frowns at first, looking me up and down. Then he drops his hand and says, "Oh, I'm not gonna do anything, man—shit. Don't worry."

I huff.

"If I wanted to do that, I would ask," he adds. "I promise."

He promises. Sure. It would be nice if he told me how his powers work so I know what the hell I'm dealing with. Better than wondering about it and imagining horror scenarios. Images of ripped skin and bloodbaths have plagued my mind ever since it was brought up. I mean, the idea that shapeshifters "wear" someone else's skin has to come from somewhere, right?

"Besides, you'd probably kill me first," he says.

I let out another huff.

"I don't know what you're huffing and puffing about, but I'm positive you'd fucking crush me." He pulls his hair back with a small chuckle. "Please don't do that, though. That'd be the shortest friends-to-enemies plot ever. What's it been? Two hours? Hm, I don't know. Maybe there have been friendships with shorter lifespans . . ."

Haley is rambling.

I guess he's nervous . . . and I guess he wouldn't be if he was capable of stopping a bear. He starts talking about some anime series, which is apparently relevant to the topic, and I stare at him as the ridiculousness of the situation dawns on me. The guy who shapeshifted in the middle of the street and followed a stranger into the woods after telling them everything about himself, plotting to kill me?

I turn around and gesture at my pile of clothes. He stops mid-sentence, blinks in confusion, then walks over to take them into his arms. He follows me without asking where we're going. I don't know, anyway.

☽〇☾

It all seems like a strange dream when I wake up the next morning. Meeting Haley Sinclair, talking with him, putting graffiti on the walls, and actually enjoying it . . . and then the mythical shit. Especially the time we spent in the forest feels like it just can't be real. Did I actually walk around with the richest boy in town as a bear?

But one glance at my phone proves me wrong. There are two unread messages waiting for me. I throw my blanket aside and move to the edge of my bed before I unlock my phone and read.

hi it's haley

i changed your name to a bear lol

With a tiny smile, I roll my eyes and save his number as a bunch of money bags. Before I can think of anything to respond with, there's a knock on my door.

"Gus?"

"Yeah?" I call out as I get up and walk over to my closet to grab clean clothes.

The door creaks, and my uncle Kurt steps into the room. His once blond hair is just gray now, and the lines in his face are deeper than ever—there's a sad twist to his lips that wasn't there before I came to Larkwood. He clears his throat and says, "Did you, uh . . ."

"What?"

"Did you have any plans for today?"

"It's Saturday."

"It's the sixteenth."

I freeze, my stomach twisting unpleasantly. "Right. No. No plans."

"Do you wanna go out together, then? Just to, you know . . ." Kurt rubs his forearm and shrugs. "Amy always loved to celebrate."

It's my mother's birthday.

I knew it was coming up soon, but I wasn't paying attention to the days. When I was younger, she would always take me to a playground or a fair and treat us to all the ice cream and cotton candy our bellies could take. I once asked her why she did that, why she didn't just do something for herself, and she said there was nothing she'd rather do on her birthday than spend time with a loved one.

At fifteen, when I was old enough to get a job, I started taking her out instead, to a nice restaurant or something, and then Kurt got involved, and together we really treated her. There was nothing that made her smile bigger.

"Alright," I say.

If Kurt had asked me several months ago, I would have said no. I almost did. The pain is fresh, and Kurt and I were never very close, but we've gotten more comfortable around each other lately. Kind of hard to avoid when you're the only one the other has. I'm not alone with the pain.

He smiles and leaves to let me get dressed.

When we're on our way to Mom's favorite restaurant back in St. Richard, Kurt behind the wheel, me in the passenger seat, I spend about ten minutes staring at my phone before finally replying to Haley.

today is my mom's birthday

💰💰💰💰💰

have a good day :)

☽〇☾

Haley leaves me alone on Saturday, but the moment he wakes up the next morning, he starts asking questions. It's superficial stuff at first, like who I'm living with, what my uncle's name is, and what he's like, which is a harder question than I'd have imagined. I don't really know how to describe Kurt other than that he's kind of quiet and thoughtful—he doesn't have strong opinions or big passions, aside from his job. Kurt really likes fixing cars.

To each their own, I guess.

Haley soon moves on to my interests, so I tell him I'm into movies—mostly indie films—and that's when the dams break. He calls me in the middle of our conversation because "texting takes too long" and he wants to know my favorite movie, actor, director, everything. Then he gets the idea that we should go to the movies together.

I like that idea, but my wallet doesn't.

He's quiet for a moment before he says, "Hey, Gus, not to be like 'I can be your sugar daddy,' but I can just pay for your tickets, you know? I don't mind."

I don't know what to say. I'm not the type of person who's too proud to accept help, but I'm not used to getting any, and a part of me is scared people will expect something in return, especially someone like Haley. The upper class rarely extends their hand to the lower, if at all. They'd rather let us rot than give us their money.

It's easy to forget Haley is rich when we're talking about movies, even more so when we're talking about being mythicals and showing each other our powers, but when he says something like that, I remember just how fucking bizarre the situation is. The fact that someone who should be avoiding me like the plague wants to be my friend; that he doesn't want anything from me but my company and my trust. It's so bizarre I almost laugh.

"Okay," I say, biting my tongue. "Which movie are we gonna see?"

"Your choice."

Haley is a man of impulsivity, so once I've made my choice, he says he's picking me up that night. I would argue I can drive myself, but Kurt needs the truck to pick up something for work. Kurt keeps saying he'll get me my own car soon, but the reality is that it'll take a while before he can make that happen.

When Haley parks out front a little after dinner, Kurt pulls the curtain aside and asks, "Who's in the Destrier?"

"Haley Sinclair."

Kurt lets the curtain drop and turns around to stare at me. "You said you were going out with a friend."

"Yeah, Haley Sinclair."

"You're joking."

This time, I do laugh. "Isn't it so much funnier that I'm not joking at all?"

Kurt blinks, all the lines in his face gone, before he laughs, too. A loud belly laugh that makes me laugh even harder. He sobers up pretty quickly, though.

"You'd better be careful, Gus," he says, pointing a finger at me. "You don't wanna get fucked over by those people."

Rich people, he means.

"I know."

"Okay." He pats my shoulder and tells me to let Haley know he likes his Destrier. As if I don't know. He doesn't tell me I need to be home before midnight or anything like that. I don't think he ever will. We both know the only reason I stay out late is to wander around the woods. All he says is, "Have fun."

"Thanks."

Haley's sleek black beast roars to life once I'm in the passenger seat. The engine produces the kind of rumbling sound that even I, as a regular person who doesn't feel any particular way about cars, can appreciate. It's somehow both intimidating and calming. Haley rolls up the window to block out the sound before he says, "I have a question."

"It never ends."

He laughs. "Nope."

"Okay, but me first."

"Okay."

I turn in my seat so I can face him. "So, I know you said I don't wanna know how your power works, but I think I'll go crazy if you don't tell me."

His smile is gone immediately. He looks at the road and twists his hands around the steering wheel, the sound of his skin rubbing against the leather filling the silence. I don't need to be a telepath to know he doesn't want to talk about it, but I need to know.

"It can't be that bad."

"Depends on your definition of bad," he mutters. "I just . . . wish there was a more ethical way to do it. You don't need anything to turn into something else. I do, and it's not easy to get, but I crave it. All the time."

"What do you crave?"

"Blood," he blurts. "I need blood, Gus. DNA."

"Oh."

"It's like an addiction. Like smoking. I don't like the taste of it, but I feel like shit when I don't do it. I get restless. Irritated."

He's talking fast, eyes flitting across the road, the dashboard, the road again. He seems distracted, just like Friday night, when he was talking about the possibility of taking my bear form. Thinking about my blood.

"Cigarettes and drugs and all that shit take the edge off," he continues, "but as soon as somebody, like, gets a paper cut or something, it's all I can think about. It's all I see and smell. And I can't exactly be like, 'hey, can I suck on your finger?' It's easier to leave the room and light a cigarette, even if I know it's ruining my body."

"How did you get that woman's blood? The blonde?"

"Car accident. She was on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. I guess the asshole who hit her drove off, so I stopped to help her and called the emergency number. I didn't know I was a shapeshifter back then. I didn't know why I kept getting so distracted. I waited until the ambulance came and then I just . . . licked her blood off my hands. Didn't even think about it."

"Wait, that's all?"

"What?"

"You only need a lick of it?"

"Wh—yeah? Isn't that bad enough?"

"Dude, I thought you were, like, a vampire."

"No," he says, horrified. "Vampires aren't real."

"I know, but the rumors gotta be based on something, right?"

He grumbles something under his breath, but he doesn't deny it. I smile and cover my mouth to keep myself from laughing. He made such a big deal out of something so small. It's not like he needs to go around killing people, and it seems like he's pretty good at keeping himself from . . . licking.

A snort escapes me.

"Stop laughing."

"I'm not laughing," I laugh.

"Stop."

"If you wanted to lick me, you could have just said so."

"Stop! I don't want to lick you! You—dude, you took your clothes off in front of me. I should be laughing at you."

"Okay, but I made you turn around."

"You still got naked for me. Weird way to flirt, man."

I snort again. "I'm not interested in men."

"Well, I am."

Silence.

Then he says, "I really gotta learn to shut my mouth, man."

"It's fine," I tell him.

"I wasn't ogling you or anything—"

"Haley, it's fine." I raise a hand to get his attention—he's looking at anything but me again. "You said you wanted to be friends, not boyfriends, remember? And I'm not a homophobe. It's fine. Okay?"

"Okay."

Another moment of silence passes before I break it again.

"What do you . . . identify as?" I ask.

"Pansexual. And nonbinary, I think."

"Really?" I stare at Haley's profile, frowning. I'm not the most well-informed person when it comes to these things, but I know that nonbinary means neither man nor woman. "I've never heard anyone . . . Everyone just says 'he' when they talk about you."

"Yeah, I don't really tell people."

"Why not?"

"It's complicated," Haley says, sighing. "I just don't feel like myself sometimes, even when I look like myself, and I'm still trying to figure out if it's a gender identity thing or an identity thing, if there's even a difference between those two things. I just don't feel like I fit in with 'the guys' sometimes, you know? And I'm definitely not a girl. I feel like I'm just a person who happens to look like a guy, but I don't know . . . I don't know if I would feel like that if I wasn't a shapeshifter."

"Does it matter?"

"I don't know. Maybe. All I know is that I'm mostly fine with being a guy."

"Okay. Let me know if that changes."

"Okay."

I watch him make a turn before I ask, "What was your question?"

"What? Oh. Do you like being a bear?"

"Uh . . . Yeah, I think so. Why?"

He shrugs. "I'd like to be a bear. I think it's less stressful than being a shapeshifter."

"Well, we can't do anything about that, but if you wanna see if you can be a bear, you have my permission to put your teeth in me."

"Don't say it like that, man," he groans.

My lips quirk. "You can . . . suck me dry?"

"That's worse!"

"How about you punch me in the face? Use your mouth to catch the blood as it's dripping from my nose. Or just stab me somewhere. I'm not picky. Just bring bandaids."

"Thank you. You can stop now."

☽〇☾