Selina woke up to the spectacular sight of Elias' blue eyes when the first rays of morning announced themselves through the skylight.

"I haven't been gawking at you all night, promise." He smiled with his mouth half open, revealing a hint of fangs and a cheeky expression that said, 'I might be telling the truth, but also ... maybe not.'

She hadn't expected to wake up at the center of his attention. She also hadn't expected it to feel this good. Given that their last night had come to an end, this realization tasted bittersweet. "Morning, you. Are you hungry?"

He looped her hair around her ear and placed a sweet kiss where his talon had grazed her skin. "I'm not hungry. You fed me well. Thank you."

"Are you sure? You can scare me one more time if you need to."

"I don't need to. Can I clean up a little before I go? In your bathroom?"

"Sure."

She waited in the hallway, a heaviness grounding her to the vintage tiled floor that lead to the door. When Elias floated down the staircase, he looked disturbingly kissable.

"Are you going to try to find Sue?" It was ridiculous to be jealous but there was no other word for the sharp sting to her heart.

"It's not going to be easy, but I need to know what happened to her."

"Are you sure you're strong enough?" She heard how the words came out. So goddamn needy. 'No wonder he's leaving,' the witch puppet cackled in her mind.

"Hey, you did more than enough. You need to get your son home, okay?" Elias placed his palm on her cheek and his lips on her mouth, sucking up the witch puppet and catapulting her where she belonged. His coat of nightmares brimmed shortly as the witch joined the ranks of serpents, spiders, and savage beasts.

"You're not too needy, Selina. You're strong, smart, and capable. Deep down you already know that. You don't need anybody else to survive, but perhaps there's more to life than surviving. I think you deserve somebody next to you. Somebody good. I hope you find him."

"Get out, bogeyman," she mocked as suppressed tears squeezed her throat. "You're overstaying your welcome. I'll be fine. I've survived a monster, you know."

"That you certainly have." He pinched her cheek and whirred out the door. Sheltered by the shadows of the tall row house, he made a steep ascent and found a grey cloud to blend into. The world shook with a rumble of thunder and that was that.

The bogeyman was gone.

When she drove Lowie home a few hours later, the skies were still howling thick rivulets of rain. In tune with the windshield wipers, Lowie fidgeted in his seat. "Did you get him, the monster? Is he gone?"

With pursed lips, she gave a few quick nods. "Won't be back."

Won't be back. Won't be back. Won't be back. Why did her stupid heart have to drop lower and lower in her chest to the rhythm of that beat?

Watching Lowie run inside and up the stairs didn't fill her with the amount of joy she'd expected.

"Wow mom, Baby Yoda. Where's Buzz Lightyear?" Lowie jumped on the new covers of his bed while Selina hugged herself. The room was fucking cold. In summer no less.

"Do you mind if I keep Buzz Lightyear?" she said as she turned up the heating.

"Are you alright, mommie?"

"Sure. I'll get you a sandwich, okay?"

On her way down, she clung to the railing of the staircase and inhaled deeply, overwhelmed by sudden loneliness. She took a moment but only just that one. She hadn't come this far to fall apart over some guy. Monster or not.

One month later, Selina went through her box of college stuff, retrieving a smudged napkin from between a photo-album of the summer holiday she took with some friends to celebrate their graduation. Scribbled in her lipstick was a phone number and his name: Martin.

To her surprise and consternation, the phone number was still in service.

That first conversation was hard. Martin was shocked and angry. What did she expect from him after all these years? Nothing. She expected nothing. She only realized he had a right to know. "Damn right I had. Can I see him?"

They met at the beachfront of Blankenberge, had icecreams and rented a family go-kart. Initially, Lowie clung to his mom, weirded out by the idea of having a dad, but by the end of the afternoon he told Martin his dragon joke, and Selina allowed herself a little sigh of relief.

The three of them agreed, Martin and Lowie would visit the zoo one week later. "I'm still livid with you," Martin said to Selina, after she had locked Lowie in his car seat. "But I'm glad you told me now. Thank you."

By Christmas, they had settled into a routine of Lowie spending one out of two weekends with his dad, and Selina having some time to herself, to go out for drinks with Keira, or ... she couldn't think of anything else. She had spent some time on Tinder, but nobody's eyes were blue enough to see her soul, nobody had claws that made her skin come alive, nobody had fangs that sucked her fears.

There was only one thing to do.

She rang the previous owner of the house and asked for contact info of the previous owners and called her way down the line until she heard the story of the young man that vanished into thin air, last seen in the attic but never heard from again, and his girlfriend too shellshocked to give a reasonable explanation. His parents still lived in town.

Elias' mother was a friendly woman, deep lines carved into her face and her hands couldn't stop shaking around her cup of coffee. "It's been a long time since anyone came asking about Elias," she said, "I don't recognize you."

Selina had prepared for this question. "We were not that close. We were in gym practice together, but I moved out of town a year before ... before the disappearance. We were supposed to meet up but when he didn't show up, I figured he moved on. I was too angry and stubborn to check up on him."

She struggled to get it out of her mouth, not wanting to cause his mother any more grief. "I'm sorry. I didn't hear about what happened until recently."

"I'm sorry, love." Elias' mother placed her hand over Selina's and squeezed the kind of squeeze that was as necessary for the squeezer as for the squeezed. "I still miss him, you know. I'm glad you're here. I don't get to talk about him that often anymore. People get tired."

"I miss him too," Selina said, tears welling up.

"There was something about Elias, so strong, and big, so alive. He was larger than life. He was ..."

"Fearless."

"Yes. He was wild, that boy, but he had a loving heart. Do you wanna see his room?"

"You kept it?"

"Everything like he left it. Fought my Herman tooth and nail over it but I can't clean out that room as long as I'm still here. I suppose that doesn't make sense to a young woman like yourself, but that's the way it is. I'm still hoping he'll return one day."

Selina thought about the idea of losing Lowie and agony twisted her heart. "I understand." She stopped and pulled out her phone for a picture of Lowie. "I understand."

"He's beautiful. Enjoy him with everything you got."

They entered a small bedroom on the second floor, sunlight streaming through the curtains and slanting through a mobile of track medals. Elias' trophies lined up on a shelf. Tin Tin comic books, algebra homework spread out on a desk. She ran her fingertips along the labored streaks of his fountain pen. Against the wall behind the desk was a pin-up board with yellowed postcards, a newspaper article about a stranded whale on the beach of Koksijde, and a picture of a nineties track team, a beautiful, young Elias in the middle. Blue eyes, blonde hair, bright smile. A lump swelled in Selina's throat.

"You know, lately," his mother said, "I can feel his presence. Herman says that's what I want to feel and nothing more but I can feel him, like he's near and he wants me to know that he's alright."

"I believe you," Selina said, trying hard not to choke up.

"I'll leave you for a moment. You won't take anything now, will you, love?"

"Of course not."

When the door closed behind the woman, Selina sat on the bed and looked up at the collection of medals. "Elias? Are you here? Please say something. I came to tell you you were wrong."

That ought to draw him out.

It didn't.

"I don't deserve a good man. I deserve a monster. A monster bad enough to take a fork to the throat."

Nothing.

"Please. I miss you."

She sobbed but everything else inside the room remained silent. Outside, she could hear the bleep of a truck pulling up backward and the shouts of children. Inside the room, only the running of her nose. Some time later, Elias' mother came back in. Selina quickly wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist.

"Are you alright, love? It's a lot to take in, isn't it? Would you like to stay for supper?"

"No, thank you. You've been very kind and I've been trespassing on your hospitality long enough."

WC 1600 words
TWC 22347 words