It's been a shit day. Denny can't articulate that in any other set of words.

It's shit when the professor of an elective class you're only taking for a friend's sake calls you an idiot in front of the entire fucking room when you admit that you didn't understand the readings and don't know how to summarize the case of Marbury v. Madison.

It's shit when the city and university have been plagued by a series of murders and nobody knows what the hell is happening. It's shit when you exit class on a sunny day, fully expecting to get lunch with your friend Emira, only to find that the police are waiting for you just outside the building.

It's shit when you convince yourself (and the police, unfortunately) that you may have killed fifteen people and have no recollection of it, since you don't remember most nights anyway. It's shit when you're interrogated for twelve hours. It's shit when the fact that you are keeping one secret (the fact that you are a werewolf) is mistaken for you keeping another (that you are secretly and unknowingly a mass murderer); and it's shit when the police and your own father and the beast trying to break through your skin have all convinced you that you have done something horrific even though, rationally, you know you didn't. Rationally, you know you couldn't have. Despite what your father has been saying recently, you're no monster-- unless you are.

It's particularly shit when you have to get a ride home from your dad, who is the one who told the police it might have been you in the first place, because everyone you know and care about is asleep except for him.

In short, it has been a shitty day, and she just wants to ignore the paper she forgot to write, the consequences of this investigation, and everything else in the world. No, not quite-- she just wants to go to sleep and avoid thinking about the issue.

Denny sits in the passenger seat of her father's truck, not looking at him. She has her elbow on the edge of the window; it's open, letting in the stagnant spring air at the intersection. It tastes like rain, terror, and disappointment.

"I just," she says, after a long, tense moment of silence. "I just... I don't get why you'd think I would do something like that."

"Don't you?" David doesn't look at her. He keeps his eyes on the road, on the light as he pulls up and it turns from amber-yellow to a more forbidding red-- the colors defined by hazard and caution.

Denny knows a thing or two about hazards. She knows a thing or two about caution. It wasn't David that instilled those vice-grip virtues into her, not quite. In fact, up until the age of four, he had been the one encouraging her to do things she absolutely shouldn't have been doing, like climbing over the baby gate and playing on the furniture that seemed to spawn in the front lawn, like someone was dumping it there. Her mother, Matilda, had been the one who fretted over every scrape and bruise. Matilda was the one who worried about the consequences of Denny being reckless.

Something changed, though. Almost ten years ago, something changed. It was around the time she changed, maybe. When she went from something human to something not-quite-so, he drilled her on the importance of keeping certain things a secret.

But what does David McFadden know about lycanthropy that Denny doesn't? What does he know about secrets? What does he know about ruining your life by trying to hold everything inside you, about fearing that those closest to you will see you as nothing but a monster?

Nothing. Save for the experience he has in keeping his daughter's secret, David McFadden knows nothing. And they both know it.

Neither of them look at each other. To do so would be to acknowledge the reality of the other. To do so would be to recognize the worry inherent in the way David taps his fingers on the steering wheel or the way Denny swallows every few seconds, even though her mouth is as dry as the well on the McFadden property. In moments where any sort of vulnerability could occur, it's easier to pretend that they are invulnerable than to let the other see the mess beneath the eggshell-brittle exterior. This is something Denny learned at her father's knee and at his side. They didn't talk about it when her grandfather died, or when they were hunting and David shot himself in the leg, or the first time he learned the truth of what she was via a panicked phone call from Denny's mom. He bottled it up, shoved it down, and didn't talk about it. Denny isn't a fan of bottling it up (she is a shaken can of Coke on the best of days), but the "not talking about it" portion of that fragmented heritage is hard to leave behind. If you don't talk about it, it isn't real. It can't hurt you. That's the rule.

The stoplight turns green, shining in streaks across the dark early-morning sky. Denny doesn't need to look at the radio clock or the flickering sign of the Walgreens on the corner to know that it's about 3:15 AM. They only left the police station a few minutes ago. They didn't talk then, either. They just drove.

"I don't know," she says, even though she does. "Explain it to me."

"You're not a child, Steph Joy. You can get at what I'm saying."

And she can. And she does. And she doesn't have to. He calls her by her middle name again as if it's supposed to endear her to him. It doesn't. It just makes things worse.

By the time she gets inside, she doesn't remember how the rest of the conversation goes. It's a lot to keep in her head. She remembers his killing blow, though-- him saying, through gritted teeth, "When a dog gets out of control, it's a good man's duty to put it down." He said it with the practiced religiosity of a verse of scripture.

The rage that filled her when he said that was intense, like that time Cory accidentally lit his backyard on fire and Denny had to help him put it out, but the tree went up in smoke and the old treehouse came out of it charred. It burned for hours. Was this really how he saw her? Not as human, not as his daughter, but as a thing? A danger? She can remember the hurt, and the way she slammed the passenger door so hard that it dented, and the look on her father's face when she scowled at him through the windshield. It was like there was something sour in his mouth and something curdling in the pit of his stomach. Denny didn't care. She still doesn't, even while she wrenches the door of the student housing building open. Her skin is cold with dread and anger and the oil-slick flavor of anxiety. She glares at him again through the glass of the door until it's clear that he's not going to leave until she does.

The feeling gets worse when she approaches the room she and Jennifer share. It's like she's standing on a precipice, about to fall. It's the inevitability of bad news, the inescapable threat of hitting the ground and the rush of air by her face as it rises up to meet her. She chews on the feeling and the worry like cheap, flavorless bubblegum, too afraid to spit it out though it makes everything else so much worse.

To distract herself, she takes her phone out of her back pocket, where she put it when they finally gave it back to her at the station. She has three unread messages from Jennifer (mostly about how concerned she is about Denny, and how she's going to go out with Joey, her boyfriend and Denny's teammate). There are about fifteen more from Emira, who has a habit of double-texting in general. All of Ema's texts are variations on the same theme: "Denny, where are you? Is everything okay?" Denny doesn't know what to say to that, so she doesn't say anything.

She pauses at the door to the room she and Jennifer share to fish her keys out of her front pocket, and pauses again when she hears some infernal groaning from inside. Oh, god, is that what she thinks it is? Again? A soft yelp follows. Denny wants to slam her head against the door. If Jennifer and Joey are going at it again in there, and Jennifer didn't warn her to stay away for a while, Denny is going to be so pissed. For a moment, she considers not going in at all.

But she does. Denny lives there, too, and she's willing to sleep in the shower if it means this day will be over quicker. She just wants to curl up and go to sleep (and not think about what David meant by "putting the dog down").

When she opens the door, something falls out onto her. Denny pushes it away on pure instinct, thinking that maybe Jennifer moved the vacuum again. But it's not an appliance. It's heavier, limper, softer. It's not a thing. It's not plastic. It's a person.

It's Jennifer.

Denny doesn't know what the fuck is happening, but she knows what she sees. She sees it in frantic frames, snapshots of a life ended, while her eyes dart back and forth, from place to place. There is blood on Denny's bedspread, soaked through the black comforter and the pillowcase her mom bought her a few years back-- red on the little green star-shaped flowers, like the world's worst Christmas card. Jennifer's eyes are brown and glassy. Pieces of her are everywhere. A severed finger by the shoe rack. A chunk of scalp on the wall. Blood on photos of the four of them (Denny, Jennifer, Ema, Joey, happy for a moment that will never happen again). Blood on the wall. Blood on the carpet. Blood soaked through the clothes in the laundry basket at the foot of Jennifer's bed. Jenny's sweater, torn open; Jenny's mouth, stuck in a state of permanent, never-ending shock and betrayal.

There's a man in the room. There is a rubber Wolfman mask on the floor, bought from one of those cheap Halloween stores. No, she knows that mask-- Joey was eyeing it during a clearance sale back in November. And there he is, in the center of it all, knives between his fingers like a Wolverine knockoff, shoulders heaving with every breath, shirtless (for some reason Denny can't figure out), covered in pieces of Jennifer. Everything is covered in pieces of Jennifer.

She steps back a little, but ultimately freezes. She has never been good in a crisis. Why should she start now? How could she start now? This doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense. It was Joey who wanted to keep Jennifer and Emira safe, and Joey who wanted to make sure Jennifer and Emira were walked home every night, and Joey who made up the rules about how to keep them safe, so why is it him? Why is he here? She wants to throw up; she wants to run; she doesn't know what she wants, but it isn't the overwhelming scent of iron and it isn't the complete anger that takes her over like she's about to start crying or tearing something to shreds or maybe both.

All at once, everything is a blur. It's worse than those snapshots of the room, because she doesn't quite understand any of it. Joey's hands on her shoulders, shoving her into the hall; another hand, grabbing her leg to send her to her knees; knees on the ground, where they're dug into carpet through the rips in her jeans; a knife dragged up from navel to neck; the feeling like everything is going to spill out of her; the blur of nausea and terror that comes from seeing her own blood; the blur of red that comes from losing herself in a frenzy of horror she doesn't think she can ever comprehend; the blur that comes from fighting back. There's a knife, right? She thinks there might be a knife. A knife and claws and viscera spilling out on the cheap, thin carpet in the hall.

Like with the argument in her father's car, she doesn't remember a lot of things. She does know that she doesn't use her teeth. Not on him. Not on human beings. That was how that thing in the dumpster, all those years ago, changed her into-- into this, into this less than human thing that is all teeth and anger and unending terror and confusion. She would never give that to someone else. She's ashamed to admit that she considers it. She doesn't do it, though. She doesn't have the guts.

Denny takes Joey down-- she has to, because there's no other way to survive here-- but there are two things that come asking for their pound of flesh at the end of the road.

The first is the knowledge that everything has gone to shit. The two of them are covered in each other's blood and Jennifer is dead and Denny is pretty sure she might be dying, and Joey is bleeding from the three long gashes on his face and unconscious from when Denny slammed him into the wall so hard the drywall cracked, and there are punctures in his stomach, and, and, and--

And it's all too much. Her head is throbbing so hard she can't think straight.

But she can think clearly enough to see the people gathered around and poking heads out of doorways, phones out, filming or calling the police or taking pictures or doing nothing at all. She wants to get them to stop, but her mouth is full of blood. Hers. Her blood. This is the second cost: the ever-watchful eye of the camera, taking in everything she never meant to put on display and everything she never meant to be. The vultures circle overhead, waiting for her to fall. They want to drink her blood from the dark puddles on the carpet, from between her aching fingers, from her veins. Who is she to deny them their spectacle?

She stands up and goes to wait outside. She doesn't know what they know, what the vultures see from their vantage points so far above her, but she knows she can't stay in the desert any longer.

When asked, she plays down her injuries. When she gets a moment to herself, she pushes one of her teeth back into place. (It's not so bad anyway. It's not like it's loose. It's just a little out of alignment. It's just a little sore. She can always spit the blood out of her mouth.)

When allowed, she takes what she can and she gets into her car and she fucking leaves. She tries not to look back.

*****

It's easy to ignore her father's calls and Emira's texts. She sticks her phone between the cushions in the driver's side back seat of her tiny, shitty little Saturn Ion, where she can't touch it. There it is, the solution to her problem: don't think about it. Just drive.

It's harder to ignore the onslaught of news and social media coverage. She doesn't want to read it. She doesn't want to hear it on the radio. She doesn't want to know what they think of her.

It's hard to ignore when it's goddamn fucking everywhere-- like the radio where the shock jocks won't shut up and the TV at the rest stop and on the Twitter feed of the woman in front of her in line at the Flying J she stops at several hours into the drive.

As a result, it's harder to ignore the guilt at what she did to Joey and what she couldn't do for Jennifer and those fifteen other people. It's been long enough that it has set in. She really hurt Joey back there, in a way she didn't think she could. Maybe she should have listened to the horror movies. Ginger Fitzgerald and David Kessler and Carrie White-- except Carrie White wasn't a werewolf, but she did kill people, and apparently Denny is capable of that, so who knows? And she didn't protect Jennifer like she and Joey promised they would. No, no, she let Jennifer get hurt and she couldn't do anything to stop it.

What was wrong with her, that she didn't see what he was? The woman in front of her in line at the Flying J types that in a comment and sends it off to war. Denny's stomach turns. She wishes she were someone else. She considers not buying what she came here for in the first place. It's already in her hand, though, the bottle of grape soda and the long, greasy stick of meat. It's too late to turn back now.

The irony strikes her. No, not irony-- wistfulness. This is the same thing she has bought every time she's stopped at a gas station for the last however long she has been stopping at gas stations. The timeline is fuzzy.

It was Jessie's fault that she bought this particular combination in the first place, at the Last Stop Convenience between Lake Wonder and Pine Valley while the two of them and Cory and Carissa were on their way to see some band in the next town over. Denny can remember saying she didn't care what they got for her while they were in there, just that she wanted something and she didn't want to get out of the car. Those were the days when she was terrified that her car wouldn't turn back on if stopped.

After a few minutes of Denny waiting in the car and Carissa and Cory trickling out one-by-one, Jessie came back out with a white plastic bag with two different sodas and two long off-brand Slim Jims in it. Jessie took the strawberry soda for herself, sitting in the passenger seat with a grin as wide and sweet as the month of May, and eyes just as bright. Denny hasn't had the heart to change what she gets at places like this since then. It's easy. It's routine. It makes her feel like she's home again, like she could drive up that slope in the woods and look out over the world with the people she loves at her side. It's like everything is going to be okay, even if it sucks beyond recognition right now. Everything sucks beyond recognition all the time. Doesn't she deserve to have some simple, disgusting purchase that makes her happy?

She tried to explain that to Emira once, on their way to some event or other that Emira needed help setting up for. Emira didn't get it and simultaneously did. She always liked getting ranch-flavored sunflower seeds and a liter bottle of vanilla cola. She would chew on the shell until the flavor was gone, then put it in some clear plastic cup between her knees or in the door. Denny can see sunflower seeds down one aisle near where she's standing in this forever-long line. She turns away and tries not to think about it.

When her purchases are paid for and she's trying to leave, she gives in and answers one of David's calls. She doesn't even turn off the CD playing in the car. It's one of Jessie's old mixes. It doesn't make her think of anything other than the stomach-churning nausea inspired by the thought of Jessie (or any of her friends from back home, for that matter) thinking of her as some dangerous creature rather than good old Denny. She tries to tell herself doesn't care, since she's not really listening to the music anyway. It might have some No Doubt or Galaxy Brain on it. She doesn't know. Jessie would, but Jessie isn't here now. Thank god for that.

Denny snaps into the cracked screen of the phone, "What?"

"Steph Joy, where are you?"

His voice is simultaneously hollow and concerned, like he's hanging on by a thread that is quickly unraveling. Well, is he? Good. Denny's thread unraveled and snapped long ago-- last night, maybe, or two nights ago, or three. Time has ceased to exist for her. There is just the endless pit of worry and the infinite open road on the way back to Washington. Or maybe she'll go to Kansas or California-- somewhere where nobody knows her. She could live off the grid. She could disappear.

"I'm not sure," she admits.

"Well, you're going to have to figure it out real quick."

"Why? Isn't it enough to just-- to not be there anymore?"

"Well, I would prefer it if you were here, Steph Joy, so I could keep an eye on you and it wouldn't be so suspicious--"

"I don't need you to keep an eye on me. I'm not-- I'm not dangerous."

"You and I both know that's not true."

"Jesus fucking Christ, Dad, is this why you called me? So you could scold me about leaving and call me a monster again?"

"I never called you a monster."

"I'm not stupid, Dad. I know what you meant."

"It's not what I meant--"

"Are you done? Can I hang up now?"

"Don't hang up."

"Why?"

David breathes deep through his nose in a way that makes Denny instantly suspicious. When he lets the sigh out, words come with it. "Your mom had a pretty nasty fall."

"What?"

"In the shower. Fell. Broke her legs. Knocked herself out. Really messed herself up."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"She's in the hospital?"

"Yeah."

"Shit. How bad, exactly?"

"From what I'm hearing, pretty damn bad."

"Shit." Denny bites her lip so hard she thinks it might start bleeding. When she's back in her head, and when her head is back on her body, she says, tersely, "I'll take care of it."

"In what way?"

"I'm already headed out west. I can go home and help her."

"What do you mean you're already headed out west? Steph Joy, I'm a little worried about you--"

"Don't be."

"What about school?"

"What about it?"

"Aren't you going to graduate?"

"Guess not."

"You would have been the first in our family, you know that? And you were close. Are you sure? It's not too late to come back, and I could go out and take care of your mother, or we could try to get in touch with your uncle Elmer--"

"Dad. I already told you. I'll take care of it. And I'm not going back to fucking Tennessee."

She hangs up on him before he can say anything else and turns up the volume on the radio. The CD skips, hung up on Gwen Stefani crooning over a trombone. She thinks about eating the Slim Jim in the cupholder, but doesn't. She just keeps driving.

The news coverage dies down once she's out of the area, down to a trickle like rain through a broken gutter.

Her mom is going to be in the hospital for a while. Denny knows that by the time she arrives back in Lake Wonder, thanks to calls from her mother and the doctors taking care of her. She makes adjustments to the house, not quite sure how to help but desperately wanting to. Ramps. Is that what they're going to need? Ramps? And she visits her mom in the hospital, and doesn't really talk about the other reason why she's home, and doesn't talk about the fact that she's not going to graduate and doesn't talk about herself. She talks about other things. The weather. She talks about the weather.

*****

When it gets to be too much, she goes out to the woods.

The first time she does after getting back to town, she doesn't shift. She doesn't change. She just stands there, fists in the pockets of her jeans, looking up at a sky she wants to curse. She wants to scream at it. She wants to tear down a tree and throw it at the sun.

She doesn't. She just trudges back home on the split-cracked sidewalk the town hasn't bothered to repair since she's been gone. The sidewalk has been this way since she was a kid. Almost bitterly, Denny wishes the forest could be the same one she spent her youth in. She wishes it could be the same sun-dappled, leaf-covered floor and the same feeling of total freedom.

But, then, it is. Lake Wonder is the same. Lake Wonder has always been the same. It's her that has changed, and maybe not for the better.

She gets things ready for her mom to come home. Apparently, in a fit of absolute idiocy, she took her father's toolbox with her out of the state. She had been borrowing it to do some repairs on the shower so that she and Jennifer wouldn't have to pay some maintenance fee. Now it's here, across the country, staring back at her from the cramped trunk of her car. At least there's some use in that.

Denny deletes her social media accounts when the notifications never stop. Some of them have nothing to do with her, which is nice, because it means that everything about what happened in that hall with Jennifer and Joey and Denny's stupid claws is fading into the background noise of the relentless churning waters of the public consciousness. That's a good thing. She wants to be forgotten. Truth be told, it's a notification about bread-making that sets her over the edge, that annoys her to the point of snapping.

Denny watches VHS tapes on the couch. She thinks about talking to people who have been trying to get in touch with her, like Emira or her friends from around here, but she doesn't know what to say.

It should get easier, right? Living with it? It wasn't even that bad-- she just thought she killed fifteen people, witnessed part of the death of her roommate, beat a guy half to death in some wobbly form of self-defense, got filmed, and fled the state. No big deal. There are definitely worse things in the world.

She tells her mom the basics of why she's home, but not the details. Matilda McFadden doesn't need to know all the details. No, nobody does.

But the people who already do... Well, Denny doesn't want to think about that. Not now, not ever.

As it turns out, it's easy to ignore things. After all, if you don't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist. And, if it doesn't exist, it can't hurt you. If it doesn't exist, it can't hurt anyone.

*****

Before her mother gets out of the hospital, Denny heads out to the woods with every intention of letting off a little steam. She's out there for five days. When she gets back, she remembers none of it. It doesn't really strike her to be concerned. It doesn't occur to her at all.

*****

Things fall back into place like she was never gone at all. She and her mother bicker lovingly over the hot stove and the perpetually-broken remote. There's a sense of peace there. Denny is glad for it.

And she looks for a job in the meantime. She's not going back to Tennessee, where she's pretty sure someone might want her head on a spike. No, she's home for good now. She might as well start acting like it.

As it turns out, the fact that one of the first things to show up when her full name is searched on the internet isn't about any of the good things she has done-- minor articles about her time on the team at U.T., or about any of the events she helped Emira set up, or anything like that. No, it's all Joey, and what happened with Joey, and what happened because of Joey, and what happened at the hands of Joey, and what happened to Joey-- and it's actively impeding her ability to get hired anywhere outside of this town. There are places within Lake Wonder, though, that will hire her. Places staffed by people who are more understanding.

It's hard not to have some understanding of the supernatural in Lake Wonder. People don't like to, not all of them. They cling to their perception of reality like a blanket. But there are others who seem to get it. There is a boiling underbelly of the magical and supernatural and weird that lurks just under that idyllic, picturesque mountain town surface.

So, when she gets hired as a part of the janitorial and maintenance staff at the high school, she doesn't ask why they don't ask any questions about what they may or may not have found. They don't ask any questions about why she's back in town earlier than she was supposed to be.

There's a coach at the high school who offers to bring her on to help out with some of the teams when she's brought on to do janitorial and maintenance work around there. Not Carissa and Nathaniel's dad-- the other one. Chad Brower. He takes one look at her and goes on a rambling tangent about Mayor Chip Winger and how he met a werewolf once at a summer camp in the eighties (and she was a cheerleader, and he's not necessarily saying that Denny is a werewolf, just that he met one), and Denny sits there, nodding like she understands any of it. She doesn't. But she likes the ending, when he shakes her hand, tells her she'll probably help out Wallace Keller at the middle school (since he very clearly needs the help), and welcomes her back to town.

Until she actually starts that job (a month before the school year starts), she's just kind of here. Here and helping and hiding in the house from everything she used to know.

Maybe a month after her mother gets out of the hospital, there's a knock at the door. Denny gets it; she's more than used to the never-ending stream of casseroles and desserts from the members of her mother's book club that persist, even now. In a way, it's more of the same waiting for her-- a silver foil disposable dish with a flimsy plastic cover thrust out at her like a threat. It's the person holding it there that is relatively new.

Carissa Keller stands there in an old purple marching band sweatshirt and jeans, clearly on her way to take care of something else after this little detour. It's clear that she's shocked to see Denny standing there, one hand on the doorknob.

"Oh. Denny. You're back." She sounds shocked, at least-- but not necessarily pleasantly so. It's more neutral than that.

"Yeah."

"Well, I-- my mom made this for your mom." She holds out the aluminum pan. "And I said I would drop it off on my way to help out with rehearsals for the pit."

Denny nods. She knows exactly what Carissa means by that. Over in Pine Valley, they do a musical in one of the public parks every year, with a live pit orchestra instead of pre-recorded tracks. There's a shortage of French horns everywhere around here, and Carissa can technically play every instrument now (not that she would have to formally learn, since it's fairly easy to move from one kind of brass instrument to another), so of course she would get brought in to help out.

That reminds Denny-- Carissa's probably a professional, school-trained musician now, or pretty damn close to it. It's April now, right? Or is it May? Denny has lost track of everything in the blur of house-bound banality that has mixed so well with her everyday issues with time. That would make sense; they have to start rehearsals early, after all. And graduation is usually around the end of April or beginning of May...

It isn't lost on Denny that she won't graduate. It's easier not to dwell on it, though.

She takes the dish from Carissa. Without thinking much about it, she asks, "Do you want to come in?"

Carissa blinks, checks her watch, looks at the sun through drizzling rain, considers it. "You know what, sure. I've got some time before I have to be there."

Denny steps to the side and, once Carissa is in the house, closes the door behind her.

"Stephanie, who is that?" her mother calls from the living room.

"Carissa, Mom."

"Oh! Hello, Carissa!"

"Hi, Ms. McFadden." Carissa waves from the doorway, where she's taking off her shoes. Denny's surprised she remembered-- and then is reminded that oh, right, Carissa never left. Of course she would remember to take off her shoes in Denny's mom's house. There was never any question there.

The two of them end up at the kitchen table, talking over cups of whatever Denny was able to scrounge up out of the fridge. Orange juice, she thinks, or maybe orange drink. She doesn't know. She isn't cognizantly aware of it.

Denny tries to keep the conversation on how things have been for people other than her over the past year. How has school been? (Fine.) How are her parents? (Fine.) How is her brother? (Nathaniel is, as always, fine.)

When Denny brings up Nathaniel, Carissa raises an eyebrow over her glass of drink from the pitcher on the table between them. (Denny knows what the drink is now. It's an orange drink made from a powdered mix that she put together a few days ago or sometime last week, or-- she doesn't know.)

"Why are you asking about Nathaniel, Denny?" Carissa sing-songs.

Denny swats the air between them gently. "Oh, pssht."

She knows exactly what Carissa is getting at. When they were twelve or thirteen, Denny and Nathaniel kissed at an after-hours end-of-year band party that had gotten rowdy enough for a game of spin the bottle to start up. Jessie, in all her infinite wisdom, figured that the two of them should start dating. In the way that two young queer teens who have not yet realized one of those key aspects of themselves tend to do, both of them agreed to it. Denny would never admit it, but one of the major reasons she went along with it in the first place (other than the fact that she figured that was what she was supposed to do) was that Nathaniel and Carissa looked remarkably similar.

It wasn't even much of a relationship. They mostly just did things they were already doing as friends-- climbing trees, playing video games in the closet under the stairs in the Keller house on an old SNES that had no business running as well as it did, things like that. The relationship ended when Carissa and Denny came into the house one day to find Nathaniel and Cory kissing on the couch. Denny didn't really care as much as she knew she was supposed to. Carissa very much did, though.

As it always does, because Denny can't keep it from happening, the conversation turns back to her.

"So, how have you been? What brought you back home? Other than the obvious?"

Denny shrugs like she doesn't know. She does. She just doesn't want to say anything and risk having Carissa hate her for the truth. That takes a backseat to her general shrugging demeanor, though. Like a lot of things, it's an act of pure habit.

"No, I mean it. Isn't the semester still going over at U.T.? How come you're here?"

Denny shrugs again. (The answer is yes. It is. And they both know that.)

Carissa's eyes go wide and her voice is suddenly, terrifyingly soft and angry. "Oh, god, Den. You didn't drop out, did you? Tell me you didn't drop out."

"I might have."

"Why?"

"Uh-- well. So. Uh. You know how I'm, uh, I'm stupid? Well, I did something stupid, and I-- well, I-- I'm here now. And it's fine, because someone needs to be here anyway, since Mom got hurt and all, so I-- I'm here. Yeah."

"So you did drop out?"

"Yeah."

"Jesus Christ, Denny."

"Sorry."

"Jesus Christ. You know, Dad mentioned something about being excited to work with you come football season. I didn't think you would go and do-- god. Goddammit, Denny."

Denny turns the cup in her hands, not looking at the person across the table from her. "Can we talk about something else?"

Carissa checks the clock over the stove. "I have to go. Rehearsal."

"Right."

"I'll see you later? We're going out tomorrow. Come. Don't. It's up to you. I need someone to help me pull carpet so I can unearth the pit at the high school out in Pine Valley, too, if you're game. Next week." Carissa tries to look her in the eye, but Denny won't meet her halfway. "Don't hole yourself up in here, though, Denny."

"Yeah. Yeah. Okay."

"I mean it."

"I know."

Carissa leaves quietly, and Denny is there, in the kitchen, skin cold from letting her down. Denny silently suspects that she is always letting Carissa down. Still, she didn't think the knowledge that someone cared enough to be concerned about why she was home-- even if it was Carissa, who was always concerned about something or other-- would sting so much.

Here she is, though, staring at her reflection in the shimmering artificially-orange drink, like she will find some truth in there, in a clear blue plastic cup stained with spots of white by years of use and being washed in the dishwasher (back before the dishwasher went out and Denny couldn't figure out how to fix it, that is). There is no truth on the surface of the rippling liquid. There are just the tired, scared eyes of a twenty-two year old who has no idea what she's doing anymore. Denny takes a deep breath and downs the glass until there's nothing left. It tastes all too sweet. It burns her throat on the way down. But she swallows it, every last drop. And she tells herself that it's going to be fine. She just needs to think about all of it a little less.

*****

Sometimes, there is no deeper meaning to all of it. Sometimes, it just sucks shit and you have to buck up and deal with it-- have to deal with the injustices and the guilt and the way you can't sleep at night because the things you have done and the things that have been done to you and the things that you couldn't keep from happening all live and dance and cohabitate just behind your eyelids and on the tip of your tongue, and it's all you can do to keep them from spilling out onto your feet and your hands and the carpet of your mother's house. There is no cathartic ending. There is no ending at all.

There's no light at the end of the tunnel, just lamps every so often. There's just what is spoken and unspoken; there's just what is and what isn't, and what isn't is the truth. What isn't encompasses all the things she has been trying so hard not to say or even think about. What isn't is the reality of what is and what is unacknowledged in words, only spoken of in internal monologue.

Well, that's the truth, then. The truth is, she is terrified. The truth is, she doesn't know how to open up. She worries everyone and she worries herself and she won't give them a reason, and she can't. Because, if they know, how can they trust her? And, if they don't, there is no base of honesty left on which to build things.

There are times that she wants nothing more than to be fourteen again, to stay away from that dumpster, to keep the thing off of her-- and would she do that, if she could? Would she change everything about herself if it meant living a better, much easier life?

Denny lays on the ground in the early morning, trying to see in the blue light heralding another endless summer day. She's looking up at the ceiling of her old room, counting the bumps of popcorn paint. No, this isn't her old room. It's just her room. She lives here for good now. And she always knew she would.

There isn't a lot of space in the world for someone like her. Hulking. Monstrous. Wonderful. Horrific. Amazing.

No, no-- she wouldn't change it. She has learned to love it. The feeling of running through the trees and being more powerful than she should have any right to be, and becoming something inhuman; she likes the ability she has, to be more than what she once was, to step up and protect everyone (even if she has been bad at it as of late), to-- to be herself. Because isn't this a crucial part of who she is? It has allowed her to do so many things. It has allowed her to be something wonderfully unnerving and nigh-supernatural and she likes that. She does. To be frank, she thinks it's cool as hell.

She just wishes that she didn't have to keep all of it a secret. She's bad at secrets. She knows that. And keeping secrets-- that is what twists her stomach into knots, what keeps her in perpetual whimpering agony.

There is no beauty in this suffering. She knows that. She is acutely aware of how weak it is for her to act like there is, and that it is slowly killing her, keeping all of this to herself.

For the first time since she got back, she stands with a particular determination and heads over to the closet. It's cluttered. It contains records and remnants of who she used to be-- and who she wants to be once again. Old shirts are folded and stored in clear plastic bins stacked up to the ceiling; jackets hang heavy and loose and limp from black and orange and red and white plastic hangers that seemingly spawned from nowhere. She looks into it, trying to find something specific among all the cardboard boxes stacked in the corner.

There weren't a lot of high expectations for her. That isn't the issue here. Nobody ever expected her to do well at school, and she was glad for it because she was shit at school. But she was good at other things, and there is no reason she shouldn't still be good at them. Maybe she is. Maybe she just needs to get herself to believe it.

She wonders if she is, if there's still some semblance of who she used to be among all the spiral-bound notebooks full of dates and times and the ramblings of an adolescent who never had any idea what was happening to her. Hell, she still doesn't, so maybe she really hasn't changed, not in a way that matters.

Denny takes her stack of journals from on top of her old filing cabinet that she used to use as a dresser and takes them over to where she had been laying before. She leans against the stacked cans of soup she has been using as a bed (since her mother technically sold hers a few months ago) and starts to read through them.

There is at least one for every year since she was fourteen and was turned by some creature in a dumpster that bit her across the shoulder and left her for dead. Around that time, she started to realize that there were huge chunks of time that were fuzzy or were missing entirely. Come to find out, those were times when she shifted, usually in the house or in the backyard, and couldn't remember why.

Things got better as she got older, and things became more and more voluntary-- except for full moons, which were mandatory and always have been. She could shift right now if she wanted to. She doesn't, but she could.

The pages of these notebooks are filled with all sorts of ramblings-- total terror and total paranoia, yes, but also just the ramblings of a stupid little teenager who didn't know what she wanted out of anything. Denny looks back on things fondly: her account of how Cory burned down the treehouse; everything she ever wrote about the girls she liked, like Nadine, who broke up with her at a yard sale (and how odd it was, that she used some of the same words to describe Jessie as she did Nadine); bubbly little recollections of everything from football games to jazz band concerts to driving out to the city for hours with her friends. It's all there, written in black ink from pens she filched from the junk drawer in the kitchen downstairs.

They're adorable. And they're reassuring. Maybe there's nothing inherently wrong with her, aside from the things that are so blatantly abnormal. Maybe she's just worrying a little too much. And maybe she hasn't changed all that much. Like the way she looked at the woods, it is the context that has changed.

Denny flips through all of them, then thinks about flipping through the last one. She eyes the bag by the door and looks away so quickly she might as well just slap herself on the forehead while she's at it. Not that one. Not the one that is inexplicably covered in the blood of a friend she never meant to lose. She doesn't mean that one.

The other new one, the orange one she bought at that shitty-ass Max-Mart. It cost more than it should have, for a wide-ruled composition notebook.

No. No. She knows what has to happen. She makes up her mind to bite the bullet right then and there. As if she's possessed by some foreign spirit, she lunges across the room, grabs at the bag like it's some horrific enemy threatening her, and dumps it out on her soup-can-and-yoga-mat bed.

Enough. Enough of this!

She upends it. She opens the window. She puts the pictures and posters and the journal in an old shoebox. She puts the backpack in the cracked, yellowed-with-age laundry basket by the door, and she is a whirlwind of motion. She cleans the house in a determined frenzy; she kisses her mother on the top of her head when she's vacuuming; and she feels like herself again. Wild. Happy. Okay-ish, except for some things.

So she bites the bullet again, once the house is cleaned and that determination keeps pushing her forward.

"Hey, Mom," she says, leaning over the back of the couch. It digs into her stomach. "If I were to go out with Jessie and Carissa and Cory now, what would you say? It's cool if it's a no-- I could stay here if you need me, I don't mind--"

"Stephanie." Her mother doesn't pause the TV when she looks her in the eye. "You worry too much."

Denny snorts. That's rich, coming from the woman who fretted over every scratch and bruise and bloody nose when Denny was growing up. That's rich, coming from the woman who nearly had an aneurysm the first time Denny brought up the prospect of playing football.

But, still, Denny grins. "I need to know if that's a yes or a no."

"That's a yes."

"Alright. Well, you have my number, and you can call me if you need anything and I'll come right home, I promise--"

"Stephanie."

"Mom."

"Stephanie."

"Mom."

"Go out. I'll be fine."

"Are you sure? I could always--"

"If I ask you to make me something to eat before you go, will you leave?"

"Um. I don't-- I don't know." The answer is yes. She knows that. Her mother knows that just as well.

"Could you make me a sandwich before you leave, then?"

"Yep." Denny smacks the back of the couch gently and turns around to walk through the kitchen doorway. She half-listens to her mother talking while she makes the sandwich in the way she knows her mother likes it: mayo on both pieces of bread, a slice of salami, roast beef, another slice of salami, and a slice of American cheese. Simple. Easy. But Denny adds things to the plate, like a glass of that too-sweet juice from the pitcher, with a few of those ice cubes that always taste like rubber, a slice of that store-bought sheet cake with the red frosting that one of the women from the book club brought over, a knife, and a fork. All the while, Matilda McFadden continues to talk and Denny continues to fail to listen.

"You know, Stephanie, it's not healthy for you to spend so much time in the house," she says, around the same time that Denny exits the kitchen. Denny hasn't heard or digested any of the rest of what her mother said. She just, eyebrows raised like she was listening the whole time, walks around the couch to hand the plate and glass to her mother, then to set up the tray table. Matilda has a look on her face, like she thinks this is all a bunch of silly fanfare, but she goes with it for Denny's sake. She always does that.

"Are you sure?" Denny asks again.

"Yes. Go."

"Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, remember, call me if you need anything, and I-- I'll--"

"I would if you would pick up," Matilda mutters, raising the clinking glass to her mouth.

Denny gives her a betrayed, startled look, but doesn't say anything. She doesn't need to. They both know Matilda is more than willing to elaborate.

"David called. Your father? He wants to talk to you. I think you should but, then, what do I know? I'm just your mother."

Denny shifts uncomfortably. "I don't want to talk to him."

"Then don't. You can make your own decisions."

"Yeah, I guess." Denny pauses, not sure if she really wants to ask what's on her mind. She does, though. "What did he-- how-- how much did he tell you?"

"About what?" Her mother seems genuinely confused.

"About why I left?"

"Nothing? What are you talking about?"

"Uh-- nothing."

"Did you already do drugs, Stephanie? Is that why you've been hiding in the house?"

"No, Mom. I didn't do drugs. Anyway, I, uh-- I'm not... I'm not going to call him, but-- here, see, I'm turning on my ringer. I'll pick up if you call. And I'm gonna go now, because-- well, I want to go. I want to go out."

"Then go. I have been trying to get you to leave."

"I will!"

"Then do it!"

Denny, with her heart caught in her throat and a worst-case scenario forming in the back of her mind, opens the front door of the house and leaves. It's going to be fine. And she's going to have a great time with her friends-- or die trying.

*****

There's no meaning to silent suffering. She repeats it to herself like a mantra in the coming weeks, like a way of guarding herself against the frantic thing living deep down in the pit of her stomach. There is no beauty to this. There is no meaning. There is just unending terror and the unending slog of eternally pressing forward-- and it's going to be fine.

But it's not like that matters, because she is definitely drunk and she is definitely going to plunge into the river running through the property behind Carissa's house fully-clothed, because that is definitely a great idea and she's definitely not going to regret it later.

And she doesn't, not even when she's shivering and smiling like the cold water doesn't chill her bones.

It gets easier with time, she finds. Even when she doesn't talk about it. Even if it creeps up on her sometimes: an odd mix of terror and an overwhelming need to keep everyone safe. That protective streak, mixed with her normal stupidity and tendency toward doing weird shit, has really been kicking her ass lately. Cory's nose started gushing blood at some point while they were fooling around with the piano, and she started freaking out in her attempt to find something to stop the bleeding. Clearly, he was fine. It was nothing. It was less than nothing. But it didn't feel like it. She's not quite sure why. Denny supposes she'll have to keep it in check.

But, still, things fall back into place. Pieces click together like the puzzle was never up-ended at all. It's like she was on a trip, and she's home now. It's like this is where she was always meant to be.

In a way, it is. She has never wanted much. She likes being liked, sure, but it's not like the spotlight has ever been her goal. She never really had any goals to begin with. Graduating sure. Going to college, maybe. That second one didn't work out all that well, it would seem. Her goal was always to be something like a PE teacher. What she's doing now is close enough, right?

It's surprisingly easy to not be caught up in the melancholic, glittery remnants of a living snow globe she never intended to break when she doesn't really have a chance to think about it. Listening to Jessie talk about something or other, or sitting in on Carissa practicing a concerto they both know she doesn't intend to perform, or to Cory explaining once again the historical significance of Dr. Mario (there isn't any, but she doesn't have the heart to tell him that) is like a holy grail. She drinks from it often, like gulping down cool water, or taking instructions from her mother.

Denny likes to listen. She always has.

Maybe she really didn't change. Maybe this kind of thing doesn't have to change her at all, and she can go back to being good old Denny, who used to play football and now lives with her mom and is back in town, working at the same school she graduated from four years prior. Things are good! They always are, until they're not.

She can't help but ask where the old version of herself went when she washes her hands in the bathroom at Max-Mart. She didn't intend to be at Max-Mart. In fact, she had other plans. She was going to sit around the house all day. But Jessie had a few things she needed to pick up. (Denny doesn't know what it is. It went in one ear and out the other. She has no clue.) Denny has never been one to turn down an opportunity to run errands with anyone, especially not Jessie. It helps that she genuinely likes her, and likes to spend time with her.

So, where did good old Denny go? Well, she never left! She's right here! She always has been!

And, maybe, just maybe, she always will be.

Denny leaves the bathroom, wiping her hands on the side of her jeans. She doesn't like the way paper towels feel when she's using them to dry her hands. It's a little unnatural, the way they disintegrate. She doesn't like it.

It's not like that matters all that much, though. It's a small nuisance that has such a little bearing on her day-to-day life. There are plenty of ways to circumvent it, like what she's doing while she's headed to meet Jessie at the self-checkout. The sound of beeping is like a greeting from someone she used to know.

Jessie is easy enough to spot. It's not like she stands out, not really (though the tank top she's wearing is bright pink). It's just that Denny could pick her out of any crowd, any time. It's easy. It's easy for her, at least.

Denny walks into the self-checkout area, taps the shopping cart full of groceries in white plastic bags, and, grinning, asks, "You almost done?"

"No, yeah, I'm almost done." Jessie runs down the list of things she meant to get and cross-references it with what she actually bought. When it matches, she nods, pays, and waits for the machine to read her card.

"Do you need to go anywhere after this?"

"Do you want to come over?"

"Uh... Sure, but I need an answer."

"No, this is all. So you do want to come over? Watch a movie or something?"

"Uh... sure."

"Good." Jessie turns away from the checkout screen to grin at her. "I can't wait."

"You probably can."

"You being silly with me, Denny?"

"I might be!"

"Good." Jessie's smile is so wide that Denny could just about fall into it. "I miss that version of you."

"Aw, jeez, what's that supposed to mean?"

Jessie shrugs. She sticks her wallet in her back pocket and steers the cart away from the checkout. "You've just been different lately."

"Oh. Does it matter?"

"Guess not. It's just a little concerning."

"Doesn't have to be. I'm still me."

"Hell yeah, you are." Jessie slugs her in the shoulder. It's enough to hurt, to feel affectionate, like another corner piece of the puzzle falling into place. "Is your trunk still broken? I know the door is, but is the trunk still?"

"Nah. I got that fixed."

Jessie grins, nearly hopping as she pushes the cart out of the grocery store and into the parking lot. Denny isn't sure why she expects some sort of alarm to go off when she walks through. She didn't take anything this time, on purpose or by accident. She hasn't done that in a while. And it's jarring to leave behind the yellow fluorescent lights in favor of the sun. Was it always this bright? She tries to blink it off.

"So, what's the plan?"

"We head back to my place, put away the groceries, watch a movie, get drunk? Get silly?"

"I do love to get silly."

"Getting silly is the greatest way to get loose, and getting loose is the greatest way to get silly. It's circular, but it works."

"I guess it does."

"It does, and you're gonna have to trust me in that." A wicked grin splits her face and Jessie blinks behind her glasses. They have those odd blue light filters on them that make everything about her seem iridescent, like mother of pearl. The delicate wire frames, like rounded trapezoids, make her face familiar. That's the thing, though-- Jessie is always familiar. "Do you remember when your trunk broke the first time? When Cory smacked into it on his skateboard while he was holding that sword we found in the woods?"

"No, no, that was the second time. The first time was when I got rear-ended while we were driving to Big Bear, remember? And that woman outside the gas station who did it nearly started sobbing? And it was so dented that we had to get our stuff out through the back seat?"

Denny felt bad for the woman, and was super stressed about the car at the time, but it was hilarious in retrospect. A lot of things are. She wonders why she worried so much at the time when everything ended up being just fine. Breaking Cory's glasses that one time wasn't an apocalyptic event. Maybe this, too, will pass.

A hand waves in front of her face. Denny recognizes that glittery blue nail polish and the delicate beaded bracelet around her wrist. It snaps her out of her daze, at least.

"Denny? Denny, are you with us? Earth to jock, are you receiving our transmission?"

Denny blinks, shakes her head a little like she's trying to clear it. She doesn't know why. It was pretty empty to begin with. "Uh-- sorry? Got lost for a second."

"Lost? Denny, we're in a parking lot."

"Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean."

"Sure I do." It's clear she doesn't. "Will you unlock the door so I can get into the trunk?"

"Yeah, yeah, cool your jets." Denny fishes her keys out of her pocket and fumbles for the fob, then unlocks the car. "Do you want help with putting them in the--"

Denny doesn't finish the question or try to wait for an answer. She just helps lift bag after bag into the trunk. When the bread and eggs are set gingerly on top, the cart is in the corral, Jessie has gotten in her ribbings about the ridiculous amount of dog food in the trunk, and the passenger-side window is down so that Jessie can press on the plastic and get into the car through the passenger-side door without hoisting herself through the window, they finally leave.

Jessie chooses the music. Denny doesn't mind. In fact, she prefers it. A lot of her taste in music comes from her friends or from listening to the alternative station run out of the city-- before it turned mostly pop, that is, but that's neither here nor there.

Denny drums the top of the car, ducks down into it, and does what she has always done. She turns the keys. In movements she is more than used to, and with her best friend humming in the seat next to her, Denny drives.

*****

The weird, tense summer fades into a pretty wet, otherwise average autumn. Everything is pretty much back to normal-- or, at least, she's back to herself. She feeds the stray dogs in the neighborhood when she can, and doesn't really care to refute the students' claims that all the dry dog food in her trunk is for her. (She's eaten it before. She doesn't get the hype.)

It's nice to go back to being weird. It's nice to be the kind of person that other people can count on to be willing to take a wild animal out of the school. It's fine that the kids at the high school call her the weird janitor (though Denny would definitely argue that she isn't the weirdest, because the Mop Wizard is definitely still in the basement), and it's fine that the kids on the middle school football team seem to genuinely like her. It's also fine that a very hairy woman (who Denny has definitely seen at the book club meetings her mother does in the living room) keeps trying to give the kids cupcakes during practice no matter how many times Denny or even Wallace Keller tries to tell her that's a bad idea. And it's fine when she suspects one of the kids at the high school of being a werewolf and makes a rash decision to seek out silver (which she knows she's allergic to) to test against her and finds exactly nothing. That's fine, since she didn't really expect to find anything in the first place.

Everything is good. Good old Denny is back. She's glad for it.