Such Sharp Teeth

by Rachel Harrison

The carelessness, the disregard for my body, for my life. It’s robbed me of my strength, my resolve. I let my eyes close without the faith I’ll open them again.

It’s a particular form of torture that I wish I were alone in, though I know I’m not. For some reason I can never fully trust my own experience. I’m always treating myself like an unreliable witness. I offer no empathy, only an endless cycle of interrogation.

felt. Nothing visible, nothing tangible. I can feel it. The damage is there, but it’s ghost damage, haunting my body like it’s a goddamn Victorian manor. No one can see it but me. No one knows it’s there except for me.

We were raised by a woman who honestly believes that men are the key to happiness, no matter how many times they’ve proven otherwise. No matter the fuckup. No matter how heinous the offense.

Bad things have a way of severing your life into “before” and “after.” It’s really annoying.

Having a nightmare during a nap seems particularly cruel. Regular sleep, fine. But to be betrayed by a nap? Uncool.

Monsters are real. There are creatures out there, discovered and undiscovered, named and unnamed. Just because I can’t identify what bit me doesn’t mean I wasn’t bitten.

Denial is hard to sustain. It requires constant effort. The truth might not be pleasant, or logical in this case, but it’s easy. I don’t need to assign myself to it. It just is.

Ian

Proof

“Three-three-three,” I say to myself. When you’re anxious, if you name three things you see, three sounds you hear, and then move three parts of your body, it’s supposed to help calm you down. The 3-3-3 rule.

What if I can’t control myself in this form because this is what I really am? What if this is what I really want? Power and violence and freedom and oblivion. I let my eyes roll back and the monster win. —

“How is this real?” she asks me. I shrug. “It’s easy to get stuck on how. Doesn’t really matter, though.”

Their eyes are on me. There’s a sensation in my chest, like a harsh wind, like a cold front, like a light being snuffed out. A freezing. A calcification. Then nothing at all.

“He thinks I’m sexy because he loves me,” she said. “He’s attracted to me because he’s in love with me. Almost like he has to be. You know what I mean?” I didn’t. I don’t. Because I don’t think anyone has ever been in love with me. It’s only ever been attraction. That’s fine. It’s fine.

I love a no-strings random hookup. This is my sport. I’m varsity, MVP. I should be enjoying this. But it doesn’t feel the way I want it to feel. The way I need it to feel. He takes his hand from my throat and brings it to my chest. Bold.

This grin suggests he’s ignorant of danger. Suggests he assumes he is stronger. Assumes he is safe. I wonder what that’s like, to assume safety.

I’ve been fighting so hard for a future, and for what? For whom? It was a mistake, letting my guard down. Giving in to my feelings for Ian. Allowing myself to have those feelings in the first place. I should have known better. I should have protected myself. It’s on me.

Everything I’ve done—confronting my past, forgiving my mother, working through my anger, seeking a cure—was that really for me or was it all for him? At the time it seemed like a werewolf necessity, something I had to do to manage my monstrousness, but maybe I was just filing my teeth for him. For someone who never actually gave a damn about me.

“Once I stopped thinking about what my life wasn’t going to be, I started to see what it could be.

But then the moon came out. It’s like being torn open. Turned inside out. I want to die during the transformation. To never feel anything again. Then there’s this switch. When I’m in that form, I’m there, but it’s like I’m a whisper. I’m separate from my body. In that sense, I’m powerless. But I can feel and experience what the body is like. As the wolf, I have so much power. I feel invincible. It’s a rush. I can’t really remember the things I do or what happens. Just brief moments, a second here and there. Then I wake up and feel like shit.

Once you tell someone your story, you can’t take it back. I wonder if Mia thinks about it whenever she thinks of me. If, in her mind, I’m inextricable from this ugly experience I shared with her in a rare moment of vulnerability. Sometimes, having shared this with her, having this close history, makes being around her so easy, so freeing, like gravity doesn’t exist. And sometimes it feels like I’ve been stripped of my skin.

I lied to Scarlett. I am scared. Of course I’m scared. Who in their right mind wouldn’t be scared? It’s a nightmare out there, a great big, terrifying world. How does anyone trust anyone? We have such little control as it is, how does anyone willingly relinquish more on hope and hope alone? Maybe I’ve been wrong this whole time, thinking Mom and Scarlett were weak for seeking companionship, for a hand to hold through it all. It takes fucking guts to open yourself up to someone. To love someone. To hope for their love in return.

Once I stopped thinking about what my life wasn’t going to be, I started to see what it could be.

My strength doesn’t come from the bad things that have happened to me. It defies those things.

“No shame, right? Though, isn’t it annoying how if you fuck someone once, they feel entitled to you forever? Jay propositioned me and then got all huffy when I didn’t immediately strip naked and bend over.” There’s an uneasiness that I can’t quite gauge, that I don’t think I can credit solely to this conversation or to what just happened with Ian. There’s something else. An ephemeral suspense. A mystery suspicion.