“You won’t get what you need out of this, Charley. It won’t happen.”
“He’s human, Charley.”
Undone, she let the shimmer fade. The force above her remained, but like an artist with a broken muse, she stopped the change. Her muscles burned with heat confined to her extremities. She blinked, opened to Cael’s upside down face, and closed her eyes once again.
“Is she back?” James’s voice carried to her.
“Yes. Lavender irises and vertical pupils. I’m going to let go, Charley.”
Released from the hold, she curled into herself. One day a year she had to deal with life as her natural self. She almost lost everything thanks to teenage desire which overruled over two hundred years of experience.
A hand massaged her shoulders, kneading muscles worn both from her original transformation and the second attempt.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
James’s breath caught the back of her ear, warm against the cool night. As her body’s temperature lowered, shivers ran through her. He fit himself snugly behind her.
“You can’t be sorry for wanting something so much you’d give up your life for it, but you promised, remember?”
She slid into his lap. Charley wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders as she laid her head down upon one.
“I’m so tired.” She whispered the words.
“Sleep.” James said.
Within seconds, she complied.
Exhaustion had overcome Charley. She’d teetered in consciousness, remembering only the sway as James lifted her into his arms before she’d woken, nude and tucked tight in bed. Given her ability to morph her entire body into another’s, she’d long since gotten over the need for modesty.
With the stars above and the trees everywhere around her mountaintop home, Charley’s balcony offered a place of refuge. Bundled in several blankets she’d hand-knit over the years, she curled into a wrought-iron chaise and let the wintery air take hold of her senses. Wyatt’s scent lingered, if only in the recesses of her mind.
James’s unmistakable footfall identified him as he joined her. A quick scrape of metal against wood suggested he’d moved one of her chairs. “Pass over some blanket.” He swiped the top one from her. “I know you hear me.”
Her lips curled, though her eyes remained closed. She shivered under the lost weight of one layer; her grip on the opposite end of her cover thwarted his attempt to steal a second.
“Ha! Knew it.”
“I don’t bother you when you’re recovering.” She made no attempt to turn toward him.
“You’re worrying.” After so many years together, he’d guess right.
Her hair caught between the slats as she turned. She cringed as she fluttered sleepy lids, letting in a sliver of light. She found James’s nose an inch from her own.
“I’m sorry.” Charley whispered the words.
James closed his eyes. “I shouldn’t have let you get close to him.”
“You couldn’t have stopped me.” Her grin grew. “You know that as well as I do.”
“I could’ve tried harder-”
She shook her head. “No. I should have known better.”
James huffed a laugh. “Well, as your big brother-”
Charley snorted a laugh. “Big brother my ass. I’m fifty years older than you and related in absolutely no way, shape or form, and thank god I can’t be male because then I’d have to become you just for spite.” She tweaked his nose. “But you are bigger.” Charley let her head loll away. “That was a first for me.”
“I’m surprised. We’ve all faltered at some point.”
She drew her gaze back to his. How he could relax, proportioned in a chaise half his size, she didn’t know. The single afghan barely reached his knees as he burrowed his body beneath it.
“Why don’t you wear a jacket?” She held the blanket above her lips to keep her smile hidden.
“You act old when you do that.” James spread out the cover more, pulling the edges to their limit.
Charley patted the knee resting against her armrest.
“And yet you look like you could be-”
“Don’t say it. It’s really gotten old, and I am so over it.”
James’s boom of laughter shook the trees. “Fine, fine. You don’t want me to tell you that you’re the most beautiful two-hundred-something eighteen year old around? No problem.”
She mock-punched his shoulder.
“Ahem.” Cael stood in the frame of the sliding glass door, so very different from James in every way except height and form, shape and strength.
Lily snuck in under his arm-an easy feat given her tiny stature. “You’re awake.” She slid her butt onto the edge of the chair at Charley’s toes. “Feelin’ better?”
“I screwed up, Lil.”
“No, no. Giving up who we are? That’s how we move on in this world. You know that better than any of us.” Lily’s head bobbled. “How’d you know he was the right one, though?”
Charley caught James’s gaze before Cael’s. “It’s a long story. I just can’t believe we met up tonight, of all nights.”
“Any other day of the year you’d have been safe to show off your wild and youthful age.” Lily giggled.
“Ooh… and about that. Happy Birthday, Charley.” James leaned in, added a kiss to her forehead.
“To eighteen again!” Cael smirked and held out his fist.
She bumped it.
Lily eyed her with a hint of mischief. “Maybe he was your birthday gift. Maybe that means another chance is around the corner.”
2
The blare of the bell vibrated through speakers as the masses began their hourly class change. Feet shuffled and screeched, shoulders bumped backpacks, and laughter rang out within the halls of West High.
“Whoops. Sorry, man,” Wyatt called over his shoulder. A hand-as sincere an apology as he’d get-waved back at him. Like the others, he jostled for space and position amidst the sea of sweaty, over-cologned jocks and pretentious girls. Five minutes between classes didn’t offer much time for socialization, though as senior class president, Wyatt found himself the forced exception.
“Yo! Wyatt!”
One quick move, and he met his childhood friend between a set of well-graffitied lockers-
“Man!” Out of breath, Stuart leaned over, placed his hands on his knees. His hair shook as his chest heaved. He twisted backward to lean against the wall and held one finger out, sliding it down to Wyatt’s face. “Dude! Did you see her?”
Head cocked, Wyatt squinted. In the course of his ten-yard walk, he’d bumped into, waved at or said ‘hello’ to a dozen or more students-a number of them of the female variety. Some he’d recognized; others he figured were underclassmen not worthy of his acknowledgement.
“Oh, c’mon, man! That girl! The hot one.”
