Post by Morena Corie Walsh on Aug 26, 2012 20:43:27 GMT -7
morena c. walsh
25. FEMALE. WEREWOLF. STRAIGHT.
I’ve always been like this. Mom and dad, they were like this too. So were my aunts and uncles. As far back as anyone can remember we’ve always been this way. And there’s nothing wrong with it, not now. When I understand it. When I know how to control it. But as a child it was truly terrible a thing. I didn’t understand in the beginning. It didn’t make sense to me. And when I finally understood I felt so confused. And I feared the worst. Who was ever going to fall in love with a girl like me?
I’m the oldest of 5 kids, 4 of them being boys. And we’re all like this. They don’t understand it. They don’t see it the way I do. I’m a girl! I wanted to fall in love, to find the perfect guy. Who was ever going to love someone like me? I mean, if they weren’t like me too. And that was a very small dating pool, especially in high school. And so I compensated. I tried to be attractive, fun, and it was exhausting. It was so much work and by half way through my sophomore year, I had given up. All my friends dropped me, I didn’t like them much anyways and all the outcasts were wary of me. My friends had been making their lives hell for the past year and a half, but I hadn’t and that had to count for something. He was the first to talk to me, with those big thick frame glasses. It was lunch and I was eating outside on the grass, headphones on, big chunky ones, and bumping a Toad The Wet Sprocket album on full blast, an Agatha Christie novel in my hand and munching on a bag of pumpkin seeds. He sat down in front of me, pushed my book out of the way and held out a hand to me. I was the weird kid, no one really talked to me. Outcasts didn’t even like me. But here was this kid, I pushed off my headphones and shook his hand.
“You’re Morena Duffy, right?â€
“Yeah.â€
“Aren’t your parents from Ireland or something?â€
“Yeah. County Cork.â€
“So do you speak Gaelic?â€
“Pretty fluently. You wanna hear?â€
“YES!â€
It started there. Everything. He was my best friend the rest of that year and into the summer. Somewhere around August it changed. Words like boyfriend and girlfriend get tossed around a lot in high school but we really did care about each other. As much as high schoolers could. Senior year came, graduation, summer, and then college. The inevitable break up happened, I spent the first half of my freshman year mourning the relationship (as we are want to do).
I went to parties. I had fun. And high school was fun to think back on, it didn’t hurt after a while. It was just a story, one you told your friends while you hung out in the parking lot during a smoke break. No one really intrigued me there. I just figured it was fun times at college. But I was still that weird kid. I had friends. But the kinds that sat in their apartments smoking weed and playing Disney drinking games. Not that I minded. It was better that way. They were like me. Snarky. Informed. Not idiots. But then college ended. I was 22 with a degree (which didn’t mean much these days) so I got a job. Pencil pushing. Still had my friends, still do. But I needed a job and even though I thought I could write novels for the rest of my life I needed some way to start that, don’t I? That’s how it all started again.
I was outside sitting on a bench at the designated section of the parking lot, fitting in a smoke just before my lunch break ended. I hated y job. I hated my life honestly. I had gone to college and it hadn’t really helped me. I was single. And I was still that weird kid that people seemed to avoid when they didn’t have to talk to me. I was three drags in when a familiar, though changed face stood before me. It was him. That boy from high school and I couldn’t help the way my heart clenched and the little whole that began to hollow in my stomach. All of my closure hadn’t involved him and I started to wonder if I even got that much closure. I hadn’t had a steady relationship since. We talked for a few minutes. Caught up. And like an idiot I gave him my number, I had to hurry in. And I thought that was the end of it all. But he called. We went to dinner. And I was waking up in his bed the next day. It was strange, different, not at all like it had been and yet a little bit the same.
“I’m a werewolf!â€
I was sitting on the back porch of my apartment, cigarette dangling from fingers and wearing one of his t-shirts. He believed me. Didn’t ask me to prove it. I never asked why. Though it didn’t take long for me to find out. It was a year after it all. I was 23 and I met his parents. Parents who were like me. A family who was like me. With the odd smattering of human here and there. Like him. I wasn’t thinking but I’ll never forget getting in the car with him after dinner and turning, “Let’s get married.â€
And now we’re here. Married. A life. Together. Married! It’s still like it was before. I’ll never stop being sarcastic and snippy. But I’m not gonna stop shaving my legs either. It’s just…eventually it’s gonna come up. The next step. There’s always a next step. Oh god!
I’m the oldest of 5 kids, 4 of them being boys. And we’re all like this. They don’t understand it. They don’t see it the way I do. I’m a girl! I wanted to fall in love, to find the perfect guy. Who was ever going to love someone like me? I mean, if they weren’t like me too. And that was a very small dating pool, especially in high school. And so I compensated. I tried to be attractive, fun, and it was exhausting. It was so much work and by half way through my sophomore year, I had given up. All my friends dropped me, I didn’t like them much anyways and all the outcasts were wary of me. My friends had been making their lives hell for the past year and a half, but I hadn’t and that had to count for something. He was the first to talk to me, with those big thick frame glasses. It was lunch and I was eating outside on the grass, headphones on, big chunky ones, and bumping a Toad The Wet Sprocket album on full blast, an Agatha Christie novel in my hand and munching on a bag of pumpkin seeds. He sat down in front of me, pushed my book out of the way and held out a hand to me. I was the weird kid, no one really talked to me. Outcasts didn’t even like me. But here was this kid, I pushed off my headphones and shook his hand.
“You’re Morena Duffy, right?â€
“Yeah.â€
“Aren’t your parents from Ireland or something?â€
“Yeah. County Cork.â€
“So do you speak Gaelic?â€
“Pretty fluently. You wanna hear?â€
“YES!â€
It started there. Everything. He was my best friend the rest of that year and into the summer. Somewhere around August it changed. Words like boyfriend and girlfriend get tossed around a lot in high school but we really did care about each other. As much as high schoolers could. Senior year came, graduation, summer, and then college. The inevitable break up happened, I spent the first half of my freshman year mourning the relationship (as we are want to do).
I went to parties. I had fun. And high school was fun to think back on, it didn’t hurt after a while. It was just a story, one you told your friends while you hung out in the parking lot during a smoke break. No one really intrigued me there. I just figured it was fun times at college. But I was still that weird kid. I had friends. But the kinds that sat in their apartments smoking weed and playing Disney drinking games. Not that I minded. It was better that way. They were like me. Snarky. Informed. Not idiots. But then college ended. I was 22 with a degree (which didn’t mean much these days) so I got a job. Pencil pushing. Still had my friends, still do. But I needed a job and even though I thought I could write novels for the rest of my life I needed some way to start that, don’t I? That’s how it all started again.
I was outside sitting on a bench at the designated section of the parking lot, fitting in a smoke just before my lunch break ended. I hated y job. I hated my life honestly. I had gone to college and it hadn’t really helped me. I was single. And I was still that weird kid that people seemed to avoid when they didn’t have to talk to me. I was three drags in when a familiar, though changed face stood before me. It was him. That boy from high school and I couldn’t help the way my heart clenched and the little whole that began to hollow in my stomach. All of my closure hadn’t involved him and I started to wonder if I even got that much closure. I hadn’t had a steady relationship since. We talked for a few minutes. Caught up. And like an idiot I gave him my number, I had to hurry in. And I thought that was the end of it all. But he called. We went to dinner. And I was waking up in his bed the next day. It was strange, different, not at all like it had been and yet a little bit the same.
“I’m a werewolf!â€
I was sitting on the back porch of my apartment, cigarette dangling from fingers and wearing one of his t-shirts. He believed me. Didn’t ask me to prove it. I never asked why. Though it didn’t take long for me to find out. It was a year after it all. I was 23 and I met his parents. Parents who were like me. A family who was like me. With the odd smattering of human here and there. Like him. I wasn’t thinking but I’ll never forget getting in the car with him after dinner and turning, “Let’s get married.â€
And now we’re here. Married. A life. Together. Married! It’s still like it was before. I’ll never stop being sarcastic and snippy. But I’m not gonna stop shaving my legs either. It’s just…eventually it’s gonna come up. The next step. There’s always a next step. Oh god!
BEE – EVERYONE TALKS – KRISTEN BELL.
okay. done. that's it. no more for a long time!
