Carla and the Werewolf

The two people I meant to avoid when I moved back to Flagstaff were Carla and Eddie the Werewolf, yet I'd been in town less than forty-eight hours when I bumped into the first of them. This was back in the nineties, after I graduated from college. I had a degree in philosophy, a 2.78 GPA, and nowhere to go but back to Dad's house. So, my second day in town, I went out to relive the glory days with a Dungeons & Dragons marathon that I expected would go about sixteen hours.

It was in a musty-smelling basement, surrounded by shelves of trading card boxes and painted orc miniatures. Around the table with Carla sat three of my friends from high school, only one of whom I'd seen in the last four and a half years. He'd assured me Eddie didn't play with them anymore, but how would I have known to ask about Carla? I'd never even seen her talk to these guys. I gave my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim basement light, praying they were playing a trick on me, that her face would become someone else's. It didn't.

Carla had plain blond hair that hung limp down her cheeks, and a trace of acne that I thought only made her all the more interesting. She gave me a nervous smile and a wave, and I scowled back. Most of the day I spent being a jerk. Responding snarkily when she talked, making a big deal of it when she rolled the wrong dice, pretending not to hear when she asked if someone would pass the Chex Mix. But when she risked her life to save me from a level-40 snow troll, I felt guilty. After the gaming ended, when we were back upstairs putting on our winter coats, I said, "Sorry. I've been an ass today."

"I was the ass," she said. "That night with Eddie…"

"Let's not talk about it," I said.

She sat on the floor to pull on her red rubber boots. Looking up at me, she said, "Your nose healed up pretty good."

It wasn't true, but she made it sound like it was.

Face-to-face with her, I felt my hatred melting away. Not only because she was the prettiest girl who'd ever shown interest in me. It was the way she scuffed to her car, shoulders slumped, like she was feeling the weight of every mistake she'd ever made, that night with Eddie atop it all, and hating herself for it more than I ever had. As long as I'd known her, that was how Carla picked her way through life. It filled me with a need to do something nice.

I suppose I ought to explain about Eddie and Carla. In high school, he was my best friend, and she the girl I'd wanted as my girlfriend. The last time I'd seen them was the summer before I left for college, the night of Rob Deacon's party. Carla and I had gone off by ourselves in the back yard where the Japanese creeper runs up the fence, and the things we talked about weren't like things I talked about with anyone else. I told her that in my dreams I was waiting around to get caught for crimes I'd committed, and she told me that in her dreams she was running away because she couldn't bear to face anyone again, and I thought we were going to kiss until Eddie stumbled out into the yard, brayed at the moon, shapeshifted, and chomped off the end of my nose. I dripped a trail of blood through the house until someone drove me to the hospital, and the next day, I heard Eddie and Carla were an item.

I wanted to kill Eddie. I even bought a gun, but by the time I found a silver bullet, the rage had faded. I buried the pistol in a box of clothes at Dad's house...