Page 112 of Have a Bear-y Little Christmas
“Yes. I hope this isn’t invasive, but being a shifter is a huge part of your life. Frankly, it’s downright incredible. I’ve been reading about this stuff for years, and I never once thought it could be my reality.
“So, I’d like to see you shift. I also wouldn’t mind hanging out with you when you’re in your bear form. I don’t need you to do any tricks or fight off any juveniles coming to challenge your territory, but it really would mean a lot to me.”
She fidgeted with her hands like she always did when she was feeling guilty for asking for the minimum, but my heart was doing all sorts of strange maneuvers in my chest. God, how had I met the perfect woman twice? Although Zara and Jeannie were different, each unique in many ways, they were both pieces of me, and I was pieces of them. Always meant to be together to create beautiful things—memories, meals, or even our daughters.
“I would be happy to shift for you,” I said. “Let me just do a quick walk around the perimeter of this little clearing, and if the coast is clear, I can do it right here.”
“Really? Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel pressured.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t feel bad at all. I didn’t even realize it had been that long.”
Perhaps it was my turn to reveal something about myself to her. “I don’t think I ever told you this, but before that night at the cabin, the last time I shifted was several years earlier.”
“What? Really that long? Was there a specific reason?”
“I don’t think it was one specific reason as much as it was a combination of a lot of really complex, maybe even abstract reasons.”
“If you’re ready to share those reasons, I’m more than game to listen. If it’s too complicated, or even too personal, I understand.”
I loved how gracious she was with me, how quickly she was willing to give me space despite her curious nature, but we were at the point in our relationship where I could tell her pretty much anything. Which was why this miscommunication about whether we were dating or not was still blowing my mind a little. “No, I don’t mind sharing. Just, tell me if it gets a little much.”
She leaned over, resting her head against my shoulder. “You can never be too much. I happen to think that you’rejustright.”
I tried to give her a playfully withering look, but she wasn’t exactly in the best position for it, so I mostly just ended up glowering at my chin. “Was that a Goldilocks joke?”
“I plead the fifth.”
I laughed, but it wasn’t an especially long-lived mirth. Mostly because my brain was connecting things I had kept so meticulously separated in my mind, linking them into a chain that allowed me to see that maybe, just maybe, I had more things I needed to work on than I would like to admit.
“Once it became clear that Zara’s time was coming to an end, sometimes it felt a bit like showing off. She never got an animal form, you know? Always too sick despite being a shifter. Eventhough she never held it against me or complained about it, it made me feel so intensely guilty. Like I was holding it over her head.
“But I also think there was some resentment in me. Whether being a shifter was magical or scientific or whatever, it wasn’t right that I had something in me that could heal the slightest of injuries or sicknesses and my wife, who was one of the kindest people I’d ever met, didn’t get to live because hers never manifested. And the reason hers never manifested was because she was too sick to begin with. The whole thing just seemed unfair.”
I was surprised at the wave of bitterness and sadness that welled up within me, winding around my brain stem like I was right back in those awful times. Awful, and beautiful.
Jeannie pulled away just enough for me to see her face, and when I glanced at those beautiful hazel eyes of hers, I saw only understanding and empathy.
I was incredibly grateful she was not only never jealous of Zara, but she actively encouraged me to celebrate the many wonderful things about her. It never felt like there was an ounce of competition between the two of them. I knew that dynamic didn’t always work out when someone had lost a spouse. Although, half the time that was because the widower compared their new partner to their previous one. I tried to never do that. I enjoyed admiring the differences, strengths, and similarities between the two, but that was more musing about a couple of people who held my heart than trying to make Jeannie like Zara, or disrespecting Zara’s memory by saying Jeannie was better.
There was no better. Only love.
“Then there was the fact that Zara really wanted our daughters to be a part of both worlds. I’m not sure if you noticed over the holidays, but some of the kids really have no idea of what it’s like to function in the human world. They know nothingabout taxes or technology. Those kids struggle a lot when they get older, and they end up living on our clan lands, isolated from everyone else. And if that’s ultimately what brings them peace, I’m all for it, but for some of them, it feels like they didn’t have a choice.
“Given that, I’ve been so focused on making sure my girls are integrated well into their school and all their extracurriculars. I guess because of that, I forgot to take time for my bear. Honestly, I was surprised he didn’t go more aggro than he did when I finally let him out.”
“Is your inner bear, like, a separate force from you?”
The question surprised me a bit, because it was one of the things that was most basic about a shifter, but other than our conversation around the cabin table at breakfast with our kids, we’ve never really discussed what it meant to be a shifter. Let alone abearshifter.
Without meaning to, I’d dropped the ball again. And considering the whole dating miscommunication that had happened, I was beginning to think things that were obvious to me weren’t quite so obvious to everyone else.
Good to know.
“Yes and no,” I answered honestly. “The best I can say is that he’s sort of an ancient, primal, even primordial version of me. No evolution, no humanity, just instincts and impulses. It’s not like he craves violence or blood or anything, but he has a visceral need to protect. And if he feels something is endangering those that he loves—and he very much can feel love—he will react.
“But he also looks to me for a lot of things that he doesn’t understand. The world is really complicated right now, and sometimes something as simple as a phone alarm can cause a spike of adrenaline. I visualize it as him waking up from hibernation and asking me what’s going on. Not in so many words, but in however it is we communicate with our minds.”
“Wow,” Jeannie said. She was looking at me like I was a movie star or something. “I wondered if it was like that. It’s just so hard to remember what’s something that you’ve told me specifically and something I’ve read. It’s all gotten a bit jumbled in my head.”
