“If he doesn’t come to me, I’ll have to go to him,” Dr. Meadows said urgently. “I won’t be able to wait for your permission any longer. I will have to find him on my own.”
“I want him to be cured and safe. That’s all.”
“Of course you do. You love him,” she said in a soft voice. She drew my hair back from my face.
Dr. Meadows was the only one who knew my true feelings toward Brandon. I was surprised to find I felt relieved with someone else holding my secret.
“What happens if he kisses me,” I asked, “when he’s a . . . ?”
She paused with a cold, hard stare. “You mustn’t. That is all I can tell you.”
Dr. Meadows scurried away before I could say another word.
When I let myself into the house, Frank Sinatra was serenading me from my back pocket. I scrambled for my cell and hurried up to my room.
“Hello?”
“It’s good to hear your voice.”
“Yours, too.”
“I miss you,” Brandon said.
His words melted my heart.
“I miss you, too. How have you been?”
“Better. I’d prefer if I could see you at school—and after.”
“I know—but you can. We can,” I insisted.
“It’s too risky. I’ve been overhearing students—”
“But if it’s not a full moon, it can’t be you.”
“But what if it is? I dream I’m a wolf every night,” he said, his voice filled with concern.
“It’s only on a full moon that I’ve seen you turn. I’ve recorded everything in my notebook. You haven’t tried to harm or scare anyone on the other nights.”
“But I can’t remember the other nights. So how do we really know?”
“What if it’s a hoax? Someone trying to cash in on the werewolf folklore?”
“Or what if it’s another werewolf?”
“Another one?” He sighed. “I’d hate for anyone else to be going through what I am.”
“I don’t want anyone to hurt you,” I said.
“Me? That’s not what I’m worried about.”
Brandon was always concerned with others before himself. It was one of the traits that made him so alluring.
“I saw you with Nash. He’s been doting on you lately.”
“I’m not dating him,” I assured Brandon.
“Yeah . . . but just seeing you together. It’s hard. I want us to be the ones hanging out together.”
“You do?” I wasn’t totally sure of Brandon’s wishes. I felt like he kept me at a distance, and I was afraid to stick my neck out too far.
“Of course I want to be with you. It’s just . . . we have a few obstacles.”
“If I hadn’t gotten lost that day—” I lamented.
“I didn’t mean that in any way—” he said sincerely. “I know for some reason you blame yourself. I thought knowing Mr. Worthington’s story, and getting my family’s history, would make you feel better.”
“But if I hadn’t been lost in the woods, then you wouldn’t have been bitten.”
“And then I wouldn’t have gotten the best brownies of my life.”
A smile broke free from my frown. Brandon was brave in many ways. I admired his strength, and it felt impossible for me to feel anything for him but adoration.
My encounter with the Westside fortune-teller entered my mind. “Dr. Meadows . . . she might be coming for you.”
“With a cure?”
“She keeps saying she has to see you first.”
“Then that means she doesn’t have one.” He couldn’t hide the disappointment in his voice.
“I just wanted to let you know. You might have a psychic stalker on your hands.”
“The only stalker I want is you,” he said.
“I’m doing my best.”
“I have to go. It’s almost sundown, but I wanted to call and let you know . . .”
“Yes?”
“That I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“Me, too. I want us to have that date in the woods again,” I said.
“I do, too.”
“You remember?”
“No, but I jotted down as much as I could when I woke up. I wrote down that the snow sparkled like diamonds in your hair.”
That was all I needed. If Brandon took the time to jot down notes about me at the same time I was recording my memories, then it confirmed to me that our connection was real.
We got off the phone and I reveled in the fact that he was even more creative and dreamy than my overactive imagination could have imagined.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Moonlight Hideaway
Before English class started, Ivy and I chatted together as Dylan and Jake whispered to each other and acted like werewolves. Nash hung back and laughed.