Page 11 of Lessons with the Mothman

Lyle was quiet, and I glanced at him. His pale, almost translucent skin shimmered under the old fluorescent lights that glowed intermittently along the ceiling of the hallway, deep blue lips twisted in a grimace.

"I have my next psych in forty minutes, but?—"

I waved my hand. "No, that's fine. I have something to eat in my bag. Let's just get outside."Preferably before my skin crawls right off my body,I added privately.

"You should report him," Lyle murmured, not his first time suggesting. "At the very least, you could get a new advisor."

I shook my head. "It was years ago. I'd just look like I was trying to work my way out of a conflict over my study. And no one else would?—"

"Someone—"

"Lyle, I'm fine," I said, my voice smooth and controlled, a little too close to my mother's own tone.

His expression softened to a smile, eerie aquamarine eyes crinkling at the corners in amusement. I found myself smiling back, some of the tangled tension in my spine easing. I'd alwaysbeen good at lying. The value of appearance, both in terms of physical and also social, had been persistently enforced in my growing years.

My mother wasn't cruel, but her will was stronger than my own as a child. Her words were the stubborn rose bush that had stretched their strong roots and thorny branches inside of my mind for two decades. And she had taught me that at the bare minimum, I should always befine. For a long time,finehad been my baseline, a status so innocuous I'd fooled not just my family, but Brett, and even myself. It was a reflex deeper than my own nature to say that I was fine.

And it was a relief beyond measure to now have a friend incapable of being tricked by a lie, no matter how good.

"When do you meet with the moth again?" Lyle asked, offering me an easy change of subject.

I glanced over my shoulder as another class let out, this one full of undergrads. They looked shockingly young to me now, although I could remember how mature I'd considered myself at the time. I'd been in a relationship for four years already, and I was too tightly wound at parties to enjoy myself, especially with Brett checking in by text every hour. Maybe he'd always known I would stray eventually.

"Tonight," I answered Lyle.

"At his bar again?"

I'd been to Nightlight three times so far, and each one had started with a new cocktail waiting for me, and a quiet exchange of notes between myself and Elias. He was an interesting bar owner by my estimation, somehow both entirely in command of the space and people around him, and yet also fairly uninvolved. No one greeted him as they took their seats, and he seemed to take very little interest in the general management.

I wasn't sure if heneededto meet there so he could keep working, since I hadn't really seen him doing anything thatseemed to qualify, or if it just felt like easy neutral territory. I'd considered suggesting meeting elsewhere, like a library or coffee shop, except that the patrons of Nightlight fascinated me. The variety of monster races was wider in a small Wicker Park bar than anywhere else in the city I'd encountered, all mingling together over drinks and food. Humans were frequent too, but never so many that they outnumbered any other race.

I nodded to Lyle. "But late tonight. We have our first interview after the bar closes."

"Are they a vampire?" Lyle guessed. "How old?"

I found myself smiling. His own work was focused on fear as a sexual stimulant, and a vampire would be an excellent subject to interview.

"Decades, not centuries," I said.

Lyle drooped slightly. "We shouldn't really be swapping, anyway."

"True, but I can ask if they might know anyone qualified for you."

Lyle's long arm swung over my shoulders, squeezing briefly. "I'd owe you."

I wasn't sure that was true. My friendship with Lyle often felt lopsided, but at least a small favor might help even the scales a little.

A horn blaredfrom the street, barely muffled even from the back porch of my apartment. The kitten in front of me stiffened and yowled in warning.

"Yes, I know," I murmured, silky and low. "How rude of them, hmm?"

The kitten hissed. Behind him, the black tomcat I'd named Hubert yawned and stretched, finishing with a lick of his jaw and a patient glance at the wet treat I held out in front of me. He knew he would get his turn.

The kitten warned me once more, arching its tiny, bony spine, but it pounced closer another few inches, and its eyes flashed between my face and the treat.

Seraphina, a svelte tortie, brushed up against my side and butted her head into my elbow. My knees and ankles ached from squatting for so long, but any attempt at settling myself would no doubt end in the kitten fleeing.

It was a dusty, dirt stained white, with spots of brown on one ear and the tip of its tail, and it had been following Hubert here for three nights, gobbling the bowls of food I left out and growling at anyone and everything. None of my other regulars paid any heed. The kitten was a scrap of fur and bone, and we'd all been through this routine before.

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