Page 3 of Shaped to Be Yours

“I remember enough. What happened next?”

That was the real problem. What came next? How did one ask out a friend? When I’d first realized I liked Ricky, I hadn’t even known if he was gay. Bi? An option at all? Could he possibly like me the way I liked him? Would it ruin our friendship to ask?Was I good enough for him? Me, a C-average student better at outdoor things or throwing a football or Frisbee around than studying, who didn’t even know his major yet? Not midway through Freshman year anyway.

Now, about to be a senior, I was finishing my Bachelor of Science in Forest and Natural Resource Management, part of the track focused on parks. Whatever I ended up doing with that, at least I could be outside.

I just wasn’t the brains kind of guy. I was all brawn. I still giggled about how both Ricky and I were going to have college degrees calledBS. The answer to whether or not I was good enough for him was always,probably not, loser, and like the idiot I was, instead of figuring out the answers to any of those other questions, I’d just amped up my bro side and probably came off like an asshole half the time. I didn’t even know why he was friends with me.

I’d eventually found out that Rickywasgay, but only because he started dating a guy near the end of Freshman year. Then he was single for a while, but I’d chickened out just long enough for him to end up with someone else, and the cycle repeated.

Well, he was single again now, and lucky for me, Ricky had never thought it was weird that I didn’t date. No, I was the playboy who slept with guys I barely knew after too many drinks at a party, and a different guy each time, so Ricky probably thought I was a slut. I mean, I was a little, but I didn’t want to be that forever! I wanted more. I wanted real. I wanted to be in love with my best friend and have him love me back, so we could be idiots together, and then make out afterward.

That was the dream, right? If I could figure out how to freaking tell him.

My doom-scrolling on Facebook was interrupted by yet another ad for that Monster Match dating app. Google itone timeand you’re marked for life. Not that I wasn’t a little curious,but if I started being a slut for monsters instead of just drunk and horny strangers at parties, I would have zero chance with Ricky. No more drunk and horny strangers either! I had to focus on him.

“I can do this,” I said, shoving my phone into my pocket and taking a glance around to pick a direction.

A drop of rain landed on my head, and I realized how overcast the sky had become. Even more reason to get out of the woods quickly.

“So, you were looking at the Monster Match app right before the attack?”

“Not looking at it directly or through profiles or anything. I hadn’t downloaded it yet. I just saw an ad.”

“But it was on your mind? You had been thinking about monsters?”

“I guess. So?”

“Finish your story, Mr. Bosco.”

I couldn’t really get lost out here. One way would eventually bring me to the lake, two ways would lead to a road, and the last led home. If I reached one of the first three instead of home, I’d still know where I was. So, I chose a direction and made it about two steps.

Before I heard growling.

I froze. It was getting dark. The sun was minutes from being fully down, and peeking through the gathering clouds as more rain started to sprinkle, I could see the full moon already risenbehind me.Behind me, where I’d heard the growling. Where, when I looked, first up at the moon, then down between the trees, I saw two glowing eyes and the gleam of teeth.

I bolted in the other direction. Stupid. So stupid. You never run from a wild animal! I knew that. But my adrenaline was so high, all my body could do was chooseflight.

More growls followed and the snapping of teeth, the bounding of paws like something very heavy and fast giving chase. I couldn’t look back. I couldn’t. I didn’t dare. But no matter how much of a lead I’d had or how fast I was sprinting, the creature was faster than me.

I was struck, tackled, pinned to the ground by something at least twice my weight. I screamed as teeth bit into my shoulder through my T-shirt. Iscreamedbecause a great pain wracked through me upon contact, not only from the bite but everywhere, instantly, and my body began to shift and crack and change.

What was happening?

The creature released me with a whimper and bolted away into the woods. I barely caught a glimpse of its retreating gray fur before I was writhing on the ground, rolling over, but also curling in on myself as the pain grew worse. It was emanating from the bite, but it was everywhere. I would have been grateful that the beast left me alone if it didn’t feel like my blood was boiling.

The cracking was my bones, some snapping into new shapes, others elongating. It hurt like the worst of growing pains as a kid. But I was so shocked, so horrified when fur began to grow where only blond hair should be, I couldn’t scream again. I could only pant and moan and growl.

Until the change stopped, leaving my clothing in tatters because of my increase in size, with my eyesight sharpened, and my blood still boiling. I leapt up onto my new claw-like,paw-likefeet, and howled at the full moon just as the rain erupted into a downpour.

“I’ve been a werewolf ever since.”

“Mr. Bosco—”

“And I panicked, okay? I’ve admitted that. I hid what I became, because I was afraid of being sent away, when I do not belong in the monster realm. I was bornhere.”

“Your birth certificate confirms that, which is why we are not sending you anywhere.”

“You’re not?” I looked up from staring at the tabletop. “Then why are we having this conversation? Can’t I just go home?”

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