With the Eyes of a Wolf

"We could run away," I say. A whisper of defiance snakes its way through every corner of my lungs, filling me and renewing me as if it were oxygen.

I am a wolf.

To my side, Dean leans against the hood of my red, 1956 Ford pickup truck. He chuckles, rolling his eyes. "You always say that, Beck."

I am the howl.

"Do I?" I lift the cigarette to my lips and take in a deep breath. The smoke fills me, only fueling the rebellion that rages behind my ribcage. My eyes study the green road sign in front of us that reads in bold white print: NOW LEAVING CLATSKANIE. I try to picture what life outside this dead-end town would look like.

Sharp teeth.

"You do. You always bring me out here just to tell me how we could run away. You say how easy it would be."

Deep growl.

"Well... that's 'cause it would be easy." My cigarette burns to the butt, and I drop it to the cracked pavement and grind it to ashes with the toe of my sneaker.

Hungry and on the hunt.

"If it's so easy, why haven't you left yet?" Dean asks. "There's nothin' keeping you here anyway."

Roving, endless woods erupt inside my lungs – nature reclaiming what was stolen. I am the hunter and the prey; both fearless and afraid. But if you were to ask me what I'm afraid of, I wouldn't really have an answer. All I know is that my fear is a feast for the hunger that burns in my blood.

I think, as long as we're being honest, this is the kind of hunger that ravages all of us. None are exempt. Some of us just choose to bury the longing beneath years of denial and self-compromise. But not me. Never me.

I am hungry.

"You know why," I retort, plucking a small rock from the dirt and throwing it across the span of Highway 30. It skids across the pavement and plunks into the tall, wild grass on the other side. The jarring motion sends a jolt of pain from the bruise on the side of my torso down the length of my body. I wince.

"You okay?" Dean asks. Brow furrowed, he turns to me, hands in the pockets of his denim jacket. The wool collar is turned up to fend off the brisk morning breeze. It's barely the end of August, and autumn is already playing its hand.

"Yeah. I'm fine." I take in slow, deep breaths. The pain subsides. I've probably broken more bones in my eighteen years than most adults have their whole lives. Pain and I are well acquainted.

Parked on the side of the road that leads out of town, I resist the impulse to jump into my truck and take off right here and now. I could do it, too. Few people would really notice – certainly not good ol' Joe, my stepfather. Even if he ever bothered to pull himself off his dirty ol' Barcalounger, he'd never put in the effort to notice something like that. Besides, those who might notice would move on pretty quick. There's nothing so special about me as to keep anyone attached to my life. But, if I'm being honest, I couldn't bring myself to leave Dean behind. Or the Howlers. Everyone else in this town could rot for all I care, but I could never leave Dean. It's not likely that he feels the same way toward me, but I probably stay here more for myself than I do for him anyway. It's just easier to say I do it for him than to admit I'm scared of my own dreams.

A crow flies from the growing wall of fog as it bleeds through the wall of trees that enclose this town. A timber town hemmed in by the hills, this place could almost be a resort if its residents cared to fix it up and make it worth something. Instead of high-end stores and bistros and restaurants, there's a thrift store, which is just a fancy word for a garage-sale, on just about every corner. Everything is old and run-down, in desperate need of a fresh paint job or some new wood to replace what's rotten – these people need vision.

But I see with the eyes of a wolf. I see with eyes bent toward vision, toward freedom, toward the never-ending cycle of hunger and hunt.

The mountains and the woods are pretty enough. For me, though, the hills and trees are almost like prison walls. And prison walls are only meant for one thing: escaping.

I turn to Dean as I light another cigarette and plant it between my lips like a tree to root. "It's good to have you back, Dean. How are you? Since..."

"Since what? Since I tried to kill myself?" With a strained smile, he offers a dry chuckle. But it sounds wrong – it doesn't fit the reality of what happened.

"Yeah. That." I pluck the cigarette from my lips and cross my arms, letting it smolder a minute. The leather of my West Coast Howlers jacket tightens around my shoulders, and, for a second, I imagine that the wolf embroidered on the back comes alive and leaps from the leather, ravaging this entire town before bounding into the woods. Never to be seen again. Some kids want to be like their fathers when they grow up. Others want to be police officers and firefighters. But all I want is to be like that wolf. And, if I'm being honest, I think about it a lot.

Dean shrugs, tugging the fleece inner-lining of his jacket tighter around his neck as a brisk breeze blows past us. "I'm fine, I guess. It feels... good to be home."

Clearing my throat, I look away, my eyes fall to the road out of town. "I was real angry with you, Dean."

"I know."

"No. You don't. Those first few days after Emilia told me what happened, I didn't even want to come see you. I was so angry with you, and I couldn't understand why you did it. I still don't." I lift the cigarette to my mouth and take a long, deep drag – my own secret petition to the god of death. Gods don't listen, though.

"Neither do I, hermano. Not really." He shifts on his feet and looks off to the right, out at the endless field of wild grass, browned by the occasional heat of August in the Pacific Northwest. The untamed field turns to mountains and forest that reaches up, up through the fog.

"Anyway, I just wanted to say that I'm glad you're not dead, Dean."

He smiles. "I'm glad I'm not dead, too."

I swallow, not sure there's anything left for me to say. It's hard for me to articulate myself sometimes – almost like the words don't exist yet to explain what I mean to say. But if I'm being honest, part of me feels guilty – like I should've known, should've protected him somehow. The problem is that I don't even know what I'm protecting him from. "You and Emilia, you're only good thing about this place."

"Yeah, well, after what I did, I may have lost her..."

"Aren't you getting ahead of yourself? It's only been a few days since you last talked to her."

He cocks an eyebrow at me.

"Okay. But still... she's your girlfriend. You've been together for three years. Do you really think she's gonna take off just like that after all you've been through together?" I shake my head. "No. She'll stick around – she has to."

"I hope so..." His voice trails off as he looks out toward the mountains.

Chewing the inside of my lip, I cross my arms and eye him. "In a few days when school starts, you'll see her again and you'll realize how stupid you've been about this, okay? Just wait. You'll see."

He shrugs. "What if I can't do it, hermano?"

"Do what?"

"Face her."

I want to say something reassuring, but my anger stops me. Mostly I think I'm just angry at myself for not knowing why he did what he did. I'm his best friend. Of all people, I should know.

"You've only been back for a day," I remind him. "You haven't seen her in a couple weeks. Don't go jumping to conclusions."

"It's just that... maybe she's better off without me. She could actually make a future for herself, you know," Dean says, looking out at the field to our right. Swedetown Trailer Park, where I live, sits in the middle of the overgrown grass.

"Don't do that, Dean. Don't go trying to make excuses for the fact that you're just scared to see her. That's all."

He shakes his head, kicking his feet at the gravel. "No, no. It's not that at all." A pause. "Okay. Maybe it's partly that. I just mean that she's smart. She's pretty. She could write her own story, y'know? You and me? Sometimes it feels like the universe wrote our story a long time ago, and we both know how it ends – same old town, same old people, same old problems. But her? She could be somethin', alright. She could be somethin' amazing."

My upper lip twitches, and I swallow, trying to avoid the anger that races through my bones and dances on my bruises.

"So could we," I say. The lie feels familiar on my tongue.