Gifted To The Bear: A Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance (The Gifted Series Book 1) (13 page)

She went on to tell me about different things she’d seen while spying from the trees during different fights, and then she completely shifted gears, telling me a few jokes and thoroughly cracking herself up.

But then, after a minute or so of further cloud-watching, still kind of giggling a little, she craned her neck to look at me again with her expression completely sober. “Avery, do you want to see what’s my favorite thing to practice during practice?”

“Sure.”

I wasn’t quite sure what I was expecting, but what she soon showed me wasn’t it. It was just heartbreaking.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

After lifting a palm to the sky, Jen began shooting a thin stream of silvery light from it, and then she began moving her hand to make some sort of shape or design with the stream of light, kind of like a person might do with a sparkler.

“Can you see what I’m doing? I’m making the shape of a mom in the sky. This is one of my favorite things to do, because I like to create my own nice mom, and then I like to pretend that I have a nice, sweet, loving mom watching over me from the sky. And then sometimes when I’m sad or lonely, I just think, ‘It’s okay, Jen. Your nice, loving mom in the sky really loves you and cares about you so much, and she’s trying to stretch her arms down from the sky to give you a big hug right this second. And she doesn’t even care if you can barely read, and she doesn’t even care if everyone thinks you’re a spaz and a baby. She just loves you, Jen, and she’s just trying to beam you down some of that love right now.’ And that always makes me feel better. Just to imagine that I have a sky mom who loves me.”

Jen continued on with her light-beam design, and I tried to respond but couldn’t at first. I had to swallow a few times to get rid of a lump that was constricting my throat.

“I think that’s very sweet, Jen. I’m glad that gives you comfort.”

“Thanks. Me, too.” Moving her hand in tight, fast circles, she paused. “I’m giving my sky mom silvery, curly hair now. I like to imagine her with curly hair.”

Jen fell silent for several seconds while she finished up her task, but then she let her hand fall to her side and spoke in a quiet voice, staring up at the fading traces of silvery light above her.

“My mom died a couple years ago. She took a gun and shot herself in the head, and I got home from school, and I found her laying down with her brains all around her in the living room.” Still gazing up at the sky, Jen paused to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “At first, I just kind of wandered around the house a little, because I just really didn’t know what to do, but then I started crying so hard I could hardly even breathe, and then Annie came home, and she shook me so hard my teeth crunched together, and she said, ‘Just be quiet! Just be quiet so I can figure out what to do!’ But then once I was quiet, Annie figured out that there really wasn’t anything we
could
do. We just had to call the police and tell them that our mom was dead with all her brains all around the living room.”

Jen fell silent, and I just looked at her, heart aching.

“I’m so sorry, Jen. I’m so sorry that you lost your mom, and I’m sorry that you had to see what you did.”

“Thanks.”

“I bet you must miss your mom a lot.”

With her focus seeming to be on a small but puffy white cloud above us, Jen didn’t answer right away. “I don’t mean to sound mean, but I think I miss my sky mom more than I miss my actual mom. My actual mom wasn’t a very nice mom, but...I still miss that nice, loving mom that I always wanted. Does that seem crazy?”     

“No, it doesn’t at all.”

Jen craned her neck to look at me. “Thanks. Now tell me about
your
mom. Is she still alive?”

I shook my head, willing my voice to remain steady. “No. She died when I was really young.”

“I’m sorry, Avery.”

“Thanks.”

“Well, was she a nice mom?”

“Yes. She was very nice... very loving.”

“What kinds of things did she do?”

Again, I willed my voice to remain steady. “Well, she taught preschool, and she liked to bake a lot, and she liked to knit. She used to knit me these really warm, cozy sweaters with little plastic buttons in different animal shapes. Little bunnies, and kittens, and things like that.”

“That sounds really nice. You got lucky.”

Knowing that this conversation must be ended soon if I wanted to avoid crying in full view of everyone in Timberline, including Jim, I tried my best to lift the corners of my mouth in a smile. “I did. I got very lucky.”

Jen returned my little smile and returned her gaze to the sky. Relieved, I turned my focus back to the field, where Jim was roaring, leading several of his bears in a charge against several others. A few Gifteds were shooting beams of light between the two groups, creating an obstacle course of sorts that the bears had to work around.

After maybe a minute or so of further cloud-gazing on her back, Jen pulled herself up to sit beside me again. “Do you know that me and Annie aren’t even full sisters? We’re just half-sisters. Our mom got pregnant with each of us by getting some sperm from different men at a sperm bank. Well, by the way, do you know what sperm even is?”

Slightly embarrassed, but amused at the same time, I nodded. “Yes, I know.”

“Okay. Me, too. It’s what men shoot out of their penises to have kids. Or even, they do it just to have fun sometimes.”

Now I was
thoroughly
embarrassed, and hot-faced as well. Flushing beet red, I was sure, I had no idea what to say. “Well... yes.”

“Do you know that one time, I heard my mom telling one of her friends that she got ‘gypped’ with me? She said that for how much she paid to get my dad’s sperm, I sure was a dud. And she even said, ‘Really, Alice, she’s beyond a dud. Now I have a kid with behavioral problems.’ Can you believe that? She actually thought I have behavioral problems. When the truth is, I don’t have any problems with my behavior. I just behave like me. Just like the person that I know in my heart I am. Marbles doesn’t have a problem with my behavior, you don’t have a problem with my behavior, even Jim doesn’t have a problem with my behavior. It’s just other people that do. It’s just every person everywhere I’ve ever lived, even people my own age, and even a ton of people here in Timberline, and it’s even my own sister that has a problem with my behavior. Oh, and also, a ton of people in Ridgewood think I’m weird, because sometimes when I come into town to get ice cream, I let Marbles take some licks of the ice cream, and then I take a few bites or licks of it myself. I mean, is sharing ‘weird?’ Like, Marbles is my best dog friend. Wouldn’t it be weird if I
didn’t
share my ice cream cone with him?”

Appreciating her logic, I smiled. “I think you’re a wonderful best friend to Marbles.”

“And to you, too, right?”

“And to me, too.”

Soon all shifters in the clearing shifted back into human form, and it became apparent that it was break time. Several of them, along with several Gifteds, began strolling toward Jen and me and the cooler of sports drink, and Jen put her mouth near my ear and whispered.

“Remember our plan. We’ve gotta make ‘em think they’ve swallowed drugs for an April Fool's prank.”

Once everyone in the group, which included Jim, all had paper cups full of sports drink, Jen encouraged them to drink up, and they did. Twining and un-twining her fingers in an anticipatory sort of way while practically bouncing on the balls of her feet, Jen just watched until everyone had taken at least a few drinks. Then, she burst into laughter.

“All you guys don’t even know what you just did! You all just took drugs! I put some drug powder in the cooler earlier. It was pure cocaine, I think. About ten pounds of it.”

Because of the pretty obvious transparency of Jen’s delivery of the joke, I didn’t really even feel the need to wink at anyone to let them know that it
was
just a joke.

A few Gifteds laughed feebly, and one of the shifters said, “Uh-oh.” Annie rolled her eyes, finished the rest of her drink, and put her cup in the recycling bag. Jim’s reaction, however, wasn’t quite as cynical.

In a display of genuinely good acting, he suddenly dropped his cup, looking over Jen’s shoulder with an expression of shock and horror. “I think it’s having an effect on me already. I see unicorns. Dozens of them.”

Jen shrieked with delight, hands flying up to cover her mouth.

Jim continued to peer over her shoulder, frowning. “But these aren’t regular unicorns. These unicorns have fangs. There must be at least a hundred of them in the trees. They’re absolutely terrifying.” Wearing a near-comical mask of anguish, he turned his focus back to Jen. “
Why
did you have to give me drugs?”

She’d been giggling so hard her face was nearly as red as her hair, and now she giggled even harder before taking a great gulp of air. “I didn’t! I didn’t give you drugs! It’s was just an April Fool's prank! But you fell for it so hard!”

Jim exhaled, clutching his chest. “Oh. Oh, thank God. Just an April Fool’s prank. That doesn’t explain all the vampire unicorns in the woods, though.”

Jen now howled with laughter, and several shifters and Gifteds laughed as well. I joined in myself, unable to help thinking that Jim would likely make a wonderful father someday. And because I’d always wanted a child, maybe even two or three, this was something that was kind of important to me in a man.

But then Jim had to go and ruin my sudden warmish thoughts about him.

*

While a couple of the shifters told Jen about their own “drug hallucinations,” making her continue to laugh, Jim steered me away from the group by the elbow. “Let’s just walk and talk for a second while I have a little break.”

I said that was fine, and we began strolling along the edge of the forestland, away from the group. Once we were out of hearing distance, Jim asked what I thought about what I’d seen so far.

I shrugged, gaze on the stretch of grass in front of us. “I guess I think it’s fine... for those who actually enjoy training and fighting and want to do it.”

“Did you see how we always have each other’s backs? Did you see how we look out for one another so that no one gets hurt in a fight, and so that no one’s single-handedly responsible for the safety of everyone else?”

“Yes, I saw all that, but it doesn’t apply to me, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Avery, I’d like you to practice with us next time. I’d like you to participate and use your gift.”

Angry that he was bringing up the subject of me participating yet again, I came to a sudden dead stop, glaring at him. “The gym teacher from hell.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That’s what you’re like, with all your insistence on participation. You’re like the gym teacher from hell.”

Jim actually had the nerve to allow a little twinkle of amusement to dance across his eyes. “And here I thought I had a real shot at being your PB, your Pudding Bear. But now I’m just the gym teacher from hell.”

“Please just leave me alone. Go launder some jockstraps or something.”

With that, I turned on my heel and stalked back over to Jen, and the training session soon resumed. When it was over, I walked back home with her, Annie, and Aaron.

That evening, there was a “minor Angel problem,” as Annie said, and Jim and a few other shifters left the village to deal with it. They didn’t return until the next morning, and Jen reported that they’d all gone home to get some sleep, Jim included.

“His eyes were so bloodshot and sleepy, they looked like red, red rubies. I said, ‘Welcome back to Timberline, Sheriff Eyeball Rubies!’ I don’t think he fully got it, but he laughed anyway.”

Just like a good dad
, I thought.
Just like a man who would likely make a wonderful partner and husband.

I painted while Jen and Marbles went on their daily, hours-long walk in the forest, and when they returned, Jen and I had lunch and then a reading and spelling work session. Around three in the afternoon, she asked if we could go into Ridgewood for ice cream, since she’d really been working hard and trying to focus, which she really had been.

I said sure we could go. “You definitely deserve a treat for all your hard work. But how will we get there? Ridgewood’s five miles away, and I don’t have a car.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. We’ve got a ride. Now let’s just hurry up and get down to the parking lot place of the village so we can get going.”

“But who—”

“Oh, one of the shifter guys who has a truck. He always gives me rides into Ridgewood whenever I want.”

“Oh. Well, okay. Let me grab my wallet, and we’ll go.”

“Okay, and I'll grab Marbles. Even though
he
hasn’t been working very hard on his reading and spelling lately, and he hasn’t even been working on those things at all, I think he still deserves a treat, too. He’s such a good boy that they’ve even starting letting him come right on in the ice cream shop with me. Of course it might be partly because he barks nonstop when I tie him up outside, and it really annoys everyone, but... well, I like to think it’s mostly because everyone’s starting to realize what an awesome dog he is.”

While we walked down the lane in the sunshine, several women waved to us from their porches, and several others we crossed paths with walking said hello and stopped to chat briefly. One of them was a woman who’d just that day discovered that she and her shifter husband were expecting a baby. I envied her for a couple of different reasons, one of which was the complete joy apparent on her face. I also envied her because as a pregnant woman, she didn’t have to participate in training or fights anymore. However, this was the only thing she herself seemed bummed about.