The Wolf Inside

             Matty is sleeping to peacefully next to me, his snoring almost comforting, and I envy how quickly he disappears into the realm of sleep. I am not so lucky. I reach out and trace the arch of his eyebrow, smiling at the way it twitches beneath my finger. The sound of some random crime show makes for a constant hum of background noise. He likes it, I prefer silence, but we compromise, and I turn it off once he falls asleep. I found a ring in his drawer two nights ago, though he doesn’t know that I found it. In this moment, I am restless, but I am happy. I am whole. I don’t know that a frantic knock on the door in the dead of night is about to interrupt the life I’ve built, drawing me back into my past.

              When it comes I am up and out of bed in seconds, throwing on a silken robe Matty had gotten me for our three-year anniversary. My eyes dart to the alarm on my nightstand. Two in the morning. My stomach drops as the knock comes again. I think about waking Matty, but not before I see who it is. The silk of my robe swishes as I stride to the door, grabbing a knife from the kitchen block before rising on my toes to look through the peephole. It’s dark, but even in the night I can make out the familiar face, one that I’d hoped never to see again. He raises his fist to knock again, and I yank the door open so quickly it startles him. He stares at me, wide-eyed, looking me up and down.

            “Holy hell, Mandy. You look different.”

“You know I hate when you call me that.” I step out, wrapping my robe even tighter against the chill of the night, still gripping the blade in one hand that I let the robe drape over to cover.

“Alright, Amanda,” He says my name drawn out, like it’s an insult, “I guess some things haven’t changed.”

“Let’s cut the small talk. What the hell are you doing here, James?” He’s rocking from foot to foot, looking around as though he’s worried something will snatch him from the dark.

            “It’s about Mr. Stevens.”

My heart skips a beat, the blood flushes from my face. This could destroy me, it could destroy everything I’ve built, everything I’ve done to distance myself. Ten years still isn’t enough distance between me, and who I was. I lean back against the door, pressing into the cool touch of the surface. The temperature may drop in the night, but I break a sweat at that name regardless. Not a name, I tell myself. It’s not a person, it’s an event, an unfortunate event. Try as I might, I can’t bring my breath to slow and feel myself sliding to the concrete stoop.

            James reaches out to me, trying to raise me to a stand. He grabs my forearms and pulls as he mutters something about not wanting to have this conversation on my porch. The blade drops from my hand as he pulls me up, but he only hesitates for a moment before reaching down to grab it, taking it with us as he leads me away. I want to cry out, run away, say I don’t know what he’s talking about. But my feet betray me as they walk along-side his. We walk in silence all the way to his car parked around the block. I stand in a daze as he opens the passenger door and gently helps me in. We don’t move or drive, he only turns the keys partially to get warm air to flow. He’s waiting for me to talk, to ask, to acknowledge. I stare ahead and pray that Matty stays asleep.

             He breaks the silence, “His ring, I lied to you, and I kept it.”

             My voice breaks as I turn to him, “You what?” My eyes are daggers and I know it.

“I kept the ring, thinking maybe one day I could sell it, but some stuff went down, and I owed some pretty bad guys some money. So, I gave them the ring. I thought I’d get the money, pay them back, and get the ring back.” He looks down, avoiding my gaze.

“And?” I am present now, no longer dazed. Instead, a fire burns in my belly.

“They were raided, and I found out through one of my contacts that the ring I gave them is in police custody, being processed as evidence. I’m so sorry, Mand… Amanda.”

“You’re sorry?” I see now why he moved us to the car. The rage in my throat could shake the ground beneath us, “You kept the ring of a man we murdered, lost it, and now you’re sorry?”

“It was a mistake, I know, and I don’t know what to do. Those guys are out on bail for now, but if they get taken in… If the police process that ring and find who it belonged to and they ask where those guys got it, it’ll lead straight back to me.”

I reach for the car door handle, ready to walk away, “Then you shouldn’t have been so stupid.”

The door locks before I can open it, and I slowly turn back to James, who looks like he could piss himself, “You owe me,” His voice shakes but he maintains eye contact, “If I go down, I swear I will drag you down with me. So, I need your help figuring out what to do.”

     I feel her bubbling just beneath my skin. The fury she held, the pain she bent to her will, the girl I was is ready to burst from my tightly stitched seems. She is ready to rip through the surface and I almost want to let her. But, I think of Matty, and the house with the big back yard, and how there’s a swing he built for me to sit on so I could catch fireflies in the summer. I can use parts of her, but I cannot let her become my undoing, not when I am finally happy.

          In the years that followed I would separate myself from that girl. If Matty saw that person, he wouldn’t believe I’m the same woman who’s so delighted by fireflies on a summer’s eve. I know that Mr. Stevens deserved what came to him. He created the girl I was before, the girl that would be his downfall. She was molded out of fear, out of silence, out of what was taken from her. That girl would turn her fear to fury, quietly simmering while she waited for the perfect time. That girl met James, and he fed her with understanding and a shared disgust. They were young, and they felt out of choices. That girl let her rage consume her, turn her into a machine set on revenge. James would accompany her on that fateful day, holding the arms of the man who created her. That girl screamed and cried as she let him taste the blood of all the times she bit her tongue.

          When it was over, James would take care of the details of the aftermath. He loved that girl, but she wasn’t me, and I couldn’t let her stay, or I would never be the same. She couldn’t have felt love if she wanted to. I folded her into the woman I am now, after James agreed to go our separate ways, never to speak about it again. She fought against the folds that enveloped her, and every so often with the wrong touch, I feel her scratch at the surface. I never intended to let her out again, and after years her growl became a dull hum until I couldn’t feel her anymore. I would meet Matty, and he would fall in love with the woman I managed to grow into. I shiver in my seat as the old familiar feeling of her scratching beneath my skin rises once more. It is the girl I was before that I might need to keep the life I love.

          “Okay,” I say calmly, letting seams pop as I speak, “Where are the men they arrested?”

           James pauses, taking in the change of my posture, “Why?”

           “You came to me for help,” Pop. Pop. Pop. “This is how we’re going to fix the stupid mistake you made. So tell me where they are.”

He passes me a crumpled piece of paper, an address scrawled in sloppy handwriting, that I assume is where the big bad wolves are. The last seam bursts, and the girl is free. Ready to sink her teeth into the threat before her.

            “Drive me back to my house, I’ll pack a bag and leave a note for my fiancé to be.”

            “What’s the plan after that?”

             I stare forward, a smile blossoming on my face, “We introduce them to Mr. Stevens.”