Either option was fine with her, though.
“I thought that was just how it always was,” she continued, curling close to Zach’s chest and loving the feeling of his arms tightening around her. “I thought that love like you read about, or see in movies—that either it just didn’t exist, or that I wasn’t capable of it. I was sure I’d never have a relationship based on real, passionate love. But now it’s just—fallen out of the sky right in front of me, when I wasn’t even looking for it.” Her voice choked up, and it took her a minute to get herself back under control.
“I’m glad,” she said, when she could finally talk again. “I’m so glad, Zach. We’re mates, and I couldn’t be happier about it.”
He kissed her, and it was like he couldn’t say what he was feeling in words—he couldn’t bring himself to speak, just kiss her. Teri tasted salt, and she wasn’t sure if it was from her tears, or his.
“I’m glad, too,” he whispered finally, into the intimate space between them. “I haven’t...had a lot of things just for me.”
Teri thought about Zach losing his parents, working two or three jobs to take care of his teenage brother, following Joel into ranger school and into a job because he wanted them to be together. She held him close.
“I’m for you,” she told him. “I’m just for you.”
***
They stayed curled up together for what felt like a long time, but when Teri finally stretched and turned to glance at the clock, it was still early—only ten o'clock. The night stretched out before her, hours and hours of glorious freedom to spend with Zach. Touching him, breathing him in, learning about him...
She turned back to see him smiling at her. She reached up to trace the shape of that smile, imprint it on her memory. She loved how happy he was, how after everything he'd been through, he could still be so cheerful, and smile and laugh so easily. Sometimes it felt like she never heard anyone laugh, at home.
"Tell me more about you and Joel," she said impulsively. "You raised him?"
Zach nodded. "Well, since he was thirteen."
Teri wrinkled her nose. "That sounds hard. If my sister had had to take care of me when I was thirteen, she probably would've murdered me in the first six months. And I would've deserved it."
Zach breathed out a little laugh, and ran a thumb over her cheekbone. "I doubt that."
"You didn't know me then," Teri said seriously. "I was impossible. I think most thirteen-year-olds are impossible."
"Well," Zach admitted, "Joel was pretty impossible. But...he'd just lost his parents."
"So had you," Teri said softly.
Zach shrugged. "But I was an adult, and he was a kid. We—well, we struggled. Of course we did. He wasn't doing so well at school for a while, and I was trying to make him do his homework and go to class and respect his teachers, and he just wouldn't. He'd cut school and run off into the woods. I had to work so much that I couldn't keep an eye on him, and we'd get into huge, screaming fights. You know, 'you're not my dad, you can't tell me what to do.'"
He said that last with an overdramatic expression, and Teri knew he was trying to make it sound lighthearted. But she could just picture it: Zach trying desperately to take care of his brother, working two or three jobs to make ends meet and dealing with a grieving, angry teenager—while still a teenager himself.
It broke her heart, at the same time as it filled her with admiration for him, that he'd managed to actually do it. Bring up his brother into the strong, good man he clearly was today, forge such a close relationship that they followed each other to the middle of nowhere.
"What changed?" she asked.
Zach's mouth firmed. "One day," he started, and then trailed off almost immediately.
"You don't have to tell me." Teri didn't like the look of pain in his eyes. She didn't want to make him relive whatever memory was behind those eyes right now, as much as she wanted to know what had hurt him that much.
"No, I want to." He wasn't trying to make anything lighthearted anymore. He met her eyes seriously and started again. "One day, Joel was running around in his shifted form. As a snow leopard. I was out looking for him, but I didn't know where he was exactly, so I was just combing his regular hangouts to see if I could find him and haul his ass home. He'd skipped school again."
All the little details were giving Teri chills, as Zach clearly skirted around the real story.
"I found him," Zach said. "He was—he was half-shifted. He'd been caught by some kids. Teenagers, maybe a little older than him. They'd seen him shift and freaked out, but instead of running away, they were throwing things. Rocks, bottles, whatever they could get their hands on. He was hurt, and stuck halfway between human and leopard. Bleeding, and making this awful noise. I've never heard a noise like that."
Teri caught Zach's hand, squeezing it between hers. "What happened?" she whispered.
"I shifted," Zach said. "We were never supposed to shift in front of other people. Never anywhere near the city. Never without our parents around. But our parents weren't going to be around again, and I couldn't think of anything else to do. So I shifted, and ran towards the kids. They saw me and got scared and ran. But Joel—he was still stuck. I had to talk him through it. I hadn't even known that could happen, I'd never seen it before, our parents had never mentioned it was possible.”
He drew in a deep, ragged breath. “It took what felt like years for him to get out of it, shift back. It was probably only a few minute
s, but I was so afraid he'd be stuck like that forever. When he finally made it back to human, he was crying. It was the first time I'd seen him cry since our dad died."