The Beast of Beauty (8 page)

“I do,” I said. I did everything
I could to make my face look as sincere as I felt. “I felt that way a lot—like I’m
too much and not enough at the same time.”

She sighed, “Good, because I have
felt so alone for such a long time.”

“It seems to me that most of your
problems aren’t with being an animal,” I said, again unsure as to how I should
describe her.

“Nope, I mean it’s not ideal, but
I make it work,” she said, smiling.

I smiled, “So… you really think
I’m attractive?”

She blushed, “Is that really all
that you got from that whole speech?”

“Yep,” I said. “I bet you’re so
attracted to me because of this whole rugged-beat-up look that I’ve got going
on right now.”

“Ha. Ha.” She said as she rolled
her eyes, “It would be more impressive if I didn’t have to carry you
everywhere.”

We both cracked up. “By the way,”
she said, “do you want to try to stand on your feet today?”

“Yes,” I said, “but I want to
tell you something first.”

“Okay,” she said hesitantly.

“You aren’t ugly right now,” I
said.

She looked at me with those deep
green eyes, and I meant what I said.

“You aren’t,” I continued. “And
guess what? I willing to bet that you weren’t before this beast thing either.
You aren’t too much, and you aren’t too little either. You’re just right. Does
this sound too cheesy? It’s sounding cheesy coming out of my mouth, but I mean
it.”

“No, it doesn’t sound cheesy,”
she laughed, “and thank you.”

“No, thank you,” I said. “Thank
you for saving me. You brought me back here and took care of me, even though
you’ve been wanting to eat me this whole time.”

She giggled, “Not the WHOLE
time…”

“Uh-huh,” I smiled. “But
seriously, you really have been there for me. Ugly people, they don’t do that.”

“Ugly people can be nice!” She
argued.

“No, they usually aren’t,” I
retaliated. “Because ugly is on the inside. Everything else on the outside is
just a matter of perception. Everyone will find different people attractive.”

“No they don’t, they all like the
same types of girls!” she said.

I decided to play along, “Okay,
and what is that type?”

“Skinny and big-chested, of
course. And do you know how hard that it is to be both? It’s almost impossible,
because the skinnier you get, the smaller your chest gets. It’s a cruel trap.”

I laughed, “That’s not all that
guys worry about.”

She squinted her eyes, “I don’t
believe you.”

“Okay, maybe that is all that
some guys worry about. But that’s not what Christian men should worry about,
and that’s what a lot of guys are trying to be. It’s not always easy, though.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Well, if a skinny and
big-chested girl walks by, there’s sort of this unwritten rule that you need to
acknowledge it to your friends. If you’re in a group and someone mentions how
attractive a girl is, if you don’t validate that, they’ll make fun of you.”

“They don’t sound like good
friends then,” she said.

“Sometimes they aren’t, but
sometimes that just how guys are. They make fun of each other,” I explained.

“So… if men are trying to be
Christians, then what type are they looking for?” she asked.

“Women who are trying to be
Christians too,” I stated. “That’s the simplest way to put it. Yeah, some guys
like darker hair better than blonde hair, and some guys think height is
important, but at the end of the day, if he’s trying to be a Christian, he’ll
look for a girl who shares in that journey.”

“That’s deep,” she said, smiling.
“I’m not sure how much that you believe that though, because I saw who you
dated before.”

“Oh,” I said, “Zoey?”

She nodded.

“Yeah, that was just one of those
things where everyone else told me that she was attractive, so I went for that
and hoped that I would find the goodness deep within her and I’d just have the
whole package. But it didn’t work like that. She actually broke up with me
because I didn’t make the basketball team. How shallow is that?”

“Almost as shallow as dating her
for her looks,” she said.

I just stared at her. She was
absolutely right. I knew the path that I wanted to walk on, I had just told her
exactly the advice that I needed to take, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

“You’re right,” I admitted. “I
wanted to impress a friend of mine, who’s not exactly my friend. He’s actually
pretty much a jerk, but I wanted him to think that I was part of his group
again. Oh my gosh, I sound like one of those idiotic peer-pressure commercials
where the kid does drugs just because other people do!”

“Yes, you do,” she agreed. “But
you said it—the guy is a jerk. Why does it matter what he thinks? Would your
life really be missing anything if he wasn’t your friend at all?”

“No,” I said. “But he would do
everything that he could to make my life miserable.”

“You’re life seems pretty
miserable either way,” she said. “No offense.”

I laughed, “No, you’re right. I’m
either living a life I don’t want or I’m being socially outcast. Now I just
have to figure out which one is worse.”

She shrugged, “If you happen to
get exiled from the town, you can always come out here and live in the wild
with me. Just bring better food, okay?”

I smiled, “Deal. Now, let’s see
if I can walk.”

I got up and walked over to him.
I felt like we had really opened up to each other, and I wasn’t as worried
about touching him or startling him.

“How about I lift you up and then
you can lean on me while you try to put weight on each foot?” I suggested.

He nodded, looking a little
embarrassed. I hooked my arm around his back and hoisted him off the mattress.

He was much heavier today than
yesterday.

“Ahhhh!” he yelled, “I can’t do
it!”

I quickly put my other arm under
his legs and swooped him up.

He was the heaviest thing that I
had ever held before in my life. Shaking, I lowered him back down to the
mattress.

“Sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean
to push you too hard too fast. I just thought that you would be able to put
weight on them by now.”

“Yeah me too,” he said in defeat.
“Were you having trouble holding me just now?”

I panted, “Can you tell?”

“Yes,” he chuckled, “I was actually
afraid that you were going to drop me for a second. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I
thought that I would be stronger once I finally ate meat. I have no idea what
could be going on.”

“Yeah, me either,” he said. “But
that’s mostly because none of this makes sense in the first place.”

I sat back down on the mattress
and tried to catch my breath. My muscles ached.

“Maybe I should go catch another
animal for breakfast?”

“Maybe you should,” he said.
“I’ll stick to my bucket of greens here.”

I laughed, “Alright. You sure
there’s nothing else in the book that you want me to check and see if I can
find?”

“Nah, you worry about the meat.
I’m fine with my clover salad,” he said, smiling.

***

The forest was quiet as I walked
through the woods. There were no birds chirping. The silence was deafening, so
I focused harder, and I could hear the buzzing of a few insects. At least I
wasn’t completely alone.

I found a rock and stayed
completely still. Slowly, sound began to come back to the forest.

I must have had the whole animal
kingdom completely at a loss. They knew to fear me, they must have been able to
sense it as easily as I sensed them, but they also knew that I was shaped like
any other human.

I continued to sit still and let
the animals come out to me. I saw a fox in the distance, but decided not to
engage it. I didn’t want to attack something that I myself was fearful of.

Then, I heard an even more
terrifying sound. I heard humans talking.

I perched myself up in a nearby
tree and hid among the branches, peering out to see who it was. They were
walking toward me from my right. To my dismay, they were police officers.

“I wish we could find the boy.”

“Yes, I hate it for the Mayor and
his wife. They’re absolutely devastated. I just wish that we knew if he was in
actual harm or if he’s a run away.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Well, if he ran away, there’s a
chance he’ll come back on his own. If he’s injured or been abducted, then it’s
up to us to find him.”

“I see. I just hope he comes
back. We literally have no leads at all.”

They were walking directly under
me.

“Hey where are we in relation to
Holbrooke?”

“I figure we are about two miles
south.”

“Okay. If we don’t find him soon
we’ll have to have a team out here to sweep the whole woods.”

“I know, but there are one
million other places that he could have gone other than the woods. If I were a
kid running away, I’d run to the city.”

“I’ll bet. Anyway, we need to go
back to the station and see if we can find out which one of those options
Daniel would have preferred before we commit to one.”

Their voices trailed off, and
then they were too far away for me to hear them anymore. I jumped out of the
tree and ran to Daniel as fast as my legs could carry me, not worrying about
how much noise that I made or how many animals that I scared off.

The door flew open faster than I
intended, and it banged against his mattress.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” he
asked, alarmed.

I couldn’t catch my breath, so I
held up my finger for him to wait. His face looked pained as he watched me
without knowing what was going on.

“I saw policemen,” I explained,
“walking through the woods, looking for you. They have guns on them, Daniel.
They’ll shoot me on sight if they see me with you. They’ll think I kidnapped
you and immobilized you so that you would have to stay here with me.”

“Sit down,” he said, patting the
mattress.

I sat. “I’m in danger if I stay
here with you, but I feel like if I leave, you’ll be all alone to fend for
yourself, and I don’t know what to do.”

“You aren’t in danger,” he said.
“I promise, I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

I rolled my eyes, “Yeah, I’ve
heard that before.”

“Well, I mean it. I won’t let
anyone hurt you. I’ll tell anyone the truth that asks,” he said. “I promise.”

She looked at me in disbelief,
“So when you go back to school after you’re all better, you’re going to tell
everyone that you spent the last couple of days with a girl who was covered in
hair? Yeah, I doubt it.”

“I will!” I argued. “I mean, I’ll
put it a little more nicely than that.”

“Oh, so you’ll say that you spent
days shacking up with a blonde in the middle of the forest who took care of you
and catered to your every need?” she argued.

“No!” I said, “I’ll tell them
that I stayed with a very sweet girl who helped me in my time of need. What’s
so hard to accept about that?”

She scoffed, “Because I know you.
You’ll tell a completely different story to Jasper.”

My mind stopped. I had been
thinking about the next thing that I was going to say in order to assure her
that I would take up for her, but I couldn’t remember what it was.

“You know Jasper?” I asked
cautiously.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “He’s
the guy that you said peer pressured you into doing stuff that you didn’t
really want to do.”

“No I didn’t,” I said.

She sighed, “Yes you did, you
told me this morning.”

“I never said his name,” I said,
gauging her response.

Her eyes widened, “Uh, well like
I said, I know a lot of people from Holbrooke.”

I looked at her closely, trying
to see if I knew her. When I first met her, I thought that she was born the way
she was, so I didn’t even try to compare her to anyone else. Now, however, I
needed to know who she was.

“Do I know you?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged.

“You’re lying,” I said. “I can
tell.”

“Why? Because you know me so
well?” she said, getting angry.

Everything she said rang bells in
my head, but I was too caught up in the way that she looked to see anyone that
I knew.

I closed my eyes and thought
about our time together: how we laughed and joked, how we revealed things about
ourselves that were hard to admit. It had come so easily, and I had only been
able to do that with one person.

She said that she didn’t have
parents; was she an orphan? She said that no one loved her and that she didn’t
have any friends.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Thinking,” I replied.

She sighed, “I’m sorry. I didn’t
mean to upset you.”

I kept my eyes closed, “You
didn’t upset me, I just wish that you would tell me the truth.”

“No, you don’t,” she said. “I
can’t tell you. If I tell you the truth, everything will go back to the way
that it was. You’ll leave me.”

Her voice was so melodic, and
there was so much honestly and vulnerability in what she said that it hurt me.

“I won’t ever leave you,” I said.

She whispered, “You already did.”

All of my nightmares flooded my
mind from last night. I left her. I abandoned her when she needed me the most.

I opened my eyes and stared into
her beautiful green ones. How could I not have known?

“Adeline,” I said, “Oh my… you’re
Adeline.”

She nodded and looked away from
me.

I felt like such a jerk. Not only
had I left her when she needed me the most, but I also just spent more than a
day with her and didn’t know who she was.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry that I
didn’t realize that it was you,” I said, unable to find the right words.

“It’s okay,” she mumbled.

“How did this happen?” I asked.

“It’s a long story,” she said,
finally looking at me.

I pointed down to my ankles, “I
have time.”

She inhaled, “Okay. Well, I was
reading
The Twelfth Night
in the library for our book report, and I got
in trouble. Mrs. Stacy made me go into the storage room. I know I walked in
with the book. I tripped and dropped it on the way out, and Mrs. Stacy handed
it to me. Then when I was walking through the parking lot, Jasper grabbed it
and threw it down and spit on it. On the way home, I realized that I didn’t
have that book anymore. I had this one.”

She got up and handed me a book.

“
Amara the Witch and Tales
from Deep Within the Woods
?” I read, “Sounds ominous.”

She nodded, “Yep. So I started
reading it. I was upset at Dad, and there was a really inspiring passage about
rising up against your oppressors, so I read it out loud to really let it sink
in. It turns out that it was a spell, and it turned me into this.”

“Immediately?” I asked.

“Yes.”

A million questions kept popping
up in my head, “Did your dad see you?”

“Yeah, I saw Zoey and Jasper
too.”

“Jasper saw you like this? Did he
know it was you?”

“Yes,” she said, breaking my
heart, “He knew who I was as soon as he saw me.”

I felt so ashamed. Jasper, the
person that knows her the least in this world, recognized her immediately, and
it took me more than a day.

“Did he hurt you?” I asked,
playing scenarios in my head.

“No,” she said, “He just laughed.
He was pretty drunk though; he may not even remember it,” She paused. “My dad
shot at me, though.”

“You aren’t serious,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, “but it’s no
big deal.”

“Yes it is,” I argued. “That’s
your dad. He never should have done that. I’m so sorry.”

Her lip started trembling, “I
shouldn’t let him get to me.”

“Come here,” I said, holding out
my arms.

I held her while she cried, like
I should have been doing all along.