WillianShipper2000: Uhh Willian is obvs the OTP!
Willian’s ride-or-die for that pairing. Her Tumblr background is a shot of the two of them with “Now you have all of me” written on it in cursive, from that episode where William and Gillian had a big fight because he wouldn’t take her to prom. He wanted her to have a nice, normal teenage experience. She started crying and said he was letting the wolf part—the part that didn’t like responsibility—take over. The next day he showed up at her front door with a gift, a German shepherd puppy. “You were right,” he said. “But now you have all of me.”
(Of course, Gillian realizes later on, when William leaves town after prom, that it was the guy part of him that decided to do it, not the wolf part. And the dog, Nina, dies bravely saving Marissa from a possessed frat house in the fourth season finale. I cried for a week straight.)
Scarface: Have you guys read any of the fix-its?
xLoupxGaroux: Some—none are particularly satisfying.
We agree that none of us want to give up writing Lycanthrope fic and that even though the finale sucked, moving forward we’ll stick with the canon storyline. We all promise to think on it, and nobody will jump ship until we’ve got some ideas.
Chapter 2
“MY CHILDREN,” I BEGIN SOLEMNLY AT THE HEAD OF THE Parkers’ dinner table.
The first time I had dinner at Avery’s house, in sixth grade, her parents asked me to say grace in earnest. But after I fumbled secularly through it, the BS “grace” became a recurring joke.
I clear my throat. “I dreamed I was walking on the beach side by side with the Lord. When I looked back, there were two sets of footprints, but other times there was just one.”
Ashley, Avery’s sister and the bane of my existence, rolls her eyes. I ignore her.
“I asked the Lord why this would be. He replied, ‘During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I drop-kicked you.’”
The tops of Avery’s parents bowed heads shake with silent laughter.
“Carried you. Carried you, is what I meant. Amen.”
“Amen,” Avery and her parents say. Ave’s mom looks at Ashley expectantly, and she reluctantly mutters it too.
Ashley’s a popular senior at MHS. She and her friends have spent the last nine years making fun of me for wearing thrift-store clothes (they weren’t cool yet), bringing weird wholesale Sam’s Club chocolate milk to lunch unlike everybody else’s normal Nesquiks, and the million other tiny indicators kids can sniff out poorness with. The most glaring example of this was in second grade, when all the popular girls had Double Stuf and I had some cheaper fake-Oreo brand; I’d scrape all the cream off one cookie and put it in another, then throw out the dry, empty cookie and eat the homemade Double Stuf one. One day, Natalia and Ashley sat across from me and stared as Ashley whispered unnecessary narration into Natalia’s ear like I was a nature documentary. Look, then she scrapes the cream off, then she puts it in the other cookie, then she throws the first cookie out, then . . .
Since I became friends with Avery and close with her parents, the teasing has been like a long game of chicken: Was I going to rat on her, or was she going to stop siccing her Ugg-booted henchwomen on me? So far, neither has happened. Ave just stays out of it.
Even after nine years of torture, though, Ashley’s prettiness still stuns me like a manta ray. She looks like a Disney princess, pale with fiery red hair and a perfect ski jump nose, and stops just short of being too beautiful, as if God designed her to provide a believable photo for catfishing people. Ave is pretty too, but she’s like a wilted version of Ashley with braces and slightly duller hair. If they had been fetal twins, Ashley definitely would’ve consumed Avery for nutrients, and all that’d be left of Ave would be a tumor with a few teeth in it.
Ave’s mom gets up with some plates. “Salmon, anybody?” She explains to me, “We’re doing the Grain Brain diet, but I think I have some spelt crackers in the cupboard if you want.”
“Thanks, I’m okay.”
“Have you read about that? Wheat, carbs, and sugar destroy brain cells. Even quinoa,” she says, glancing at Avery’s dad quickly to make sure she recited it correctly. Professor Parker teaches a graduate class on nutrition at Princeton. The only noise at the table is the oppressive clinking of silverware. They’re the total opposite of me and Dawn—we’re either screaming at each other or laughing hysterically, big emotions that ricochet off the walls of our apartment.
“Little late for me, I think,” I reply.
“Scarlett, you know you’re very bright,” Professor Parker says brusquely, which is how he says most things, even compliments.