Aware of nothing but the need to block Rachel from the thugs, I morphed into a metal column that surrounded her. Thinning it out, I stretched it high. I could see and sense the thugs rear back, their eyes wide with fear. A knife clattered to the ground before they turned and ran.
I also saw Rachel inside the column, as thunderstruck as they.
Once they were gone, I morphed back. We were silent, she shaking and backing away, me staring at the ground.
She burst into tears. “What was that?” she cried between shuddering sobs. “What the hell was that?” Her face was stark white.
“What did you see?” I said cagily.
“Suddenly I was inside this horrible tube and there was no way out, it was awful, awful! And what happened to those hoodlums?”
Should I have lied to her? If we were to spend our lives together, something would lead to it happening again. I had to tell her.
“Let’s go have coffee. I’ll explain.”
The normally cozy restaurant did not feel that way now. Our booth seemed isolated, which I suppose was a good thing considering the conversation. I told her my story, how it began with the predator in the woods. I told her everything.
She was quiet for what seemed an eternity. Then she shook her head. “Are you an alien or something?” She was trembling.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I have my mother’s coloring and otherwise look like my father.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, I need to digest this. It’s really scary.”
After we got back to her apartment, she wasn’t up for our usual Saturday night lovemaking. The next day, she said she had a migraine and would probably need to sleep all day. I left around noon and drove back to my campus.
It would go on like this for another three weeks, her cutting my calls short and saying she had a lot of class work to do. She was not able to get together on the weekends.
I understood.
I wouldn’t see her again until 1991 when, home for the Christmas holidays, we ran into each other in Wanamaker’s. She introduced me to her fianc้, a premed student she’d met in judo class. He wasn’t the type I’d ever pictured her with, but there they were, flushed and happy. Later I would wonder if she ever told anyone about me.