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At that very moment, my mind conjures up the faces of both Rock and Cal. We’ve shared so much already, in this shortperiod of time. Yet, I feel like I’ve been here for years, not just days.
Days… I chuckle to myself. All this happened in mere days? I can hardly believe it. And yet, here we all are, in this mess.
All these emotions inside of me are wreaking havoc. Anger is a searing flame, fueling all this internal struggle. I remember how Cal changed, how his body readjusted to its new frame of a bear. I could barely believe it. A part of me thought I was sleeping, that I was dreaming. But no amount of blinking or pinching would wake me up, because it was reality.
How could they keep such a secret from me, when they knew that was why I came here in the first place? I frown, looking down at my feet.
Then, a realization hit me. I’ve been wondering how they could keep such a secret from me, knowing that bear shifters were the reason I came here, but it didn’t occur to me that they didn’t tell me exactly because of that. I wanted that photograph more than anything in my entire life. I wanted it to be my ticket to proving to all those who knew me that I did amount to something. If I came back without anything to prove myself, what would become of me?
At that moment, I hear a noise. I lift my gaze in the direction where it came from. I thought I would be petrified, but strangely, I was not. I have been attacked twice already, and both times, the guys were there for me, when I didn’t even expect them to be. Now was no different. I feel safe, even without them around. The thought makes me smile.
The noises become louder and louder, and then, without any warning, Rock appears out of the thick shrubbery. He locks his gaze with mine, and I can see the urgency in his eyes.
“Elena,” he calls out my name in a way that makes my entire body tingle. “We need to talk.”
I swallow heavily, standing up. I’ve never been able to hide how I feel about something or someone, so this can’t be the first time. He can probably see all the storm of emotions in my eyes, but I don’t mind. I don’t want to hide anything from him. There is a moment of silence between us, our eyes doing all the talking. Then, his lips start to move.
“I understand you’re upset,” he tells me, and I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting him to say any such thing. In fact, I thought that if anyone would come after me, it would be Cal. But seeing Rock here, it serves as proof that he is really trying to understand my point of view, and maybe even change.
“You can’t possibly understand how I feel,” I tell him.
“Maybe,” he nods. “But I know that you have every right to be upset.” He catches me off guard with that one. I don’t say anything, so he continues. “You told us why you were here, and we… we kept our true identities a secret from you.”
At least, we could agree on this. But that didn’t bring us much closer than we were.
“It’s not like I want to tell the world where your village is and show them every single one of you in your bear form as well as your human form,” I blurt out.
He tilts his head a little as he’s still staring at me. “What do you want?”
I shrug. “Just… take photos.”
“Of us?”
“Well… yes,” I nod.
“Do you understand the implications of that?” he inquires. I can tell that he doesn’t want to argue. Strangely enough, he wants to understand.
“Well…” I say, stumbling upon my own words. “Maybe I haven’t really thought it through.”
“Tell me how you imagined it,” he urges, taking a step closer to me.
I gaze somewhere behind him, into the distance. “All I ever wanted was to take a photo of something magical, something no one believed was ever possible. That has been my dream since I got my first polaroid from my aunt. My parents told her, and me also, that it was a silly hobby, that it served no purpose, that anyone can point a camera and click, that it took no special skill or talent.” I pause, remembering those heavy words, which somehow shaped my destiny. In fact, if my parents never said that, I probably wouldn’t even be here now. “I guess everything I did since then was in an effort to prove them wrong. I started taking simple photos, then they became more and more professional. But they were always something already seen, already felt. Then, I heard about bear shifters here, and something beckoned me to come.”
“Something?” he echoes.
I lock my eyes with his. “Mhm. I can’t really explain it. As soon as I came here and set up camp, a part of me felt as if I’d returned home.” I chuckle. “Which is silly, because I’ve never really been here. How could I ever be home here?”
“How does that old saying go?” he wonders, trying to remember. “Home is where the heart is?”
“Yes, but how does my heart know this place?” I ask. “How would that even be possible?”
He shrugs. “We have many sayings as well. One of them is that we are not really individuals at all. We are all just a million little parts of a single whole, a single unity, and our instincts are actually the memories we have of a place we’ve never been to and people we’ve never seen.”
I smile. “I like that saying.”
He smiles back at me. “So, it could be possible that you do feel some connection to this place, without understanding why or how. And that is also why you can’t leave.”
I lift an eyebrow. “How did you know that I was considering leaving?”
