Ambrose and Angelina

The Assignment

Thrust, parry, parry, thrust. Ambrose moved fluidly, spinning to avoid his opponent's jab. He lunged forward, and the rounded tip of his weapon pushed harmlessly against the boys white padded suit.

"Winner: Ambrose," said the fencing coach emotionlessly, "big surprise."

Ambrose smiled sheepishly, he did get a bit caught up in it, but fencing was the only place where he really felt like himself. At home and school his older brother Dreu constantly overshadowed him. Dreu was an upperclassman and probably the most popular boy in school. Ambrose didn't care about the attention he drew from the school, but he did care about the attention he lost from his parents. They were so wrapped up in Dreu, that they could only see Ambrose’s failures; never his successes. Instead of congratulating him on earning five A's, they'd chastise him for the one B he got in Biology. It was a never-ending battle that he could forget within every thrust and spin in fencing.

Ambrose walked into his chemistry class briskly, trying to avoid the people who considered him their "friend". The last thing he wanted to hear now was some story about some girl that one of them had "banged" or anything of that nature. Right now, he had to concentrate. His parents wanted him to go to med school, and they constantly reminded him that no respectable med school would want someone who couldn't manage an A in high school biology.

He sat down toward the front of the classroom, the usual crowd falling in around him, whispering something about the "stripper's daughter" and trading inappropriately sexual suggestions. Ambrose just turned and stared out the window, pretending that he didn't hear; incapable of tuning them out.

"All right class... settle down now," Mr. Devoulier spoke pointedly, glancing toward the group of boys positioned around the silent Ambrose. He continued the lesson, focusing on a lab that they were to do measuring the amount of water that oak trees transpire on the average in an hour. Ambrose listened, but didn’t pay attention. He was busy thinking about his match earlier that day and dreaming up ways to win even faster until he heard his name.

"What?" he said aloud. Then he felt a tap on the shoulder and turned toward his left.

"We're partners," the girl seated next to him said softly, trying not to disrupt the class.

"Oh," Ambrose returned. He then scribbled his phone number and e-mail down so the two of them could arrange a time to plan out and execute their experiment as the girl followed suit, adding her name to the paper.

"Angelina," Ambrose said softly, realizing who she was slowly.

"Oh no," he thought. Angelina had a reputation at their school, a reputation that he didn’t respect and didn't want to be a part of. He was very serious about this class, and he didn't want to have all the work forced upon him like usual. He turned to look at the boys sitting across from him and noticed one mouthing something to her.

"Easy lay," he spoke wordlessly, causing Ambrose to blush instinctively. Angelina didn't seem to notice, but Ambrose became more and more uneasy about their partnership.

The Attraction

Ambrose and Angelina had decided to meet in the park in order to find any and all oak trees in the area. That way, they could balance out their experiment by including more trees in the lab. The nearby park seemed to be a perfect location. Ambrose sat cross-legged with his biology book in front of him, obsessively reading over the process of transpiration and leafing through his bag to make sure he had brought his share of the supplies when he felt a familiar tap on the shoulder.

"Angelina," he said and turned to see her. He was taken with how beautiful she looked standing over him with the sunlight framing her shoulder length dark brown hair into an unconventional halo of light. Her blue eyes pierced through the blinding light causing Ambrose to catch his breath.

"You OK?" she asked, kneeling to sit next to him.

"Oh, yeah..." he lied, "allergies."

"All right," she said quickly, "Let's get down to business, shall we? Now, I'm sure you already know this, but I like to be thorough with science, ok? Transpiration. It's basically the process by which water is evaporated out of the top of a tree through the leaves, and by cohesion and adhesion, the water throughout the tree is pulled upward, literally pulling the water out of the soil, into the roots, and up through the tree. Right?"

Ambrose stared at her and forced a response.

"Um. Yes," he stammered to her laughter.

"What? Did you expect me to have no idea what we were doing this project on?"

"Oh, um... no," he said softly, fearing he had hurt her feelings.

"Oh, I'm sure," she condescended, "Don't think I don't hear your friends talking about me. They think that because of the choices that my mother made, that I will naturally follow suit. I work very hard in school because I have to. I don't have a free ride like some people; like your brother. When you were assigned as my partner, my heart sank. I don't want to be forced to hang out with some kid with no problems who would just look down his nose at me. So, I'll just go and do the experiment on my own, all right?"

She stood quickly, gathering her things and turned to leave. Ambrose had no words. Even if he had them, he wasn't sure he would have the courage to say them. It had never occurred to him that his silence could be so damning to Angelina. Even though he didn't crack jokes like his so-called "friends", he never stopped them. He even believed a lot of the things that they said. Even though he had spent so much time trying to escape the façade of high school, he had already fallen victim to it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something running toward Angelina. Without even processing what was happening, he ran toward it. If he couldn’t be man enough to let her know that he was sorry, then he could at least try to protect her. He tackled the thing, struggling for a moment when he felt an intense pain in his right arm. He cried out and finally saw what he had hit. It was some sort of dog; at least that's what it looked like. He shoved the animal off of him, and it retreated to the woods. His wound was impossibly painful, and he curled into the fetal position, cradling his arm and trying to ignore the pain when he felt a familiar tap on the shoulder.

"Let's get you to my house," Angelina said, pulling him up, and supporting him on her shoulder.

Awkward

Ambrose sat on Angelina's bed, his wound wrapped in a surprisingly expert fashion. The two had been talking about their respective loves.

"Fencing?" she scoffed playfully, "Isn't that just a tad medieval? Well. I mean it does make sense. After all, you did bound after me to save me from that animal, right? You’re awfully chivalrous for a boy in this day and age."

"Hey. I might enjoy fencing, but I don't do that Dungeons and Dragons stuff," Ambrose shot back, accompanying the jibe with a little smile. Despite the pain coursing through his entire body her company made him all but forget it.

"Sometimes it's nice to get away from reality," she said. He nodded thoughtfully, leafing through some of her artwork.

"You know, these are really great. Did you ever consider going into the art field?" he asked politely.

"Well. I try to focus on just getting into a good college with a big enough scholarship so I can really support myself," Angelina replied softly, staring out the window at something that seemed to catch her eye. Ambrose clutched his stomach quickly, a sharp pain shooting from the pit of his stomach to his chest. Angelina leaned over toward Ambrose, grabbing his hand.

"Are you all right?" she asked with deep concern. She recoiled quickly noticing the compromising position they were in. He had doubled over slightly, and she had pushed him back by grabbing his hand. She was practically lying on top of him, and they were in her bed. A crashing sound came from the other room.

"What's that?" Ambrose asked quickly, sitting up into a less awkward position.

"Right," Ambrose remarked, standing up slowly,"I'll see you tomorrow, all right?"

"Right," she asserted, grinning as he walked out of the door.

The Awakening

Ambrose walked hurriedly out the door, the intensity of his pain finally catching up with him. He had walked probably two blocks before the shooting pain in his stomach became wholly unbearable. He sat on a nearby park bench and tried to focus on breathing, but he couldn't stop thinking about Angelina. Sure, he was only 16, but he had never really felt this way about anyone before. It seemed too monumental to be pushed out of his consciousness. In the midst of his musing, the pain seared back into his mind, and he fell to the ground. While trying to steady himself and stand back up, he noticed something unusual about his hands. They seemed to be getting smaller and hairier as the nails elongated. He put them towards his nose, which seemed to be stretching out, making him feel as though the bones in his face were breaking. He crawled toward the nearby trees, trying to hide himself from anyone who might pass by, as his torso seemed to shrink slightly, forcing him down on all fours. His ears moved upwards in a parallel motion as he teeth extended. Then, the pain stopped. Ambrose looked around him in complete shock, his breath growing heavier by the moment. He tried to speak, but only heard dry panting. He ran toward the lake in the park where he had just spent time with Angelina and looked at his reflection.

"Oh my God!" he thought, staring blankly at the wolf in front of him. He turned and walked toward the only person that he thought might be able to help him.

The Acceptance

Angelina sat at her computer, typing rapidly as she started on an outline for her biology experiment with Ambrose. She couldn't really rattle him from her mind, so she thought some science might aid the process. It just stuck with her that she could belittle him to the point of just turning and walking away, but he still dove to her rescue no matter what. It seemed that guys like that were few and far between these days. Of course, with a role model like her mother, it was a wonder Angelina could even speak to men. She had seen her mother abused, raped, and Angelina likewise. To her, men were nothing but hormone filled vessels of control that she had never wanted to have in her life, but she felt like something shifted tonight. Ambrose was the first guy that she felt really comfortable with. She felt like he treated her as an equal, and he could never know how much that meant to her. She tried to stop thinking about it and go back to work.

"Transpiration is..." she read aloud. "Well, I have gotten quite far," she mused. She spun with a jolt after hearing some rustling in the bushes outside her window.

"Oh God, not another peeping tom," she thought ruefully as she stood to open the window and try to scare him off, but something caught her eye. She saw an animal staring back at her through the window, and she instinctively screamed. Of course, her crying out didn't really matter. Her mother had probably gone out again tonight. Angelina tried to calm herself, but the animal hadn't moved. It just continued to stare at her soulfully, as if it was asking her for help, but she didn't know what to do. She edged toward the window slowly, noticing that it seemed to be nodding toward her. From this distance she could tell that it was a dog or wolf of some kind, something that didn't exactly make her want to open the window, but she felt like she was supposed to. Not entirely in control of her body, she opened the window and watched as it crawled in and sat on her floor, looking up at her with those same, soulful eyes.

"What do you want?" Angelina asked quickly, as though scared that her speech would invite an attack. The animal turned and looked around the room as if searching for some means to communicate. She watched silently, leaning against her dresser as it walked toward her computer, and she heard something hitting the keyboard. She walked over to the open Word file and read it.

"Transpiration isHELP". She turned quickly and gasped, looking at the animal as it continued to type: "AMBROSE." She immediately threw her arms around his furry neck, and realized that this must be connected to the dog that bit him in the park.

"It’s going to be OK," she reasoned half to him and half to herself, "We'll figure this out. We have to," she finished, looking at him as he sat silently on her floor.

"At least I have you here to help me with this," she said politely, welcoming him back to humanity. It seemed that with her immediate acceptance, his emotional stress was quelled, and he slowly changed back to his natural state, grabbing a shirt off of the ground, to cover himself for modesty's sake.

"All right, what do you think?" she asked, pointing toward the computer screen. "Transpiration is..."