What a fool she had been, Sofia thought as she ran through the forest, fleeing again from her life, from those situations she was unable to control and from her own emotions. What a fool she had been for letting him get so close, for allowing him into her heart to pull her out of her shell. What a fool she had been for trusting him, for becoming his friend, for opening her world to him. What a fool, what a fool, what a fool.

Those thoughts crossed her mind at full speed as her feet propelled her through a grove of trees she couldn't even see. She moved with difficulty, her boots burying themselves in the snow with every step she took, but her cinanthrope strength kept her going even in those conditions. The forest seemed to want to share her grief, dressing itself in pale, gray and dull tones. The reddish bark of the Valsaín pines looked brownish, and their leaves, once radiant green, had lost their luster. Even the snow that covered everything like a cottony carpet looked more gray than white. The culprit was the overcast sky that threatened more snow.

Exhausted, panting and so hot from running that she felt like taking off her coat, Sofia dropped to the ground. She sat by the spring-fed pond she had shown her friend weeks before, when they had just begun to know each other. Its water had not frozen except in a few small patches, and its surface showed her face’s distorted reflection. A fully human face, with watery eyes and flushed cheeks, without a single feature to give away her supernatural nature. Had she known that things would end up like this she would not have brought him to that place. In fact she would have been much more forceful in her rejection. Undoubtedly, she would have avoided everything she was feeling at that moment.

“The worst thing is that I don't know why it hurts so much...” she whimpered, noticing how the tears began to spill down her cheeks.

Actually, she did know, but she didn't want to admit it because doing so would only make it too real and she wasn't ready yet. It was simply because, for a moment, she had allowed herself to dream of another life, one that she had been denied since the day she was conceived by a cinanthrope. Ever since she was a child Sofia had grown up knowing that the horrors of legends were real, that behind the shadows there were beings that appeared human but were capable of becoming nightmarish creatures. Her mother had trained her under a strict mindset focused on making her a huntress, and her entire circle, the only family she had ever known, had been friends from the guild.

In a few short years that whole world had completely fallen apart, leaving her lost and not knowing what to do. Not just because she had confirmed that she had inherited the blood of the children of the moon, but also because of Angel's death. Sofia did not want that life, she never did. She didn't want to know anything about cinanthropes, about hunters, she didn't want to spend her whole life counting days until the full moon, keeping an eye on the shadows and fearing being rejected because she wasn't born human. She just wanted a normal life, she wanted to meet a special boy, have a date to go to the movies, have a first kiss, live together and argue about the order of the house, get married, have children and be able to give them what her own parents denied her.

“But I'm not in love with him,” she said to herself, curling into a ball.

But she liked him, and that was why she rejected him at first. She wasn't in love with him, but she could be. That was why it had hurt so much, because he had been wary of touching her for a week, and she had already suspected the reason but had preferred not to see it, hoping that things would eventually go back to normal. They hadn't, and the simple fact that he was horrified at the thought of dating her had slapped her back to reality. She would never have a normal life. She would always be bound to the shadow world.

Frustrated, she screamed, and that piercing shriek that burst through the forest became a howl, one that was deep, melancholic, an ancestral cry that desperately called out to the moon to claim her daughter once and for all. Now she really wanted to feel the change, she wanted to embrace it and flee into the forest as she had fantasized so many times. The energy in her chest stirred hard, responding to the intensity of her emotions, and pushed against an invisible barrier Sofia had never been aware she had. In her impetus to make that barrier give way, the pressure against her ribs increased, and then she felt a stab of sharp pain that tore a whimper from her lips and left her momentarily breathless. Startled, she pushed the energy back into her chest and hugged herself. She had never felt that before, and she didn't know what it could mean.

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“What's wrong with me now?” she whimpered, letting the tears run down her already frozen cheeks.

The snow a short distance away crunched with approaching footsteps. Unfortunately, the wind blew in the opposite direction, so the only scents she perceived were those of the same forest that surrounded her. After a few minutes hearing him approach she saw him appear, as handsome as ever despite the worried expression on his face. He was panting, so it was likely that he had ran all the way. As soon as he saw her, he slowed his pace and released a long sigh of relief.

“Go away, I want to be alone,” Sofia whined, turning away ashamed of him seeing her like that.

“Not until we talk, and then I'll leave if that's what you want, but not like this,” he replied, dropping down beside her.

The distorted image of the two of them reflected in the ever-moving water of the pond. Before he could even say anything else, Sofia furiously wiped her tears with her coat’s sleeves and glared at him again, putting on a full display of body language. She lifted her shoulders, curled her lip a little in a hostile grimace, enough so that her teeth could be seen, and stared him straight in the eye. Again he responded by running his tongue over his lips, but this time he held her gaze and tilted his head slightly to one side.

“You've been acting strange with me for a week, ever since that stupid thing that happened in the park, and now I ask you if it would be so bad if people thought we were together, or if it were true, and you can't even answer me? What am I supposed to make of that? You don't want to answer me, and that's because it's true, you're horrified by the idea of going out with me. why?” Again she felt tears welling up in her eyes and uncontrollable weeping began to shake her shoulders.

“Would you like that? To go out with me, I mean...” he asked, blushing visibly.

“No, I just want us to go back to what we had before. I want my friend back,” she whimpered, tears spilling harder down her cheeks.

Dave let out a quiet sigh and gently wiped her cheeks with his fingers before letting one of his hands wrap around her face in a caress. Sofia looked up, but her gaze was so blurred she was barely able to discern his features, though she did catch a warm smile on his lips and a gaze so gentle it made her shiver.

“I'm not horrified at the idea of going out with you, quite the contrary. I wish we had met under different circumstances, but I told you I'm not looking for a girlfriend and... when that happened, I wondered for a moment if I wanted to make the move,” he said, letting out a quiet sigh, his cheeks turning a deep shade of pink.

Sofia blushed as she imagined that possibility, him deciding to go all the way, his lips melting with hers in a kiss. She wondered how she would have responded to that, and what she visualized made her blush even more and take a closer look at her friend's face, at his nose, his cheekbones, his mouth and the arch of his eyebrows over his eyes. He was handsome, very handsome, or at least that's how she saw him. She would not have rejected him if he had kissed her, she was sure of that.

“The rumors in class, the looks... all it's done is to keep me going back to the same thing all this time. It's made me think about what I really feel...” he ran his tongue over his lips. “I like spending time with you,” he continued, blushing visibly, “I feel good around you and I wouldn't change a single moment we've shared. It's very clear to me that you've become my friend and someone very important to me, but I'm not sure if this is anything more than friendship, and I don't want to ruin it. It sounds ironic, considering how I screwed up in a moment, doesn't it?” He let out a nervous laugh and scratched his head.

“There's no denying my cooperation in that,” Sofia said, feeling very embarrassed about how she had reacted.

“I might have reacted the same way under the same circumstances,” said Dave, taking her hand in a timid gesture intended to restore the normalcy they had lost. “I'm sorry I hurt you, and I'm sorry I didn't know how to be more clear. I should have told you, but I didn't know how to broach the subject. I was never popular with girls and I have no idea what to do in a case like this.”

“I don't think I need to tell you that I'm not very successful with boys either,” Sofia said with a grimace.

“I can imagine,” he replied with a laugh.

“Hey, what are you laughing at?”

The girl picked up a handful of snow and threw it at his chest. Dave, laughing, leaned back a little and tried to cover himself with one arm, while with the other hand he threw small piles of snow at his friend.

“I'm just saying that you're a little mean at first. Or am I wrong?”

“Mean? Said the proud boy who walked out of the restaurant.”

Sofia threw a handful of snow at him again. Dave tried to dodge it by standing up and jumping backwards, but it hit him squarely in the leg. Sofia threw her backpack to the ground and so did he. Then they started running around the clearing, throwing balls at each other, dodging, chasing and laughing openly. This time it was Sofia who charged at him, and he responded by opening his arms to embrace her. They both fell to the ground, sinking into a cold cushion of snow, side by side and with their gazes intertwined. Again their cheeks were flushed and their bellies quivered with feelings they didn't quite know if it was just friendship or some other longing. Yet there was no surprise in their eyes as they met, and their lips, so close that they could feel each other's breath, curved into a smile.

Then it was Sofia who decided to jump. She leaned toward her friend, noticing how the arms around her back tightened slightly, and left a warm kiss on his cheek. A kiss of friendship, of smiles and sighs, a kiss that Dave reciprocated with a tender smile and a soft caress on her cheek. It was all they could promise each other for the moment. Friends, but for them it was all they wanted and needed, because they both still had too many wounds to heal before they could think about taking a step further.