Change Of Heart
Lydia dabbed at her eyes and gratefully picked up the warm cup of tea Marshall had put on the coffee table in front of her. She always looked uncomfortable about crying in front of him, but he knew that girls needed that kind of thing, and she had it harder than most.
“I'm sorry about all this,” she sniveled.
“Don't be, I understand. Your dad is a problem, and no one should go through that alone.”
“You're a great friend Marsh.”
“You know I'm always here.”
She smiled with gratitude and took a sip of the hot tea, seemingly calming down as it warmed her body. She was so tense. He looked at his watch and noticed the time. He told Vincent he would meet him at the bar.
“I'm really sorry to do this, but I have to go. You'll be okay letting yourself out?”
She nodded. He hoped she wouldn't still be there by the time she got back. He didn't mind listening to her when she needed a shoulder, but there was only so much he could do about it, and he didn't want to hear about it over and over again.
He made it to the pub only a few minutes late, and Vincent waved to him from the far corner.
“Having girl problems again?”
“Just Lydia, she's crying about her dad again.”
“I feel sorry for girls like that. Guys like that should be locked up for life.”
“I get that, and it's horrible for her. She's just always at my place, complaining. Sometimes wish she would just make her problems someone else's. I don't want to be her counselor. She gets clingy.”
“She doesn't seem clingy to me?”
“Trust me, you don't know her.”
“Do you?”
Marshall looked at Vincent confused, but his friends changed the topic, and soon it was forgotten.
When he got home, the house was empty, and he felt relieved. He opened the fridge, looking for something to snack on, and just as he punched the buttons to warm up a microwave meal, the doorbell rang.
A short while later his mother came into the kitchen with a pale faced Lydia shuffling behind her. Marshall groaned inwardly. Not again, he thought to himself, I already saw her today.
“Lydia,” he said, sounding a lot more cheerful than he felt.
When she started crying he saw the overnight bag on the floor next to her and he fought the urge to roll his eyes.
They sat in his room, her curled up on the couch by the window, him lying stretched out on his bed. She told him how her father had been drunker than he usually was by the time she'd gotten home, and how he started shouting at her for not having supper ready even though it had been way to early. Through sobs she explained that even though he'd never hit her before, the way he did her mom, she was still scared of how aggressive he could be, and shock and fear had racked her body when he'd backhanded her.
He didn't think that it would happen, but here she was now, asking him if she could stay just for a night or two, until she'd figured out what to do next. She had money, she said, and a few changes of clothes, she just needed to be with someone for a bit.
“Of course you can stay here, my parents won't mind,” he said, wishing he felt as sincere as he sounded, but he just couldn't shake his annoyance with her presence.
The next morning she was already in the kitchen when he walked in, and remnants of his frustration from the night before tugged at his good mood, but he refused to let it upset him. It wouldn't be for too long.
As time passed they spent more time together than he would have liked, and he wished she would get going already, but when he asked, she said she was looking for a job and could only leave as soon as she had one, and she hoped he didn't mind. He did. He didn't tell her so.
Then one evening, she flattened him with her unexpected confession.
“I think I'm in love with you.”
He stared at her blankly, wondering if he heard right.
“In love with me?” he asked, unable to find anything else to say.
She blushed and looked down at her feet, “You're my best friend Marsh, and you've always been there for me. You're a great guy.”
Oh no, this was not happening. He couldn't deal with this, he knew it was a mistake taking her in. She was so stuck in this whole misery thing with her family, it was almost pathetic. He knew he was being harsh in his judgment of her, but his sudden irritation refused to let him feel bad for thinking it.
“Look, Lydia, you're great too, an amazing friend. And we've been close for a long time. I know you've been struggling and staying here hasn't been a problem, but it's not going to work.”
The color drained from her face. “Why not?” she asked so softly he almost didn't hear her.
“Because you're just not the kind of person I want to share myself with in that way.”
She looked like she was going to cry, and he felt a faint pang of guilt.
“Look,” he tried to make it better, “you've been through a lot and it's not over yet. You just need to sort yourself out first before jumping into something like this. You have so much going on. You can think about a relationship later.”
“But it won't be with you,” she said dully.
“No, Lydia. I'm sorry.”
Not knowing what else to say, and feeling rotten for being the reason she was crying this time, he walked out the door.
When he came back, much later, he found that she was gone. His mom told him that she'd found a job in town and left straight away, not wishing to impose any longer. A strange combination of feelings lodged themselves in his stomach at the news, and he called Vincent, arranging to meet at the pub again.
“So she left?”
“She did. I didn't mean for her to leave straight away, but Vince, I couldn't do it. She's just too much for me.”
“What did you expect she would do? Stick around after you made it clear you didn't want her?”
“It's not my fault I don't want to date her is it? I didn't ask for her to tell me she loves me.”
“How well do you really know her?”
“Too well, my friend. She's been at my house for months now, moaning about her father.”
“Yes, you said that, but what do you know besides that?”
“What is there to know besides that? It rules her life.”
Suddenly, a strange tingling started spreading through his body until it reached every part of him. His throat felt dry, even when he took sips from his drink repeatedly, and he felt inexplicable itchy. Vincent watched him coolly as he frantically tried to quench his thirst. He didn't even flinch when Marshall dropped his glass, losing control of his hands. Blackness started to take over his vision, and before long he gave in to it.
When he opened his eyes he was in the park, lying on the ground, and Vincent was sitting on a bench close. He tried to get up but his body didn't do what he told it to, and when he tried to call out he could only produce a funny whine, unlike he's ever been able to do before.
“Before you do anything,” Vincent said, “you need to listen to me. You wouldn't have believed me before now, but I'm a something like a modern day wizard and I've changed you into a dog.”
Marshall couldn't make sense of this, but slowly the reality of what his friend was saying dawned on him, and he took in his white paws and the dog sounds that came from his throat when he tried to talk. He felt dizzy, disorientated.
“You don't know anything about her. So you have to go find her, and find out. Until you can prove that your reaction to who she is, is justified, you'll stay like that.”
He got up and left, leaving Marshall alone in the park. New senses flooded his mind, smells he never noticed before and sounds he's never heard. He sat there, trying to make sense of everything, trying to stay calm, until he realized that nothing was going to change if he didn't do something. A natural urge that he didn't have before told him which way to go to find her, and a loyalty to her overcame him.
It took him most of the night to reach her, but when he sat in front of the white door with the peeling paint, he knew she was inside. He didn't know how he knew, he just did. He waited at her door, sometimes sleeping, but waking up often to sounds he didn't know. Dawn came, and the sun colored the world to him in different ways. Then he heard footsteps inside, and he pricked his ears, looking at the bottom of the door intently. A key turned in the lock, and he was momentarily distracted by the sensation of his stub of a tail, wagging. Then the door swung open and there she was, looking worn and tired, dressed in a diner's uniform.
“Hello pup,” she said, kneeling down and holding her hand out to him. He licked it, not knowing what else to do, and she giggled. He hadn't heard her laugh like that before.
“Who do you belong to?” she asked while scratching his ears. He was vaguely annoyed at how good it felt, but gave himself over to the feeling before long.
“You don't have a home, do you? No collar. You can stay with me if you don't mind being alone all day.” She kept scratching as she cooed to him, and he had to admit that her voice was soothing and the scratching felt great.
“Come on in, I have some leftovers for you. And then I have to go, so you'll have to wait until I get home.”
She fed him some crusts and poured him a bowl of water that she put outside the door. Then she left for work.
The days passed quickly. He spent his time with her when she wasn't at work, always by her side, feeling lost when he wasn't. He waited at her door until she came home, not wanting to wander off, and she fed him and took him for walks, talking to him about everything, from her hobbies and dreams to her fears. He found that she was a whole different person than he'd always made her out to be, and as the days passed he found that a different feeling was developing, something deeper and stronger than the natural loyalty of a dog to its owner. Marshall had to admit he was falling in love with her.
Vincent's words were haunting him. He didn't know how to prove his renewed devotion to her in the form of a dog. He couldn't do anything else than be by her side whenever possible. One day when she was at work he made the trip to the suburbs to find Vincent, but his friend was nowhere to be found. His frustration grew as time passed and he started to realize that he might never change into a man again, and might never be able to show Lydia what she meant to him now, and that he was wrong in turning her down the way he did.
On one of her off days Lydia was sitting on the plastic chair she had in her sparsely furnished apartment, reading the newspaper. A knock on the door got Marshall up, growling at whatever stranger was interrupting their time together. Lydia opened it, and it was her father. Marshall felt the tension ripple through her, almost as if it rippled through him, and for the first time since she started telling him about her dad, he understood what fear she'd known. This man had something about him that he hated immediately, something that smelled dangerous. He barked and barked but Lydia scolded him, and invited her father inside. He couldn't believe that she was doing that. He barked more, his aggression growing, but she told him firmly to keep quiet, and he knew if he didn't she would lock him outside. He lay down next to her, his body taught, every muscle trembling.
Her father was clearly drunk, sobbing in her little kitchen, begging her to come back, telling her how much she hurt her mother by running off. How could Lydia not see through this man? She listened silently, offering him a tissue when he became a real mess. She kept saying no to him, to Marshall's relief, but every time she did, the man got more angry, and Marshall could smell his aggression, like something acrid in his nose. He saw him curl his hands around a butter knife that lay on the table, and Marshall jumped up with a growl, leaping into the air, and feeling a piercing howl ring from his throat as the knife sank in between his ribs, instead of Lydia's neck as he jumped in front of her.
Everything went black. This is the end, he thought, at least the last thing I saw was her face.
Marshall blinked his eyes twice, trying to adjust to the bright light, wondering where he was. How did he get here? A sharp pain to his ribs made him dizzy, but when he lifted his arm to reach for the wound, he realized he was human again. He was human again! And in hospital. Vincent sat next to his bed, grinning.
“What happened?” Marshall asked weakly.
“You saved her. You're in the hospital.”
“Her dad?”
“Locked up. And you proved yourself. Well done, man.”
He sauntered out of the hospital room just as the nurse came in.
A week later he was out, walking up the steps to her ruddy apartment. He swallowed nervously, not knowing what to say. She didn't know he'd been the dog. Vincent called him up later on. He had to fix where he messed up without any help. What if she didn't want him? He felt guilty now that the roles were reversed. He knocked on her door, and she opened it, looking a little stunned to see him there, but then she smiled, and he knew it would be alright.
Chapters
Chapter 1
Marshall is a shoulder for Lydia to cry on whenever her abusive father becomes too much for her to handle. They're good friends, but he feels like she's too much sometimes
Chapter 2
Lydia runs away from home when things get hairy, and asks Marshall if she can stay with him for a couple of days. He agrees even though he doesn't enjoy the idea. When she declares she loves him, he shuts her down and she leaves.
Chapter 3
Marshall's friend, Vincent, finds out how he feels about her, and that he's made his judgment without getting to know the real Lydia, and as punishment changes him into a little white and brown dog. Marshall has to find Lydia and get to know her, and prove that his reaction to her was fair.
Chapter 4
As time goes on, Marshall realizes that Lydia is completely different than he thought, and he falls in love with her, realizing that he treated her wrong. When her drunken father comes to beg for her back she refuses, and Marshall saves her life by jumping in front of the knife he tries to launch into her throat.
Chapter 5
Marshall is sure he's going to die, but he wakes up in the hospital, human again, and Vincent tells him he succeeded and he saved Lydia. He has to go win her back now, but she doesn't know he was the dog, he has to go fix it with her without any help. He goes to her, and they start dating.
Characters
Lydia - Short and thin, blond hair, dark brown eyes, timid when threatened but very gentle and passionate when she feels safe
Marshall - Tall, muscular build, confident manner, arrogant and quick to judge. As a dog he's small, white with brown patches, loyal, has a change of heart when he realizes he judges too easily.
Vincent - Marshall's best friend, similar build, black hair, dark eyes, has magic powers, very fair, used his magic when he can bring about a change.