Sincerely, Jennifer x

They say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and I guess that I was lucky enough that it was true. Dean was always hungry, and I was an excellent cook.

He’d paw all over me when I was in the kitchen, soft, sweet kisses down the back of my neck as he clung to my waist.

“I’m hungry…” He’d howl dramatically, and I’d roll my eyes, shoving him away and watching him pout as I finished making dinner.

At first, it was charming, the appetite. He could eat half a lasagne in one sitting and still ask for toast. I teased him about it. Told him I was going to have to start shopping in bulk.

But then it changed.

He started waking up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, pacing the flat like a caged animal. Some mornings I’d find the sheets torn, as he stared up at me with his big brown eyes. 

“Nightmares,” He’d whisper, his voice shaking just a little too much. “I don’t remember them….” As he walked to the kitchen, he’d trail off, as if another thought entirely had just entered his head and taken over all the space.

He wasn’t just eating more, he was restless. He barely slept, pacing the flat every night with a frown. 

One night, I caught him in the kitchen at 3am, hunched over the bin with something red smeared on his chin.

It dripped down slowly as he spoke. 

“Leftover drumsticks. You didn’t want them, did you?”

I didn’t ask questions, because I didn’t want answers. 

I just turned on the oven and stroked his soft, dark hair as I looked through the freezer for something to cook. He nuzzled into my shaking hands, slowly kissing each fingertip as I stared blankly at trays and packages of food that I knew could not satisfy him. 

Love makes you do strange things.

Like lying to your boss about why you’re suddenly late all the time. Like learning which parts of town don’t have CCTV. Like… watching people. Watching for people no one will miss, and thinking about how you could get them back to your flat without a fuss.

Dean’s appetite was changing. And whether I understood it or not, I knew one thing for sure. My man needed feeding, and I would do anything to keep him satisfied.

That’s love, isn’t it? You’d do anything for them. Bring them the sun or the moon if they asked… or a meal.

None of this was planned, not really. More like… a possibility I stopped saying no to.

I’d had the thought plenty of times, but I just buried it in the depths of my mind, reassuring myself that I was seeing things, and that everything was perfectly fine, but as Dean got worse, the thought got harder and harder to bury. 

The hunger, the mood swings, the nights spent pacing like a ghost. His skin was warm to the touch, fevered, and he twitched in his sleep, whimpering and wailing.

The week before it happened, I came home to find the neighbour’s cat on our doorstep. Or parts of it, at least.

Dean swore he hadn’t done it. Looked at me with those dark, watery eyes, struggling to speak. 

I gave him a kiss and cleaned it up, making the decision then and there that something had to be done.

That night, as he slept beside me, tossing and turning, I rose from my bed, and went shopping. 

The man in the underpass was shouting at pigeons. That’s what I remember most. He was red-faced, wild-eyed, throwing half a sandwich at a wall and calling the birds “government bastards.”

No one else looked at him. They just passed by, eyes forward, headphones in.

I stood across the street and watched him for almost ten minutes. I counted six people that ignored him as I approached. One woman even crossed the road.

“You okay, mate?” I asked, my voice steady. “You hungry?”

He turned, narrowing his tired eyes, like I was a hallucination.

I offered him a wrapped sandwich from my bag, wincing slightly as he snatched it from me, grunting something that might’ve been thanks. When he bit into it, I stepped a little closer with my very best smile.

“This way,” I whispered, my voice all sugar. “There’s more where that came from.”

It wasn’t quick. Torturously slow, in fact. 

As the man backed against the front door, his nails scraping against the wood as he felt for the lock, Dean advanced on him. The keys seemed to burn in my pocket as Dean’s big eyes grew even wider as he suddenly fell to his knees, convulsing.

I ran to his side, pulling him close to my chest as the man began searching through the shelves by the front door for the keys he would never find. I looked down at Dean, stroking his raven hair as his eyes fluttered open, and my fingers got lost in hair that seemed to be sprouting across his body. 

He pushed me away, and I clattered to the floor, sore and shaking as he struggled to his feet again. 

The man at the door met my eyes, panicked, as he began pounding on the door with a yelp. 

Dean’s spine cracked so loud it echoed, his hands hitting the floor with a smack. His fingers splayed, twitching as the bones shifted under the skin. 

His mouth stretched unnaturally wide, lip splitting at the corner as a growl boiled out from somewhere deep in his chest. 

“Wh-what is this?!” The man choked, eyes wild, the door rattling behind him as he fumbled at the handle.

Dean didn’t answer, and neither did I.

I scrambled to my feet, rushing towards the kitchen with tears burning my eyes and my heart hammering. I tried not to hear it, keys clenched tight in my pocket, watching the moon from the window as I sank to the floor and wept.

When it was over, Dean came to me smelling like copper and sweat.

We didn’t speak. He just curled up beside me on the floor, head in my lap, and let out a long, ragged sigh.

It was over. 

He was at peace, for the moment. 

I felt sick. I felt like I’d allowed something inside of me… a sickness, that wasn’t going to heal.

But that’s love, isn’t it?

I mattered more to him than ever before, and so, I couldn’t stop. 

He got better for a while, after the man came for dinner. He could sleep again, and he ate normally. His mood was good… things were good. It only started getting bad again as the moon got a little closer. 

The bigger it got, the worse things became, and so, out I went. Shopping for a meal for my man, and bringing it home to satisfy him, because… well, that’s love, isn’t it?