Will woke up from his anesthesia in Helen’s bed. He had regrown to his original size. He realized quickly what had happened, but took a moment to let it soak in. He ran his hands across her sheets and felt the weight of his body on her mattress.

This room had been the only thing he’d seen for months, but it was as if he was seeing it for the first time. It was all very familiar, but his new perspective made everything feel off. It was all so tiny. The TV, the dresser, the bed. He felt like a giant, even though he was still only a scrawny teenager.

Helen was sitting on a chair next to the bed, watching Will wake up. She looked like a character from a hospital soap opera. Say, a wife who sat beside her comatose husband, hoping to see some sign of life. She had obviously been crying. She wore the most pitiful expression on her face, like a hurt puppy.

Will stared her in the eyes without letting a word pass through his lips. Helen was still a big girl, much bigger than him, but exponentially smaller than Will was used to. Will had viewed Helen as something of a god, both due to her size and magic prowess; but for the first time in a while, he saw her as a woman.

The two stared at one another in awkward silence for several moments. The exact amount of time wasn’t clear, but it was enough to make the both of the uncomfortable.

Will broke away from her gaze and looked down at his body. He realized that he was nude, save for a band aid stuck to his right arm.

“W-Willie…”

Helen broke the loud silence. Will turned and looked at her again with an empty face. This matched his mental state; he wasn’t happy, he wasn’t sad. He felt surprisingly little, despite the drastic and unexpected change.

“I’m so, so sorry…”

Helen held back tears and began explaining the situation to Will.

“I was so, so happy when we began living together. You were so sweet and funny. I woke up each day excited, asking myself what kind of fun stuff I’d be doing with little Willie today.”

Helen’s lips formed a painful smile. Her eyes looked like they hadn’t gotten rest for weeks.

“I loved you, and I still do. My love for you has only deepened in the time we’ve spent with each other. Sadly, my guilty conscience wouldn’t let me enjoy our times together as much as I’d like to. At first it wasn’t much; small pangs of regret that could be dismissed easily. These grew with time, though. The small pangs of guilt swelled and swelled into malignant emotional tumors. I was depressed day in and day out, distracting myself with the silly little stuff we’d do together, like the birthday party or the anime watching.”

Helen sniffled. A few tears fell from the corners of her eyes. Will listened intently, but she was too nervous to look him in the face.

“Here was this lovely boy, who I had kidnapped. Stolen him from his family, stolen him from his friends. Ruined his chance at a career, ruined his chance at further education. And all of it for my amusement. All over a stupid crush. Living isolated is really, really bad for the human psyche you know.”

The dam was breaking. Helen was on the verge of collapsing.

“Spending all this time alone warped my morals. I lost myself, I lost human decency. My crush on you was forged from years of loneliness. Loneliness set in by my esoteric upbringing as a mage, and the way I’m treated beacause of my body. This crush gave me an escape. I could fantasize about you to ease my mind. This is normal, most people do this to an extent. But I took it way, way too far. I should have been put behind bars for the stalking I did.”

Helen was about to lose it.

“Eventually the guilt became too much, so I decided to repent. I called up one of my only friends: Sarah Bronstein, a Jewish mage who lives in Washington state. Jewish mages are really good, much better than us pagans. I explained to her what I had done and asked her if she could make a regrowth serum for me. She obliged, and in a few weeks, the concoction arrived here. I put you to sleep and injected you. That’s how we ended up here.”

Helen finally mustered the courage to look Will in the eyes. Her look was so frenzied and upset that it startled him for a moment.

“So, I’m asking you with all my heart: run away. Run away as fast as you can. I’m a monster, an evil witch. Like an old German fairy tale.”

Helen broke down crying and heaving.

“Run away! Get out of here!”

She wept heavily for a minute, trying to speak but failing. Will waited silently.

“Just don’t tell them what happened. Not for my sake; I deserve to be in the pen, getting mauled by the locked up crack whores. But for your own sake. I don’t want them to think you’re crazy and put you in a home. Pretend to be an amnesiac. But please, please run aw-”

“Helen.”

Will interrupted her delirium.

“Look at me.”

The two locked eyes. Will had a stern, confident look on his face. He sat up in his bed and pressed his palm against Helen’s tear stained cheek. The girl was big compared to him, but at this moment, he was in control.

He leaned his head forward and placed a small kiss on Helen’s pink lips. She would have gasped if her mouth was free, but her eyes conveyed her shock well enough. The kiss was short, only a peck really. Her cheeks turned pink.

Helen was a young girl. Will had of course known this, but he didn’t properly comprehend it until now.

“Stand up.”

Will said quietly but sternly into Helen’s ear. She hesitated a moment before following his command.

Will threw the bed sheets off his naked body and stood up in front of his girlfriend. He wrapped his arms around her tightly, but not tight enough to be uncomfortable. She reciprocated, and the couple stood like this for a while: holding one another, not saying a word. Merely enjoying one another’s presence.

Will had never been more attracted to Helen than he was in this moment. Seeing her spill her emotions and vulnerability bare before him had given the boy a whole new appreciation of the woman he loved. And if Helen didn’t love Will already, she sure as hell did now. For the first time in her life, she was given the proper emotional support vehicle she needed. Someone to listen to her, someone to comfort her and tell her it was all going to be okay; a proper shoulder to cry on.

The two separated a bit. Will looked into her face and gave her a small, but powerful smile.

“No, Ellie. I’m not gonna run away. Why would I run away from the woman I love?”

Helen broke down. She grasped Will tightly now, hurting him a bit, though he would never say anything. He allowed her to purge her system of the stress and depression that had built up over the years. It wasn’t clear to either of them how long this took. Time never flows properly when you’re in this kind of emotional state.

Helen’s sobbing inevitably subsided, and she looked Will in the eyes with a expressionless look.

“Thank you. Thank you so, so much.”

“Haha, no problem at all.”

The two laughed. They knew, in this moment, that they would be together forever.

“I think I know something that would make the both of us feel a lot better.”

Helen looked at him confused. Will said nothing more, and began pulling up Helen’s dark green t shirt.