Chapter Text
I had stayed nearby ever since we had returned from the Olympic mountains on Saturday afternoon, and I had sat anxiously in the woods behind her house until I heard her pulling up to the house in her hideous red truck. That hideous red truck, which she adores, I thought fondly. The fire in her eyes whenever the truck was slighted was endearing, the rare flashes of her temper breaking through the usual composure. When she had settled into bed, her breathing growing even, I stayed, sitting on a sturdy tree branch, matching my own breaths to hers. I didn’t need the oxygen, but the feeling of the cool air moving in and out of my lungs, in rhythm with her, soothed me. Sleep was another thing I didn’t need, but in this state, I felt the closest I had felt to a peaceful sleep in almost one hundred years. I daydreamed, images of her face close to mine filling my mind. The delicious scent of her blood when it rushed as her heart rate picked up, the tantalising way it hit me when a pretty pink blush filled her cheeks…
I hummed to myself, not wanting to send myself down a spiral of craving her blood, not now when the only thing between us was a flimsy pane of glass and my willpower. It was much easier to resist the bloodlust when I had just fed, and this weekend I had fed in excess, hoping to stave off the thirst for as long as I possibly could.
I kept my imagination from the delicious scent of her blood, instead focusing on the girl herself. The way she bit her lip to hide her smiles. The way she really paid attention to her friends. The way she didn’t want anyone to be hurt, even when it hurt her.
I was recalling one of our conversations in Biology, when I heard her call my name. She sounded desperate, terrified. I felt my stomach drop, convinced that she had suddenly realised what I was, that she would somehow know and never want to speak to me again.
I knew, though, that her cry hadn’t been one of horror, or disgust, but one of fear. I could hear her moving inside her room, the electronic whirring of a desktop computer reaching my sensitive ears. I could hear her sniffling, the sound of her hands wiping tears from her eyes. My heart felt like it was tearing into a hundred bloody pieces, to hear the fear in her voice, hear her softly crying, and to be unable to comfort her. Or worse, to know that I was the reason for it.
Her breathing was even again as I heard the mechanical clicking of her computer keyboard. I couldn’t imagine what she was searching for. Her typing was interrupted by the soft scraping sound of a pencil on cheap paper, only a few letters at a time, then scribbling out something, and writing again.
I wondered desperately what caused her sighs of frustration, the low groans which I could picture so easily, the way her hands would rub over her face as the sound escaped her lips. I wondered if she was wearing that ugly green sweater which smelled like jasmine and Phoenix, the image of her face pressed into the ends of the sleeves bringing a smile to my face. A memory appeared: her, looking so ill, but resting in my arms securely, the green sleeves draped around my neck heavily as she struggled to stay conscious. I had been so worried, her heart rate far too low to be safe for a human, but the way she had reached for my shoulder, leant against me, then let me carry her to the nurse? It had been Heaven. It also hadn’t hurt that she had chosen me over Mike Newton, and the look of shock and indignity on his face replayed in my mind, making me chuckle softly.
He doesn’t deserve her , I thought, selfishly. Nor do I , I added, sadly. But I want her anyway . That was the truth of it.
I didn’t know what the origin of this curse was, which made me love her, more powerfully than anything I had ever felt before. Perhaps it was God himself, desperate to punish me for my sins, everything I was guilty of, every life lost, every impure thought and feeling and action. Perhaps the Devil, although I didn’t think that a being of evil could provide something to me that gave me this glimpse of Heaven, however fleeting her mortal life was.
I wondered if the reason even mattered to me, if it meant that I could feel this. It had been barely more than a month since we had met, and yet she was present in my every thought. Every sensation I experienced - sight, touch, taste, smell, sound - it was all full of her presence, or tainted by the lack of it. Every time I forced myself to walk away from her, it became more difficult, like I was fighting nature itself. Every fibre of my being longed to be near her, to be one with her. I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to feel the same, or if I wished she would run, screaming, making my internal conflict easier.
For hours, I listened to the scribbling of pencil on paper, the clicking of her computer mouse as she navigated her screen, and the impatient sighs that slipped from her mouth, usually accompanied by her fingertips drumming on the desk.
Finally, one of her sighs sounded more content, and I heard her murmur softly to herself.
“I knew you couldn’t be bad.” Her voice drifted down to me, and I barely let myself hope that she was talking about me. A little venom welled in my tear ducts, a mockery of the tears of relief that I was desperate to shed.
I heard her power down the computer. The rustling of sheets meant she had flopped down onto her bed, and I listened as her breathing became deeper, mirroring her light sleep as I lay still until the dawn began to creep over the treetops.