Page 41 of Don't Bite the Boy Next Door
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“Ryan, how long is this going to go on?” I murmur, trying not to let my exasperation leach into my question, but failing.
It’s been so long now, so long hiding in his home, organising my times so I don’t meet him in the bathroom, or the kitchen, or the garden, or impact on his life in any way. Waiting, hoping he will let down the invisible wall that has built up between us since he learned what I am and what he has become. Yet still, we remain strangers living together in his big, cold, ramshackle house.
All the joy I once had at the change of seasons in this vast land, the waning of autumn, the onset of winter, the first snows of the season, nothing, nothing gives me pleasure any more. And it’s not because I no longer value the environment, or because I’m maudlin by nature. No, it’s something that I have not had to experience in centuries; a pain in my heart that overrides everything; the man I admire, desire, have grown to love, does not want to know me.
This evening I woke to a revelation; if this is living, I’d rather be dead. I’d rather Lars had managed to rip my head right off that night so many months ago than live with this guilt again. I may not have killed Ryan, but I changed his life so dramatically, in such an unwanted way, that it was much the same. He was technically dead because of me.
And I can’t take it anymore.
“What?” he frowns, not looking up from his book.
“This,” I wave my arms around the room, “this pretending I’m not here.”
“Tess,” he looks up, “I’m not pretending anything.”
“I know you don’t want me here; never wanted me here,” I swallow the lump in my throat, turning from him to stare out the window where I stand, nervously, on the edge of his vision. “I’m sorry you have to live with me, the monster who turned you into a vampire. I don’t know how many times I have to say it.”
He sighs heavily, and I hear the creak of his old couch as he rises and walks to where I stand.
“You’re imagining things,” he murmurs, looking out at the view of Orson and Toto playing tug of war with a long piece of rope on the front lawn, now covered in a dusting of white. “You need to keep busy and think less.”
“Doing what?” I frown. “I’ve been tiptoeing around your house for months now trying not to get in your way, trying to leave you to your peace and solitude‘trying not to exist’ –what can I do that won’t impact on you?”
I cast a quick glance up and sideways at his profile.
“Tess, I don’t need you to tiptoe,” he sighs. “I’ve been getting accustomed to my new diet and lifestyle, and I thought you wanted to be alone, so I’ve let you be.”
“You’ve barely acknowledged me,” I whisper, “it’s like as soon as you discovered what I am, and what you’ve become…”
He opens his mouth, but I interrupt him, my words, so long stoppered in a bottle of fear and sadness, now pouring out. “I don’t want to stay here any longer,” I shake my head, quickly blinking away tears. “I can’t stand it anymore.”
“If you leave, you could jeopardise the lives of all your friends,” he says quietly. “Serena said this is war. There’s no place for your sentiment – you have to support your fellow soldiers and follow orders; even if you don’t feel what they are doing is right. I know, believe me, I know, just how hard that can be.”
“I know they are right in what they are doing. I just don’t want to be alone for Christmas,” I whisper. “I never have been. Pru says their plans won’t come to fruition until at least the new year now, and I know that is longer than you agreed to babysit me. And I’m so sorry…” I trail off.
“Will it help if I give you a job?” he shrugs, turning from me and making his way back to his book, “put you to work on something useful, something I need?”
“A job?”
“Yeah, you said once you get bored. I’ve done all the major structural work I plan to do on this place now, but I could use some help decorating. I like what you did with your place. If you feel like it, if it would keep you occupied, you can spruce up the interiors here.”
“Really?” I smile shyly.
“Really.”
“I can do anything I want?”
“Just no pink,” he mutters, looking back down at his book.
I think I can see the very faintest of smiles on the edge of his lips, but I’m not sure. Either way, I’ll take any kindness, any thawing as a win.
“Thank you, Ryan, and I promise, no pink.”
He nods, and I turn to leave the room, determined to head to the attic and the barn and discover what treasures might lie there that I can repurpose and renovate to turn this cold house into a home. But I change my mind and head to my room to my computer, to order Christmas decorations first.
‘Maybe Christmas will still be lonely, but it will sure as heck be colourful.’
