Vampiric: Chapter Eight, Part 4

“You’re up,” Caroline said, pulling open the curtains to let a flood of sunlight in.

Shielding my eyes, I realized I was in her apartment. But that didn’t make sense. The day after the broadcast, I went to work as usual, and the last thing I remembered was trying to locate the pile of applications. “What happened?” I asked, sitting up.

“You tell me;” she sat at the foot of the bed, crossing her legs and interlacing her fingers; the tips of her fingers turned white. Her hair was thrown up into a sloppy bun and she didn’t appear to be wearing makeup.

Why did my head hurt? It had hurt since before I sat up, but I couldn’t figure out why. I wasn’t particularly susceptible to headaches. “I don’t know…the last thing I remember was working.”

“That’s the last thing you were doing—before you passed out.” She pressed her lips into a thin line.

“What?” How was that possible? I hadn’t even been tired…not that I remembered anyway. Though, if I had hit my head, that would explain the headache.

“When was the last time you slept, Abs?” Caroline asked.

Looking away, mentally preparing for whatever yell-fest my answer brought, I muttered, “I don’t remember.”

“Don’t mutter now,” she said sternly, her voice laced with the anger she was keeping at bay. “You’ve never had a problem speaking to me before, don’t you dare start now, Abs.”

“I don’t remember. Probably before—” His name stuck in my throat and I couldn’t force it out. It felt like if I did, I would start falling apart again. “Before I came here.”

“Jesus, Abs,” Caroline whispered, her visage falling. She reached a hand to her face, a finger resting across the bridge of her nose and her thumb on her left temple. “Why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t sleep? I have sleeping pills and stuff; I used to have bouts of insomnia;” her body was tense with the effort required to restrain her anger. Caroline stood, beginning to pace along the foot of the bed. “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t, okay?” I said, wishing she would just leave it alone. I had screwed up, great. We both knew it. Could we move onto item two of her agenda?

“What were you doing instead of sleeping?” She stopped her pacing to stare at me, hands on her hips. Some of her hair had fallen out of her messy bun and she batted it over her shoulder.

“I went to the park mostly, to walk around,” I said, avoiding her gaze, hoping she would get a clue and leave. Seriously, it wasn’t like I had starved myself. I avoided thinking how I wouldn’t have been able to make even that claim if she hadn’t ensured I ate on a semi-regular basis.

“Why?”

“I don’t know;” I shrugged. “When I got there, it felt like I was trying to find something.”

“Something or someone?”

I ignored the question; I didn’t know the answer anyway. When I didn’t say anything, she prompted, “What did you find, then?”

“The moon;” I met her bronze eyes for the first time that morning.

“The moon?” Her tone revealed her skepticism even as she struggled to keep her face neutral. I didn’t expect her to understand, and I wasn’t up to explaining. It was too complicated and involved too much that she wouldn’t—didn’t understand. Nothing I said could change that, just like nothing I said could make him listen.

Sitting at the foot of the bed again, she took my hands in each of hers. When I met her gaze again, the copper disks seemed to burn into me, trying to understand me while attempting to make me see reason.

“Abs, you need to sleep at night,” she said slowly as if speaking to a child about monsters in the closet. “You’re my secretary, and my friend, and I need you to be healthy. I can’t have you passing out for days on end—you’ve been out about two days if you were curious.” I hated how everyone thought I was curious about how long I passed out at one time. “So to stop you from sneaking out, I’m going to ask Ian to stay over the next couple of weeks. He’s a light sleeper, so don’t even try to leave. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Now go back to sleep. I want you in top shape tomorrow and back to work. We have a broadcast in a couple weeks and I need my office back.” She smiled at that, as though teasing. I found it chellenging to smile back.

“No worries, Abs. I’ll have you smiling again in no time,” she said, squeezing my hand.

“Will it ever stop hurting?” I asked, tearing my gaze and hands away from hers. It was a question I had been tossing around for a long while. I wanted—no, needed—to know the answer. Every time I let myself try to sort through it, attempt coming to terms with everything that had happened, it was unbearably painful and I had to stop. I had to find some distraction, like work or lies.

“Will what stop hurting?” Her smile faded in her confusion. Then her features brightened and I knew she realized what it was I was asking. She hugged me but she didn’t otherwise respond.

“Will it?” I repeated, needing the answer. Now that it was in the open, it felt like I could function somewhat normally someday if I had the answer. If it was the answer I wanted to believe but didn’t seem able to.

Caroline replied, “You can only hope it will.”

So hope was the answer. It didn’t seem very promising, but it was better than being told no. Thinking back on those days, that year in general, hope was all I had—despite being in amazingly short supply. The future seemed a touch brighter so long as I was clinging to hope.