BXBX NOVEL Chapter 801 - 801 After Dark, Part 2
“Like feeling?”
“Yes…”
“Do you think maybe… maybe you might stay the way you are now?”
“Meaning to say you were not fond of me before…?” She cocked her head. “That is very cruel of you to say…”
“And you’re joking now, see?” I scoffed, smiling, ridden all over in a pleasant sense of disbelief. “I’ve never heard you joke before.”
“For now, yes… I can joke…” slowly, she looked up, the bulging veins jutting through her pale skin harder to see now in the dark. “And hopefully, in the future… I’ll be able to joke again with you a bit more…”
“So you’ll turn back.”
.....
“Eventually…” Adalia answered. “But not now, for tonight…” She stared back down at me, beneath the swirl of her eyes, a sadder smile, another first. “I will remain this way with you…”
“Can’t we just – ?”
“No, I cannot always stay aroused…” She said, reminding my mind twice. “It is painful and dangerous for us to frequently frenzy. Even if we had months, or years between. It is not our natural state of being. It is better for me, healthier for me, to regress to how I was again. That is my natural state…”
I stayed quiet, and subtly, I turned my face away. For that one moment I didn’t want her to know I was thinking.
Of course, there was a way to keep her permanently this way, wasn’t there? A dangerous solution, a precarious process that would mend her forever, keep her happy, keep her smiling… for a moment, I considered it, considered all there was to gain from it… and all there was to lose from it.
No, never. I won’t risk it.
I won’t risk her.
“It will be a long while before we are able to do anything like this again with each other…” Adalia mused to the silence of falling snow. “Hopefully not too long…”
“Then I’ll stay for how long we still have of this,” I proclaimed. “I want to cherish every single second I have of you now.”
She just slowly shook her head at that, a slight smile showing in amusement.
“You’re tired…”
“Not that tired.”
“Liar…” She chuckled again. “I’ve drained you of all your strength. You will sleep eventually, whether you want to or not…”
“Then just keep talking to me, talk about whatever – anything you want,” I said, turning over to my side. “Just keep me awake.”
From above, I heard her let out a sigh. I’ve amused her again. It was so easy now to tell how she was feeling, what she was thinking, and right now without a doubt, she thought of this as nothing but silly… yet regardless, the light, tender ripples of her fingers on my hair told me anything was worth a try.
“You let out a lot of your essence in me…” came the next sentence out of her lips, and for a second, I was stunned enough to stay awake forever. “Yet nothing will come of it, will it…? You might not desire any now, and that is good. But in the future, when you do feel like it… it is a little sad to think I will not be able to bear you any offspring…”
“Don’t make that a concern,” I said, stifling another yawn.
“It is not…” She reassured. “I am just letting my thoughts speak out, just as you told me to…”
“Why is that the first thing to come to your mind?”
“You made love to me…” I heard her breath leave in a giggle. “Why wouldn’t it be…?”
I nudged my head. “Fair point.”
“Speaking of which…” Adalia pondered on. “I wonder if the others would be jealous…? They must already know what we would be doing tonight. I’m sure they will be asking you a lot of questions when you see them again…”
Uuh, just thinking about it makes my body shrivel up at the notion. So not looking forward to that.
“Amanda’s blood still smells untainted, pure. I am sure she would be the most envious. Will you be making love to her soon, I wonder…?”
Okay, I’m starting to regret letting the vampire who had all the time in the world to think and observe everything around her run her mouth freely like this…
No turning back now, though.
“You will be going back to work tomorrow, won’t you…?” She asked.
“Afternoon schedule,” I murmured, vaguely remembering glimpsing at the timetable. “Lucky me.”
“I hate it when you go to work…” She suddenly confessed, a bitter coating in her words. “You will be already gone when I wake up, and you will be going back to sleep when you return. I have very little time to be with you. It can be annoying…”
“Never knew you felt that way.”
“Ash does too…” She remarked. “She always takes the longest time to clean your room…”
My room is always tidy anyway aside from a few stray pillows and crumpled sheets whenever I leave it, so Ash really shouldn’t take that long. Okay, what other secrets of the house are being kept from me?
“Irene’s necklace…” slightly, I felt the thin strand around my neck give a tug. “Maybe next Christmas, I should give you something similar, something better…”
“Better?” I blinked, the words leaving me quieter than I wanted. “Like what?”
“A ring, maybe…” then around the silver wrapped around my finger I felt her claws graze. “Like you’re planning to give Amanda…”
For a few more minutes, a few more moments, this was simply just it. Me listening to her drone on and on about the most minute of things. How sleeping on her couch felt like, or Mr. Black and his tendency to howl the night away until the crack of morning, and more recently, Sera and her occasional late-night wanderings into the snack pantry. And now I know where all the cookies had gone to.
Just the little things I probably would have never known if it weren’t for tonight, for this one moment… a moment I almost wish would last forever.
But sadly, forever has its permanent caveats.
“You are still awake…”
“Hm?” I heard her only a full second after. “Of course I am.”
“But not for long, it seems…”
There was a brief silence, and I think she was waiting for a response. But I kept quiet. It was a waste of energy to speak. I shouldn’t speak. I only needed to listen. That’s the only thing that’ll keep me up…
“Today…” Adalia started to ramble once more. “I’ll always remember the things that happened today. The memories, the experiences you’ve given me. I’ll never forget them…”
I nodded in response. My head felt heavy, but I was sure I nodded. I’m sure she saw it.
“I am always asleep most of the time. Day after day, a few hours, a few moments, that is all I always usually get. But today was different, today was longer. I was not used to it, I am still not used to it. It hurt, it ached, and I was in a lot of discomfort most of the time…”
“But it was fun. Those short, rare moments where we had to do something together. I like those, they made it all worth it. Being with you, made it all worth it. Yes, today was really a lot of fun, wasn’t it…?”
Fun… ‘course it was… why wouldn’t it have been? She’s the reason it was all fun in the first place…
“And in a few more hours, today will finally come to an end…” her voice rang out suddenly a million miles away. “Tomorrow will come, we will go home, you will leave for work, everything will be normal again… I will be normal again…”
I opened my lips to speak… and I spoke… I think I did… or was that just a sigh…?
“Are you still listening…?”
I am… I was…
I think.
“I hope we can have another special moment again one day…” her whispers rippled like the softest serenade. “I love you. I really love you. Do you hear me…?”
“Mmm…”
“Even when I’m quiet again, I always am. When it becomes difficult again to express my feelings properly, please remember me now. Even if I do not know it, even if I do not show it, this is how I will always feel. Understand…? When I’m silent, when it seems like I am completely empty. Please remember, never, ever forget, that inside, deep inside…”
A kiss. The last thing I ever felt. A sniffle, happiness in a quivering breath, the last thing I’ve ever heard. Outside, the city seemed to be dimming, glimmering rims of light – of a beauty, a moment, fading.
“I’m always loving you more and more…”