10. Meal Time
1082 Words
Jamie Her voice. She could sing! I hope that was as good a way to get her mind off the vampires as it was for mine. Her voice and the words she sang were heavenly. I closed my eyes and smiled, something I hadn’t done in a long time.
Even after she stopped singing, I replayed the words in my mind. We both need someone who can hold what we hide.
No. Nobody could hold what I hid… Never. I couldn’t talk about that. And she couldn’t know… What if she didn’t want to speak to me anymore? She was forced to kill… But me, just a slight mess up, just one push, and I could snap a neck.
Crack.
“Bree?” I opened my eyes again and looked at her. Selfish. No, she wouldn’t want to feel all alone here, would she? Not selfish. Not for me.
“Yeah?” Sabrina responded, turning her bright green eyes to me.
“What’s your favorite color?” I asked the first question that came to mind. Silly, dumb question as it was…
“Navy blue.” She paused, “It’s the opposite of red.”
“Red for blood…” I murmured to myself. “Mine is orange. It’s bright and happy. Like the sun.”
“You miss the sun? And outside?” She asked.
I did, didn’t I? But at the same time… I didn’t want to leave. I should be here, miserable, unable to accidentally hurt anyone… “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything but dirty walls and vampires,” I said simply, not giving anything away.
“How long have you been here?” Bree asked.
“So long I’ve lost count of the years. Time doesn’t matter anymore, not like I’ll ever be out of here…” I instantly regretted saying those words. Not only because they voiced my pain, but because saying things makes them truer. I bit my lip and turned away, not wanting to see the inevitable pity on her face.
“Hey, Jamie, I’m in the same boat. You don’t need to look like that, like you’ve revealed some horrible secret about yourself. It’s not like I didn't know we were stuck here forever. At least we’re stuck here together!”
I glanced back over at her, the truth of her words sinking in. I wasn’t bothering her with my problems, we had the same problems. I gave her a small smile. “Thanks.”
“What? For what?” Her brow furrowed and she tilted her head to the side.
“Things you don’t even realize.” Like how you’ve made me smile for the first time in two centuries. I wanted to tell her, but I didn’t. Not that it was unbelievable, but I didn’t know how to tell her that. That got too close to other things…
“Can you sing?” The question seemed really abrupt, it took me a minute to process the words. Could I sing?
“N-no!” I said quickly, “I mean, I don’t know, I…” I was tripping over my words. Should I?
“I bet you can. You should try.” I looked closely at her, trying to see if she was teasing me or serious. Instead, I noticed how she looked as if she were glowing against the dull background. I shook my head to refocus my thoughts.
“I don’t know any songs…” I said. Which was mostly true.
“Didn’t you listen to music before you got here?” Well, yeah, but that was the 1800’s… Before whatever stuff they had now.
“Uh… Kind of. Just, like, classical stuff.” That hadn’t gone away, had it? Was I giving anything away here? I didn’t want her to know what I was…
“Oh, yeah. That doesn’t have any lyrics... “ She thought for a minute, “I could teach you a song!”
“Oh… No, that’s okay…” I said. I hadn’t even used my voice until she got here, I was sure that any singing I tried to do would suck. Maybe even hurt my throat.
“Fine, I’ll try again later.” She smirked at me, and there was a weird fluttery feeling in my stomach.
“Good luck with that,” I replied. I don’t know, maybe trying to get me to sing will be a good obsession. A distracting obsession.
⇎
Bree had fallen asleep again. I was a little worried about her… Even here, sleeping that much wasn’t normal. For the few days, or however long it was, that she’d been here, most of it was spent sleeping.
I tried to hold conversations with her while she was awake, but I was never good at conversation… And that was before two hundred years of mostly solitary silence. Was she just bored, or was it depression? That could make you sleep a lot…
The door creaked open; I flinched towards the back wall, but it was just the food coming. If you could call it that.
The guard banged on Bree’s bars to wake her up before sliding some “food” into her cell, watching her a little too closely. I clenched my fists as she startled awake and asked, “What is this?”
“Food.” He said, eyes never leaving her. She put her finger into it and licked it off, grimacing and gagging as it hit her tongue. She muttered something I couldn’t quite hear, and the guard finally moved on.
Set down in front of me was a plastic plate of brownish-green mush that smelled like garbage. Just like always. I didn’t even bother touching it, not like time would change the taste.
I just wished that Bree didn’t have to eat this. She didn’t deserve this.
- Writer
