Three Wishes: This didn't go as planned!

Hopeless Romantic

I woke to darkness.  The thick covering of night was itchy on my eyes.  There was a stirring across the room, and I startled upwards to my feet. 

"It's me, Abel."  Jeanie said softly. 

"Oh, Jeanie."  I swallowed.  She came across the room.  As she came closer I saw she was wearing a white nightdress, ghostly and ephemeral against a black palette. 

"Did you get enough sleep?"  She asked, sitting next to me. 

I shifted, considering moving my leg away from where it touched Jeanie's knee, but decided against it. 

"Jeanie--"  I started. 

She raised a hand.  "I think I know what you're going to say." 

"No, you don't."  I said.  "I'm sorry.  About everything."

Her face was hard to make out in the darkness, but I thought it relaxed a hint. 

"But, do you think--"  I leaned closer.  "Do you think we could move on, with a blank slate?  Like, like none of anything happened?"

"What kind of blank slate?"

"So, maybe I could make a new first impression."

She smiled bitterly.  "Make a first impression on someone else, Abel.  Travel-- you deserve a chance to see the world.  At least, I think you do."  Her face grew distant.  Almost disappointed. 

"But--"  I stared at her desperately, just making out the slim outline of her nose, the line of her brows drawn slightly together, the long lashes framing her shivering grey eyes. 

She tilted her head, empathy in her eyes. 

"I love you."  I admitted.

She looked away, ashamed.  Ashamed of me?  Herself?  The world?

I couldn't tell.

"I liked you once."  She told me.  "But I'm realizing, I'm only a hopeless romantic, and not someone who would match well with you." 

I looked at the floorboards, dimly glinting with their cleanness.  

"Maybe I will."  I said.  "Travel, I mean.  I've always wanted to do that."

"You'll always have the door."  She smiled wryly.  As if the door were a consolation prize. 

"Yeah."  Who needed an immortal genie girlfriend, anyways?  I looked at my feet, my bloodstained clothes.  Moved my leg away from the glancing touch of her knee.  My head was bowed, and I could almost see myself in her eyes.  A young man, scarcely more than a child, covered in blood, heedless of it having rubbed off on the couch.