Drawing Blood

Chapter Two

"Hey, you..." Annie's soft voice punctured my thoughts as she entered the room. A faint smile rested on that beautiful face of hers. I watched her as she sat down on the end of my bed. She hesitated, then touched my leg in what I assumed was a gesture of affection. "How are you feeling, this morning?"

I didn't answer her straight away. Instead, I let my eyes rake over her appearance. She was looking effortlessly classy, as always; wearing a black roll neck sweater, paired with blue jeans. Over her shoulder was a white bag, the name of the designer hidden by her arm. Her blonde hair had grown since I had last saw her. It was now touching her collar bone. I suddenly became all too aware that of how I must have looked to her. "Rough," I admitted. 

She gave my leg a sympathetic squeeze. "We've all been worried about you," she said. "You haven't spoke to anybody since you left hospital."

"I think that was meant to be the plan."

Catching the hostility in my voice, she frowned. "You even took off straight after Beth's funeral," she said. "We turned around and you were gone." When I didn't respond, she scanned the room. A look of nostalgia fell upon her face as her gaze landed on the dressing table. "Were we ever that small?" she asked, referring to the photos of us as children.

I nodded.

"Do you know, I can't remember the last time I saw this room," she said.

"We were fifteen."

If my flat response bothered her, she didn't say anything. "I don't blame you for wanting to stay in bed," she went on speaking. "That's all I feel like doing sometimes."

"Really?" 

It was awkward, and I knew I was being the problem. I didn't want to say anything to her, I recall. I began toying with the edge of the bedcover, picking away at a stray thread, watching it unravel before my eyes the way my life had been unravelled. "I'm sure I'll grow bored with it," I muttered.

"Maybe you can get a job? I hear it's good for depression."

"I'm not depressed, Annie, I'm angry."

It was the truth. And it wasn't just Adam I was angry with. I was angry at her, too. She had known about Dan, known he had been a werewolf, and she had known about me being in danger. However, she had chosen to keep that little piece of information a secret from me. Now our friendship was at stake. Unless she could produce a good reason as to why she neglected to tell me, then I didn't see a way back for us. As I saw her look away, her eyes moving to the window, along with the view outside, she changed the subject. "I bet you don't get weather like this in Brighton," she muttered, "We seem to always have it cold here."

She moved her hand off my leg and placed it in her lap, continuing to talk about useless stuff I had no interest in. I let her, my mind dissociating from her voice. I remained still as a statue, too afraid to move in case I touched her. I could see she had recovered well from Dan's attack. The cast on her wrist had been removed, and her face was now completely free from trauma. In fact, she seemed pretty healed to me. "What time are you leaving?" I cut in, my resentment beginning to stir from somewhere deep inside me. As much as I wanted, I knew I wouldn't be able to push it down. I was still in a lot of pain, and it wasn't fair. I didn't want her here.

Detecting something off, she paused briefly, then said, "We need to be at the airport at five. Mitch and I are boarding the plane around eight tonight."

"Where are you going?"

"Mitch has business in Morocco, so we're there for two weeks."

"Will said you were going away for a month."