Fang Junkie

9. I spy a little lie

9                     I spy a little lie

Sometime in the early morning, Abel crawled into my bed. When I did a sleepy attempt at kicking him out, he argued that Nora slept on the couch. Besides, he was hungry. I barely hesitated. When the sun lit up my room through the white curtains again, Abel was no longer beside me. I hadn't expected him to be and frankly, I didn't want him there.

Getting up, I switched out of my sleeping attire and into some sweatpants and an easy shirt. I swallowed my pain killers and the other prescription pills I had gotten. Before I managed to open my bedroom door, I heard Abel and Nora arguing. I stopped and listened suspiciously. It certainly didn't sound as if they were disagreeing over breakfast.

"... her?"

"Tell her what?" Abel rumbled.

"You know what. Where've you been tonight, Abel?" Nora inquired bravely. Although after I saw her interacting with him the other day, I wouldn't call her brave but self-assured and cunning.

"I believe we've established that we don't get involved in each other's business." He answered her coolly. There he went with the not sharing again.

"That's not the case when we have common business. Does Harley even know who you are?"

"She knows what's important."

Nora scoffed. "Hardly. I can see she's going to end up hurt, in fact, I dream about it every night. Don't pretend you can't see she cares." Now I was offended. To describe my relationship with either of them as caring already went a little overboard.

"I'll tell her eventually." Abel gave in.

"Will you? And what will you tell her? Who you are, what you did or what you're still doing? None of the above or all of the above?"

"Why? Are you going to tell her if I don't?"

"It's not up to me, but it's certainly not fair to her. Everyone else can see."

"Only people like us."

"Only things like us." Nora corrected him. "But there's a lot of us out there."

They were quiet. I considered coming out, but then Abel sighed loudly. "I don't want to hurt her." He said meekly. "But there is nothing I can do to prevent that now. There is too much at stake here."

"Then you have to choose." Nora was unrelenting.

"It's an easy choice." Abel said. "Harley or everybody else." Everybody else.

"That's not easy." Nora said angrily. "But I know what I would choose." And that was that. I knew what Abel would choose. I knew what I would choose.

I didn't wait to give them the impression that I just woke up. Make them sweat a little. I left my bedroom door and simply went to the kitchen. The silence was charged but I pretended not to notice.

"'morning." I said. Nora echoed my greeting.

"How are you feeling?" Abel asked, once again expression worry about my physical condition.

"Fine." I said, just to pester him. "How about you?" He narrowed his eyes at me. "Nora?" I asked.

"Fine." She echoed again. I mustered a semi-smile.

"Great." I gave trinket fresh food and water, upon which she left the couch to inspect her buffet.

"How long are you going to stay here still?" I asked no one in particular. It seemed like they both held their breath until I turned around to face them. I looked at both of them and then turned back around to make some coffee. I couldn't think of something else to stomach this morning. Certainly not after the cryptic conversation I had just witnessed. It seemed my roommates had a lot of secrets for me, but not for each other.