The man who was not Eugene was no longer a man. Like Jane, he'd succumbed to the monstrous love of vampirism. It'd tingle for a bit, testing the waters, before submerging himt to a side of himself that hadn't been known before. Her wrists tingled as she watched him sit up. They'd stayed there for hours. Her waiting for him to rise--him turning, shifting, and becoming new. Newness was something she'd grown used to. The way it felt not being human was addicting in a way unknown to most. What am I now? It weighed on her. An inability to know was something she hadn't encountered before. Before, Jane Bruno had been someone decided.
Now, Jane Bruno was uncertain. She was lost and hung up on a boy who had died long ago. Now she sat staring at a vampire who wasn't close to what she wanted. Time has a way of changing what you want into something that you don't even remember. Strips of fuzz wound through her brain and tickled her veins.
"What are you?" he asked, his voice groggy with the last remains of sleep. She looked at him for a few minutes and he rephrased his question. "What am I?"
"Vampire, if you will," she said. "Undead if you won't. I'm uncertain now."
"Why would you do this to me?"
A valiant question, perhaps. But one that Jane could not answer. She didn't know herself. I miss who I used to be. The girl who cracked jokes like wildfire but clung to the law sprouted memories in her head. They walked around, speaking to others, calling into question a life lived long ago. "Jane, I'll be cop and you be criminal" a young Monica would shout. They'd giggle and Jane would play the one she wouldn't choose to be in the end. Monica too would change. Time changed all.
When Jane hit her twenties, she thought she had quit changing. That nothing could make her into something different. Now, she knew better. Time broke people. Maybe in a year, maybe in a decade, or maybe in just a few days. One event sent her skyrocketing down a path she'd never known before. It twisted inside her, changing, rearranging, until all she had left was a small little fragment of a life yet lived. Is this me now? Just someone who thinks? The girl who picks and chooses her words, dramatic, dead inside? God, I feel like a little goth teen.
Jane didn't want to be like this, but she didn't know what else to do. The guy had gone from scared to just sitting there, staring at himself in the dirty window. It was half-broken, as everything in the neighborhood was. "I'm sorry," she told him.
"No you're not."
"You're right."
He sat up a bit, rubbing his had over the wound. It glistened in the low light of early dawn, red contrasting heavily with the pallor of his skin. "I didn't realize vampires weren't all pasty white and blood red lips," he muttered. Jane laughed. That description wasn't her--not with her pink lips, the slight hue to her cheeks, or her tanned skin that couldn't be described as pasty white unless she was coated in paint. He too retained most of his original looks--it just so happened that he had the pale, dark haired, mysterious guy look going on before that he appeared the same. Twihard fans will squeal when they see this hunk, she thought.
"You done ogling me?"
"If you took your shirt off I could do it better."
He smirked and Jane smiled back. It felt fun to have someone to talk to again. I haven't spoken to people in...god, not since I left the clan. Sure, she had a job, and that required talking to people and asking them how much change they'd like and if that'd be all, but Jane knew that things like that didn't count. That wasn't talking. That was social gratitude. It was easy to blend into the background so well that no one spoke to her. Now, someone was talking to her. She'd hurt them and they were smirking, laughing. It felt weird. How can someone be okay with all this?
