Hers

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

            I loved not being a succubus anymore.  I was able to uncover all my mirrors, pack the flashlights away, and Garfield didn’t absolutely hate me.  Not to mention, Sam seemed much more relaxed with my lack of danger, but I could tell he was thinking about what Ace said.

            He sat at the opposite end of the kitchen table, his eyes focused out the window.  I held a purring Garfield in my lap, stroking his fur and scratching under his chin.  I almost couldn’t believe he was the same cat.  The cat I once knew was evil and unrelenting, unless it came to food.  But the new Garfield was a big teddy bear.

            My mother hated cats.  She was allergic, but even if she wasn’t, I doubt she would have allowed one in the house.  She always said there was something evil about them, something manipulative.  I remember her telling me there was something about their eyes that made her uneasy.

            I stared into the orange of Garfield’s eyes, almost completely covered by his expanded pupil.  I couldn’t see what she did, all I saw was a cat begging to be scratched until my fingers fell off.  But looking back, I don’t understand a lot of the things my mother did, but the way she explained herself always made me feel like I did.

            “You’re thinking about your family,” Sam’s voice cut through the silence.

            “Did you read my thoughts?”  I asked teasingly.

            He smiled a little half grin.  “No, you get this look when you’re thinking about them.”  He tilted his head to the side and gazed at me like he was trying to find meaning in a portrait he had just discovered.  “I can’t tell if it’s a happy look or a hurt one.”

            “Probably a bit of both.”

            They had been gone now for what felt like an eternity, but I still missed them like they had just died.  Mom’s death had been a shock, so sudden, so unexpected.  I was only fifteen when she was in the car accident that killed her.  I remember starting high school without my mother.  I remember being depressed all the time and hating who I became once she was gone.  Dad died almost exactly three years later, but he had been sick since I was sixteen.  Death was something I was accustom to, something that had always been there.  Now I sat across the table from the man I loved, who just so happened to be the angel of death.

            Funny how life works out.

            “Do you ever think about your birth parents?”  He asked, watching me closely.

            “Not unless I have to,” I answered through skeptical eyes.  “Why?”  I asked.  “What do you know?”

            “I was just wondering,” he said, shaking his head.

            He’s a horrible liar.  My thoughts claimed.