Wings of Butterflies

7. You Want To Feel How It Feels

“I was hoping that you would come.”

     Gabrielle smiled as she opened the door and I felt my stomach flip. Suddenly I was extremely nervous and didn’t know what to say to her.

     “Have you eh..eaten today?” I rambled out before I realised how rude I was acting.

     Her smile faded but her eyes radiated understanding.

     “You do not have to be frightened. Ray left plenty of blood bags when he left. Don’t you want to come in?”

     I took a step inside the condo and looked around. Since I had never been here before, I was curious to find out how she lived.

     “Ray brought most of his things with him so there is almost nothing left now” she said in an excusing voice. 

     All I could see was a black sofa and a matching chair plus a small table. Three paintings were hanging on the walls, all looking old but very beautiful.

     “I like it. Everyone spend too much time on decorating anyway. Who cares really?”

     We were both avoiding talking about the real reason I was there and continued to ramble on about trivial thing. After a few minutes an uncomfortable silence filled the room. I knew that I no longer could keep my motive for coming by a secret.

     “I miss you.”

     She smiled and let out a sigh of relief.

     “I have missed you too. So much.”

     She started to walk towards me but I put up a hand to stop her.

     “You have to promise me two things before I can even consider being with you again.”

     My heart was already hers, which it had been for a very long time, but if I was ever going to trust her again, I knew that she needed to make these guarantees.

     “What are they?”

     “I cannot be with you if you continue to kill people. I can’t live with that on my conscious. If you have killed someone when I haven‘t been around I can forgive that.”

     I saw the smile return to Gabrielle’s lips.

     “I understand. And just so you know, I have not killed anyone for twenty-three days.”

     My face was still frozen on the outside but on the inside I was smiling. I had thought for sure that Gabrielle would have killed even more people than before now when she wasn’t tied to Ray and his rules.

     “Not that I didn’t try. But every time I got close to eating, something came up in my head. A voice”

     “What voice?”

     “My voice telling me that this human could be somebody’s Marc.”

     Now I couldn’t keep my smile hidden anymore. Even though I was uncomfortable with the fact that she had attempted to murder an innocent person, I was at the same time so happy that she hadn’t.

     “You have a conscience now. That is not an easy thing to get rid of.”

     In her smile I could also detect torment.

“That is how much you have changed me. I feel for humans now. Yuck.”

     For the first time in a very long time, I laughed. Even her hatred for people didn’t scare me off. I would convert her slowly.