Wings of Butterflies

4. I'm Not the Sort of Person Who Falls in and Quickly out of Love

I heard the bell ring and automatically glanced at the alarm clock in what we called the bedroom. It was exactly 7:56. Well, at least he was punctual. Standing completely still on the wooden floor, I thought about the night with a feeling of discomfort. Me and Ray had talked about this event every second of our time alone but still I didn’t know what to expect. He was human. An actual human. I hadn’t socialized with humans for nearly 160 years. Even for me, that was a long time. Ray had the advantage, because he was interested in mortals and their way of living. I was no way near that. When Ray paid attention to all the new human developments, everything from the internet to language, I tuned out all of that information. It was all so irrelevant to me. Until now that is.

     During the last few days, Ray had tried to educate me as much as he could. We both knew that to gain the human’s trust, I needed to appear like any other college student. And even though I was a college student, I was anything but the ordinary California girl on her way into adulthood. I had already been an adult, I had helped my family through hard times and I had been in love. With these memories, I tried to recall the feeling of being human. The horrible feeling that someone you love can disappear without a warning and that every moment can be your last. Thinking of these things made me not feel human, it only made me think of my sister, which made me want to call the whole thing off for the 50th time. But yesterday, Ray had talked me into not calling the human and cancel.

     “Think about this opportunity! Think about what you’re giving up. I know that you don’t care for humans and that you really don’t want to attend college. But see Marc as a compensation for all the things you have to give up by being with me here.”

     At that moment, I was filled with mixed emotions. I felt so blessed and so guilty for the same reason. I did not deserve Ray with all his attention and concern. It was all too much. But I agreed not to cancel and that was enough to satisfy him. 

     “Gabby.”

     Ray’s voice, even though it was not loud at all, had startled me and I was quickly back in current time.

     “Your date is waiting for you. I did not answer the door as you told me to.”

     I nodded and took a finally look at myself in the mirror. My hair was hanging freely and very wavy along my shoulders, since I had washed it clean only one hour earlier, and I had even put some make-up on. Or actually, Ray had done my make-up since he knew more about it than I would ever do. Along with that, I wore the same dress as I had worn during the freshmen party. I first thought about buying something new, but I had been too occupied with human studies to have any spare time.

     The only time that I did something besides studying human behaviour was last night when Ray and I went hunting. Since I had to win the mortal over before I could ask for his blood, I needed to be completely full as I faced him alone for the first time. To not wake suspicion, we had run almost five miles and found a couple wandering around lost in the desert. As the pure hearted being Ray was, he had given the strong young male to me, since it was I who had to go through the ultimate test the next coming day. Being around a mortal an entire night. 

     “I think that he's about to leave if you don’t open the door anytime soon.”

     Without a word, I grabbed my little black purse, which Ray had bought me several years earlier but it had never been used, and rushed down the stairs and froze still at the front door. With a deep breath I slowly opened the door and there he was, standing tall and strong. My personal blood bag to be.

     “Hi”, he said with a wide smile. “I was afraid you bailed on me.”

     Weakly I smiled back.