friendship

Friendship

Unlike yesterday, history class few by. I so wasn’t ready to face Anne when the class was excused. This could only get more awkward I thought as I walked to the common area. Anne was looking for me with a look of concern on her face. It was clear that she was worried about me, and I had no clue on what I was going to say.

"Hey." Anne said.

"Hey, you ready to do some math?" I asked.

"Not really."

I smiled standing there feeling dumb. This was so stupid, it was a dream. Nothing more than an out of control subconscious being bored when I was sleeping. But I just couldn’t shake what I felt.

"Come on." I tried to say with a little cheer.

"Okay." Anne said awkwardly.

We walked in silence down the stairs and outside. Once we were out of earshot of other people, Anne tried to break the ice a little.

"Pip, can I ask you something?"

"Sure." I said, my voice sounded so off.

"Did I do something wrong?"

"Oh no Anne, it’s me, this is

all me. Trust me on that."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Oh yeah."

"Is your dream bothering you still?"

"Yeah."

"Would you like to talk about it? It may help." she asked.

"Well, it’s like this. You were in it. And

please don’t think I’m weird, I don’t normally remember my dreams so that’s why this one is sticking with me."

"It’s okay, I don’t mind if you dream about me."

I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that, but okay I thought to myself.

"Was I naked? I love naked dreams. It’s like you know you’re naked, and at first you don’t really care. Then as the dream goes on you start thinking about the fact

that you’re naked and you should care. Do you know what I mean?"

"No." I said quickly.

"No, you don’t have naked dreams, or no I wasn’t naked?’

"No to both."

"Oh okay. So what was it about?"

I sighed knowing I had already said too much, "I was chasing you in a dark forest."

"Did you catch me?" she asked with a sly grin.

"I’m so not talking about this."

"You did, didn’t you. Shame on you, we just met." Anne said playfully and laughed.

"Anne, do you mind?"

"Sorry, sorry. I was just wondering what that dirty little mind of yours was doing to you last night that got you so flustered." she said and bumped me with her shoulder as we walked.

"Okay for the record, I don’t have a dirty mind."

"Oh okay sure."

"You’re horrible."

"I know." and joked.

"And a b***h."

Anne laughed, "Look, you can’t control your dreams. So what does it matter? I don’t want you feeling uncomfortable around me because of something you can’t help."

"Thank you." I said trying to close the subject.

"You’re welcome. Did we have sex?" Anne asked and laughed.

"Oh my God, will you shut up?"

Anne laughed again, "Well, was I any good?"

"I’m not talking to you anymore." I said flatly.

Anne really laughed, "Okay I won’t say anything else, promise."

We signed into the tutor center at sat next to each other. As I did my homework, now and then I could hear Anne snicker to herself.

"Your math sounds very amusing." I said.

"It is." she quickly replied, "Stupid red screen of death." Anne said grumbling at her wrong answer.

I laughed, "Anne, you need to learn how to count chickens." I said wheeling over to her.

"What in the world does that mean? Is that some nerdy math slang?" she asked getting irritated.

I chuckled, "No it’s not math slang you goober. It means just that, counting chickens. Math is like this, imagine you were at work and your boss told you, you had to go out and count like a hundred plus chickens in the yard. That he needed an exact count on how many there were."

"Okay, I’m lost now."

"Well hold on and I’ll explain it. So here you are standing by the pen, and you’re like, one, two, three, I think I counted that one. Well they’re all moving and I can’t count them that way.

"So you grab a paint ball gun and you decide to shoot the chickens with different colors. Ten in each color. But after you switch colors, you notice that you’ve shot the same one twice."

"Hey can we go paintballing some time?"

"Anne, focus. So since shooting them didn’t work, you grab trash bags. And you’re going to stuff five chickens in each bag. So you start chasing them around but that’s just making you too tired."

"Can I let you chase them?"

"Anne."

"What? I think it would be funny watching you chase chickens. Have you ever seen basketball players trying to grab a basketball rolling on the floor?"

"Anne, what does that have to do with chickens?"

"I don’t know. Probably the same as catching chickens do with math."

"Well if you let me finish, you might see."

"Okay, not another word." she said with a smile.

"Okay, so chasing the chickens didn’t work so…"

"So did you think I looked good naked?" Anne asked cutting me off.

I breathed heavily through my nose and looked at her.

"Sorry," she laughed, "Not another word."

"Okay, you have to count these chickens. Everything you tried didn’t work. And in that, that’s the math problem. The solution is easy once you understand the problem."

"And the problem is?"

"You have to count the chicken. They’re not going to stand still for a few moments for you, so what do you have to do so you can count them easily?"

"I have no idea."

I sighed, "Are you being difficult on purpose?"

"Yes I am." Anne said smiling.

"Okay, close your eyes." Anne did and I continued, "Picture in your mind this. The chicken pen, the fence around it. And the barn that the pen is attached too. What do you do?"

"I don’t know." Anne said not opening her eyes.

I popped her lightly on the back of the head with my math folder, "Climb up on the barn and take a stupid picture of them!" Anne and I laughed.

"That’s stupid Pip, but I get your point."

"Ladies, you’re going to have to keep it down." the tutor said to us.

"Sorry." Anne said trying not to laugh.

We looked at each other for a moment, "I’m glad you’re feeling better." Anne said.

I looked into her eyes for a moment, "Thank you."

"You’re welcome." Anne didn’t break my gaze, "You know you have very pretty eyes?" I didn’t know what to say to that so I wheeled back to my computer to sign out.

"You don’t like compliments do you?" she asked.

"Not really." I said uncomfortably, "I don’t ever know what to say."

"Try thank you." she said gently.

"Thank you."

"You’re welcome." Anne said turning back to her computer.

Oh brother.

What was going on here? I had no compass to gage it with. I had never had

friends, was what was going on between me and Anne normal? And if it was normal, normal for what? It felt more like we were feeling our way as soon to be lovers then friends. I was at a complete loss.

"Pip I’ve got to go to class."

"Okay." I said unsure of myself.

"Do you want to hang tomorrow or something?"

"Sure, the tutor center is open tomorrow. We could come here or something."

Anne smiled, "Texted me."

"Okay." Anne gave me one last look and headed out the door.

I sat there for a minute before I headed off to English. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening so I took off to class.

I really couldn’t pay attention, so I was grateful when class was over and I headed home. When I got home I pulled a hunk of beef out of the freezer and left it in the sink to thaw. If I was planning on eating it, I was going to have to soak it in hot water. But not now I thought.

I went up stairs to change into a pair of shorts; I wasn’t in the mood for a swim which was strange. Instead, I went to my piano and sat looking at the keys. After sitting there for a few minutes I knew I wasn’t in the mood to play, I decided on watching the news on TV. After I saw a good bit of headlines I went into the kitchen and fill the sink up with hot water. I wasn’t really hungry, but I could stand to eat. As I was walking back to the TV my phone buzzed. It was a text message from Anne,

’what r u doing?’

I looked at the message wondering if there was a hidden meaning to it,

’nothing…what are you doing’

I sat back and waited for her to respond. I chuckled a bit because I never text messaged before. After a minute, she responded.

’sitting here’

What in the world? Is this what people did when they text messaged?

’oh…is that a good thing?’

I wrote back.

’I guess…want 2 c something’

What in the world could she want to show me?

’I dont no, do i?’

After a few moments I got a picture mail from her, I was almost scared to look. I sighed and opened the picture. It was a close up of Anne’s face with her tongue sticking out.

‘bored r we?’

I asked her.

‘yes’

‘sorry’

‘well…it is your fault’

‘how?’

‘well, had fun today…now nothing to do.’

‘do your math’

I smiled as I sent that.

‘hahaha…u want to do something fun 2morrw?

‘what’

‘surprise…u helping with math right?’

‘if you want’

‘meet me @ 10’

‘k’

‘see u @ 10’

I wondered to myself what in the world Anne would think would be fun. I tried not to think about it as I went to get my food. I ate I went for a quick swim; afterwards I showered and dried my hair and laid down to try to go to sleep. I had a bad case of race-brain; it made me wish I could take those crazy sleeping pills I heard people talking about.

I tried to calm my nerves by taking deep slow breaths. I tried to push the day’s events out of my head. I pictured myself flying thousands of feet above the earth with no cares. I tried to imagine the freedom…my phone buzzed.

"Dang it." I said reaching for my phone.

‘sweet dreams…hehehehehe’

I looked at my phone and thought seriously about not responding. I couldn’t really think of anything clever to respond with so I just played it off.

‘thanks…u 2.’

I turned my phone off to make sure I didn’t get any other surprises during the night. As I tried to get to sleep, the images from my dream stuck in my mind.

It was almost like the vampire in me was attracted to Anne. Why did I have to think about this? I had never been attracted to anyone in my life, why now did the vampire pick a girl? My vampire mind seemed in laugh at me in my head. I didn’t know why it thought it was funny.

"Blah. Why her?" I asked the vampire in me.

But I didn’t get an answer, nor did I expect too. The vampire never answered me, like always, it was silent. Just once I wish it would, so I could understand the other side of my personality. The vampire laughed again.

"Why is this funny?" I asked myself as my mind drifted off into sleep.

‘I was dreaming, I knew I was. I was walking in darkness; I thought I was in a tunnel. In the distance I saw a light shining down. As I came up to the light I came out of the tunnel and looked up at it. I was standing under a single streetlight. I looked back behind me and there was no tunnel, there was nothing anywhere, I couldn’t even see the bottom of the streetlight.

Great.

Nothing better then being stuck in a dream with nothing to do or look at, just me standing under a light. I closed my eyes and tried to will myself awake. I opened my eyes again and nothing had changed, but I could hear something far off.

As I listened closely, it sounded like footsteps. As they got closer, I could tell they were and they were heading towards me. I waited irritably, obviously this person could move freely in my dream. But they could be a little more considerate and hurrying up, it wasn’t like I could go anywhere.

After a moment I thought I could see the outline of a person. It didn’t take long for me to see that it was a vampire, and a powerful one at that. Great, just what I needed. To have to fight a powerful vampire in a dream that I couldn’t get out of.

As I saw her, I knew who she was immediately. It was the vampire in me. She

was tall and beautiful; she walked with a grace that made me cringe. When I thought of that, the vampire smirked. It was like she could read my mind.

"I can." she said.

"How?" I asked.

"Pip, you really don’t see it do you?"

"I don’t understand." I explained.

"That’s because you haven’t truly come to terms."

"What terms?"

"Pip, don’t you see the silliness of this dream?"

"No I don’t, please explain it."

"Pip, why do you think I have the answers?"

"Who else is there for me to ask?" I was starting to get upset.

She walked up to me and brushed my cheek with the back of her hand when she saw my sadness.

"My sweet girl." she said comforting me, "You think I have the answers, and you’re right I do. But don’t you see? If I have them so do you."

"How? I don’t read minds."

"Neither do I. Don’t you understand Pip, I don’t have to read your mind. Nor do you have to read mine. Do you know why?"

"Why?"

She smiled at my frustrations, "For the last four-hundred years Pip, you’ve looked at me as a separate person than you. But don’t you understand, there is no Penelope the human. She doesn’t exist."

"Then who am I?"

"You’re me, and I’m you. All that is left is Penelope the vampire. There’s no human left in you, she died many, many years ago."

"Then what about the dream with Anne?" I asked.

"What about it?"

"Why did I go after Anne?"

"Why do you think you did?"

"How come you keep answering my questions with questions? It’s rude you know."

"I could say why do you think I do that, but I won’t."

"Thank you."

"Pip, the reason I answer questions with a question is because you’re asking yourself these questions. I’m you remember? So when you ask yourself something, what do you think is going to happen?"

"You’re not making any sense." I said to my vampire self.

"There is no you and me, there’s just us. If you would remember that, this wouldn’t be so hard. It wasn’t me that went after Anne in your dream; you can’t look at it like that. It was us that went after Anne. Do you understand?"

"I think, what do I want then?"

"There is no I pip."

"Okay, what do we want?"

"Ask yourself that."

"I just did."

"Ask it when you’re wake up. It’s getting close to dawn, so wake up and figure it out for our sakes. It would make things so much easier on us."

I opened my eyes. There was a grey light coming in through the window. The grey made the dawn look diseased, like it was dying before it ever had a chance to live.

I dosed on the edge of sleep for a few hours, half thinking about the dream I just had and thinking about Anne. My dream was right; I never really reconciled the idea of my human self dying. There really wasn’t anything left in me that was human.

So what did that mean exactly? Well, if my second dream was right, that meant my first dream was not a separate part of me wanting Anne, but was all of me wanting her. So I guess I needed to figure out what that meant.

Could I love the person Anne was in an intimate way? Well, what did that mean? Did I want to spend time with only her? I would have to say yes. Would I like it if she had a boyfriend? I had to think about that for a moment. No, I didn’t think I would. That would mean she would have to share herself with someone other than me. That idea, I didn’t care for.

So where did that leave me? Could I find myself falling in love with her? I didn’t

know, I had never been in love before. So I didn’t really have a reference point to go from. But I did know, the more I thought about her the more I wanted to be around her. I definitely felt something different; but what did that leave me with?

So maybe I should look at the first dream again. I was hunting an unknown person, that person turned out to be a girl. That girl ended up being Anne. When I saw her, I felt a hunger I had never felt before. But the hunger didn’t want to feed; the physical need was more along the lines of sexual. Was I sexually attracted to Anne? I paused on that thought for a while.

I needed to decide if that was a possibility. An attraction to women wasn’t something I had ever considered. So did the idea of becoming physical with a girl repulse me? I didn’t know. I needed to refine the idea a moment; did becoming physical with Anne repulse me?

So I thought about Anne for a moment. I thought of her face, her hair, her laugh. I thought about her mischievous personality. I thought of her hands touching me, my hands touching her. I thought about us exploring each other bodies, I thought about them naked together.

During this exploration of my feeling for her I found my answer. I found myself becoming aroused. I guess that was my answer, I laughed at the joy of the revelation. I reached down under the covers to explore my warmth and lost myself in the ecstasy of Anne.

Later, as I drove to school, I couldn’t wait to see her. What would it be like hanging out with her after the new discovery of my feelings? I wonder if she would be able to tell the difference in me. I started to feel nervous, what would I do if she did her normal flirting? How did I move towards her without freaking her out?

As I pulled into the empty parking lot my heart sped up. I had beaten Anne here, I looked at my watch and I was five minutes early. I couldn’t wait to see her under this new light. Then a thought hit me up short, what if she didn’t feel the same about me? I had no answer to that.

All this time I just assumed she did, but I never took her feelings into consideration. What if all of this was, was just friendship. How in the world did someone find that out? I suddenly thought I’d rather not know. My insides

quickly freaked at the though, there was no way she couldn’t feel the same. How could someone go around acting like she did without leaving a huge amount of wrecked people? But maybe she did, I sure didn’t pay attention to how people acted around her.

Oh man, I was going to have a panic attack if I wasn’t careful. Anne would be here soon and if I didn’t act right she would pick up on it. The last thing I needed is for her to ask about my dreams again. There was no way I would be able to hide what came from last night’s dream.

Anne pulled into the parking lot a few minutes after ten. My heart about stopped when she pulled up next to me. She looked over at me and smiled. I couldn’t help smiling back at the beauty of her smile. She waved me over to her, but didn’t shut the car off.

I looked at her a little confused, but I got out of my truck and walked over to her door.

She rolled it down quickly, "Hurry up, get in."

"What? Why, where we going?" I asked.

"Not here. I’m not up for math."

"Okay." I said a little unsure, I went back over to my truck and tossed my backpack in and locked it up.

I walked back over to Anne’s car and got in, "What’s the deal?" I asked.

"We’re leaving the island."

"We are?"

"We are." Anne said and ripped out of the parking lot.

Once we got on Highway Twenty I was thoroughly confused to what we were doing. Not that I really cared, I got to spend the time with her.

"What?" Anne asked when she caught me looking at her.

"Oh sorry, I was thinking on how pretty you are."

Anne smiled, "You don’t have to say you’re sorry. Thank you, I like to hear it. What about me do you think is pretty?"

Anne obviously liked the direction the conversation had taken. But it was nice; she didn’t seem arrogant about it. It seemed that she was generally interested in what I thought about her.

"I don’t know, you have a very nice looking face. And I think your hair is beautiful. Plus, you seem to shine. I know that seems really cheesy, but you just seem happy all the time. It’s kind of nice to be around."

"Well thank you, I

am happy. You’re good company." I could feel myself starting to flush at her compliment.

"You know, it’s okay to say thank you, which would be appropriate."

I laughed, "Thank you." I could feel myself starting to get shy, "Well I do think you’re fun to be around. I’ve never really had friends."

"Really? I wouldn’t have thought that. You seem like you could be friends with anyone."

"My life is complicated." I said with a touch of sadness.

"Isn’t everyone’s? But now we’ve found each other, so it’s all downhill from here."

"I really doubt that, it would be nice to believe. But anyways. What are we doing?"

"You’ll just have to wait and see. Damn I didn’t think about something, you have some money to blow right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Like forty bucks?" she asked with reluctance.

I chuckled, "I think I can manage that. Why?"

Anne sighed with irritation, "Now I feel bad."

"Why? Cause you’re wondering if I have money?"

"No, because I was thoughtless about what we were doing. And I didn’t take into consideration the cost."

"Don’t worry about it, really. Money is one thing I don’t really worry about. Either I have enough or I don’t what does it matter?"

"I guess that’s one way of looking at it."

"Someday maybe I’ll tell you about my life, and then you’ll understand. But in all seriousness, don’t worry about it. Deal?"

"Deal."

"So now that we’re not worrying about money, do you want to tell me what we’re doing?" I asked as we turned off the highway and headed down some back

road.

"You’ll see in a minute, we’re almost there."

I frowned; I guess I was just going to have to wait. After a few minutes we pulled into a driveway. We drove up the gravel drive and pulled up to what looked like an old general store.

"What is this place?" I asked.

"Come on, I’ll show you." Anne and I got out and started into the building when several loud gunshots scared me.

"What in the world?" I asked looking around more closely.

"It’s a gun range."

"We’re hanging out at a gun range?" I asked raising an eyebrow.

"Have you ever shot before?"

"No. Anne, we don’t have any guns. How are we going to shoot?"

"That’s easy, we can rent them here."

"We’re renting guns?"

"Do you not want to?" Anne asked looking disappointed.

"It’s not that, I’ve just never done it before."

"It’s fun, it’s a real rush." she said getting excited.

"Okay," I said unsure, "I’m going to trust you. But if I don’t like it, don’t be mad. Because regardless, I’ll have fun watching you shoot."

"You’re so awesome." Anne said giving me a huge.

I hugged her back and my heart about leapt out of my chest. I had to remember that this was the whole point of going to school, learning about the outside world. And guns were definitely a part of the American culture. Plus it was something with Anne.

She led the way into the range-gun store. She held onto my arm trying to give me the moral support that she thought that I needed. I was completely consumed by her touch. After accepting how I felt about Anne, it was like everything about her was new to me.

Her touch was something to enjoy, not to cringe away from. When I was human, I was always leery of men. During the time that I grew into a woman, there were plenty of things for a young lady to be afraid of.

But this touch was something new, something wonderful. I never wanted it to end; all I wanted was for the feeling to go on forever. My only fear now was Anne wishing to remove herself from my presence. If I lost her now, it would be nothing but the wilderness. Alone, and living completely in vampire nature.

My nature.

"You okay?" she asked as we walked up to the counter.

I nodded to her with a smile, how could I explain that I would always be okay with her around.

"What can I do for you two young ladies?" the old man asked from behind the counter.

"We would like to shoot."

"Okay, pistol or rifle?"

"Pistol." Anne answered, "We’re going to need to rent one."

"Okay, have you ever rented from us before?" he asked.

"Yes. The nine millimeter."

"Which one is that?" I asked.

"This one." she said pointing it out to me.

"That’s right," the man said, "I remember you. You were alone last time."

"You remembered. I’m flattered." Anne flirted.

"How could I forget." the old man said.

"Both of you’ll be shooting?" he asked.

"Yes." I said not wanting to be left out of the conversation.

"Okay, if you would fill this out young lady. And then sign here." he said pointing to his range book, "Will you be needing eye and ear protection?"

"Yes to both for both of us." Anne said looking at the guns.

"Ammo?"

"Pip how much do you think we should get?"

"How much is in a box?" I asked.

"There’s fifty to a box." the man said.

"Give us five boxes." I said.

"Pip," Anne said grabbing my arm, "I can’t let you spend that much money."

"How much is a box?" I asked.

"For the cheap stuff, around eighteen dollars."

"That’s fine. We’ll take five boxes."

"Pip, can I talk to you for a second please?" Anne asked.

"Sure." I said stepping away from the counter.

"I can’t let you spend that kind of money. It’s going to cost ten bucks just to use the range for each of us, plus the gun rental." Anne explained.

"Okay, do you remember what I said in the car? Don’t worry about it. Trust me."

"I do trust you, I’m just not comfortable you spending so much money."

"You want to shoot?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Do you want to spend more than twenty minutes here?"

"Yes."

"Then don’t worry about it. If I enjoy this, do you think I’m only going to want to shoot one box?"

"No."

"That gun looked like it would hold more than few bullets. How long do you think two boxes will last?"

"Not long."

"Okay then come on and don’t worry about it,

please."

"Okay." Anne said reluctantly.

"Look, if it will make you feel any better, I’ll let you buy coffee on the way home."

"Deal." and said.

"Hey, if you don’t think that’s a fair enough exchange, you can just give me a massage later." as soon as the words came out of my mouth I wished I hadn’t said it, I was worried I was being to forward.

"Deal." Anne said quickly and put my mind at ease.

I didn’t think my nerves could take all of this. Here soon something was going to have to happen to let me know what Anne felt. But I knew I was way too big of a chicken to ask.

We came back to the counter, "Five boxes of bullets, two for the range, and one

gun rental please." I said.

"Okay." the old man rang us up on an old push buttons register. Looking at the antique made me smile; I could remember a time when all cash register were like this one.

"One-sixty-three, twenty-eight." the old man said.

I pulled out my debt card and handed it to him. He took it and swiped it and brought me the receipt. I signed it and handed it back to him. He placed the ammo and some targets in a bag and set them on the counter in front of us. He handed Anne and I ear plugs and safety glasses. We both put them on the top of our heads; Anne put the earplugs in the bag. The old man pulled the pistol out that we rented, pulled the slide back and handed it to Anne.

"Thank you." Anne said and we went out front and walked around the side of the building.