Alsyn

She shuffled to the table, her slippers dragging. She sat down beside me and took my hand. I looked into her eyes. They looked troubled. She looked at me with deep sympathy. She saw; her eyes had the same haunted look in her eyes that I saw in myself. I couldn't stand that I'd inflicted that on her and the fact that there was nothing I could do about it. I could handle the night terrors on my own. I was used to it, but she shouldn't have to deal with it too. That was the problem with sharing a house with people like me, their dreams were my dreams and my dreams were theirs.

She went to make some coffee. She was a year older than I was at twenty and unlike me, she had an air of maturity and grace about her. This was a far cry from me, who frequently tripped over her own feet. She was like the older sister I never had, (which was bizarre as I had at least three-hundred years on her) and I was thankful I found her and Sarah. She finished making coffee and turned to us with her mug in hand.

"We need to get Anthony," she said. At the mention of his name I got the sudden image of my best friend walking away from me. His deep brown eyes looking right at me, filled with hurt. Both our feelings irrevocably hurt. I felt sick. I pushed my glass into the middle of the table; there was no chance I was going to let that happen.

"I don't think so," I said.

"Don't be like that; the two of you can get along for long enough to check that nothing is going on can't you?" Mary said as she passed a plate of cupcakes from the cabinet towards me. Sarah mumbled something and sniggered. Mary elbowed her in the ribs silencing her. I took a blue icing cupcake with sprinkles and took a bite, my appetite coming strong and fast. I really didn't want to get him involved. I was afraid of facing him again, after, well, after hurting him like that. We'd had a huge fight a while back; there were some angry hurtful words from me. Words to this day I regret. We'd been friends; more than friends, he was a brother almost.

 He found us in Italy, he said he had been looking for us. It was as if he knew what we were and seeked us out. We'd travelled together for years, two-hundred years or about that at least. When he was himself he was the funny charming big brother figure I'd longed for. We'd always end up going on wild nights out on our travels and end up doing stupid and reckless things. He was a brother to me and it just wasn't possible for me to see him as anything else. I take some responsibility for not making it clear where we stood, I'm just going to admit that I flirted with him just as much as he flirted with me. That was how Anthony was; it was part of him and part of our friendship. He took our flirting seriously and of course, it ended badly. Add to that the fact that Sarah had been in love with him since the day they'd met. She was besotted with him but he never looked her way, she got jealous and we'd end up fighting.

 The whole thing became a huge mess that I'd managed to become tangled in. This caused a rift for a time between Sarah and me as she couldn't stand seeing him "trail after me like a puppy" and me hurting him by rejecting him. We had a fight and I got mad and decided I was better off on my own. I was used to being alone having spent years thinking I was the only person with this "gift" Mary calls it. I was independent and fearless.

I spent some time in France; Paris mostly. I'd been working as a model for an artist at the time. I had an apartment in the centre of the city. It was above a café that was a favourite to artists. It had a view of the stars and you could watch the world go by. It was on that small balcony there that I thought of them. I remembered Sarah say something about Rome but I couldn't be sure of where they were in Rome.  I decided to try to contact them, and arranged to meet somewhere and talk, we met outside a café in Paris, and they told me they were miserable without me. At the end of that day, it was as if the whole thing had never happened. I was surprised that they were actually glad to have me back.

We were happy for a while until it all started up again six months later. This time it was only between Anthony and me. One minute we were laughing and joking, and the next it had started up again. We started arguing. He said I was being stupid and that we were supposed to be together; spinning the destiny card at me that he knew I didn't believe in (so he was fighting a loosing battle there). I said some choice words that I knew would hurt him and it escalated into a huge fight when I mentioned Sarah. He didn't want to hear it. He decided to leave this time and travel, I hadn't heard from him since.

 Sarah was angry with me for months after he left. It took three shopping trips for her to speak to me.

 It was too difficult to start everything all over again. I didn't want to hurt anybody. I had enough on my plate without my life becoming a badly written soap opera again.

"I can make sure the three of you don't get into another fight", Mary said snapping me out of my daydreaming.

"If only it were that simple", I said getting up to put my soda in the trash. I glanced at my watch and jumped. I was late for class and I still had to walk and catch the bus.

"Crap! Why didn't anybody tell me what time it was? I gotta go." I scrambled for the door, grabbing my coat from its hanger and scrambling and fumbling for my things as I ran. As I closed the door behind me, Sarah was right in front of me.

"Why don't I drop you off today?" She said swinging her keys in her hand. She was so fast, she was almost catlike. When she was nice, she was this amazing friend that would do anything for you. When she wanted to be spiteful and she did, often, she was your worst enemy. I'd seen both sides... more than enough. I guessed I was in her good books for now or she wanted something.

"That would be great," I said as we raced out the door and down the street to her car. The red convertible was parked in its usual spot, right beside her favourite shoe store. As she took off she almost missed three red lights, funnily enough she always made it before they changed. I forgot how scary it was in Sarah's car. To say she drove like a maniac would be an understatement. I was clinging onto the sides of the seat, digging my nails in. I shut my eyes for some part of the ride before I started to relax.  She was the first to speak.

"I want to apologize."

"Why? You didn't do anything, wait, what did you do?" I said. My mind already thinking about which of my clothes she'd ‘borrowed' and had trashed.

"No, nothing like that, I mean...for choosing him over you", she was deadly serious, something rare. I wasn't in the mood to talk about what happened before.

"You didn't choose anybody, I left, remember?"

"Didn't I?" She said. "I was so wrapped up with Anthony. I'm over it now and I think I should be okay with this, really." She smiled at me mildly as she pulled out from the curb.
"What happens between the two of you has nothing to do with me. Like he says; I just need to learn to butt out."

"Did Anthony say why he left?" I asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"He's said bits and pieces; we couldn't get the whole story out of him. I think he was holding something back. He was pretty messed up you know." She cocked her head to the side at me in an inquisitory way. I grimaced.

"Do you want to know?" I asked.

"Not really, I just wanted to make my apologies. I never did get to say I was sorry before you left"

"Don't worry about it," I said, "It was a long time ago". She turned to me a second while the traffic lights were still red.

"Not for us", she said. She opened the glove compartment and pulled out a pair of her favourite designer sunglasses. The sleeve of her jacket rided up, exposing a new set of scratches. She had tried to cover it up with concealer, which was now staining her top. I felt awful, I had no idea she felt that bad. I've tried to stop her, she told me she stopped doing that a long time ago. She put her sunglasses on, pulled down her sleeve self consciously and looked over at me. I couldn't see her eyes but I knew she was going on a self-guilt trip. I felt a pang of guilt that I didn't know how bad she felt, that she couldn't talk to me about it. I'd just taken off and left her when she needed me. At least this time, if something happened she'd have Mary.

We were silent for a minute before she decided we'd been waiting too long. The light ‘miraculously' changed to green and she sped off. I didn't even bother saying anything; there was nobody around to see anyway.  I looked over at her, her hair was circling behind her with the wind, like something from a film. Her eyes were hidden by the reflective black glass of her sunglasses, not giving her expressions away.  She looked like a model and she knew it. She used her looks to get what she wanted. She could get men to do and think anything she liked. They followed her around like lovesick dogs. The only one she wanted to trail after her seemed to be immune to her and it drove her crazy. Anthony had been the only one Sarah took any real interest in. All the others were just a bit of fun for her. I felt a pang of guilt over the fact that he continued to pursue me despite my protests and my constantly trying to get him to look Sarah's way.

He was headstrong and stubborn that way. I think part of the problem was that Anthony would only ever see Sarah as one of his best friends. If only he could see the way she looked at him every time he was in her sight. See her cry over him was worse. I hated it and wished she could find someone that she deserved and be happy for once. I wanted to see one of us happy, even if it wasn't possible for me, she deserved it. I was glad that Mary had Will. At least some of us were happy. We had rules that we had agreed on back when we were still being persecuted along with millions of innocent people. We had to keep with "our own kind", never ‘mix' with anybody else and most importantly; never let anybody find out about us. It made our existence even more unbearable. I'd lived the longest out of all of us. I've passed the stages of living for an eternity being fun, being reckless and have moved onto realize the price we have to pay to live the way we do.  I was more lonely than I'd ever felt possible. Even with Sarah, Will and Mary I still felt empty.

 I longed to be like everybody else to be able to be myself, not have to lie and go wherever I want. I knew it was probably just another faze but I couldn't come out of it. I wanted to feel alive again. I needed something to make my life worth living and I became determined to get it; hence me joining university and moving somewhere new with everybody. I turned back to Sarah, she'd apparently been talking to me and I wasn't even listening. She had a slightly annoyed look on her face.

"Sorry" I said making an apologetic face.

"It's okay. I know you have a lot on your mind right now." She sighed as she pulled up to the curb outside the main campus.

 "Thanks", I said before I got out.

"Anytime." She said. I closed the door and she took off, her music blasting from the CD player in her car. I watched her car turn the corner, noticing a lot of the males in the area stop and stare, I rolled my eyes. I waited until she had completely disappeared before I made my way inside.