Аманда Хокинг - Flutter

Jane wasn’t even making time for hair appointments anymore. Mae had changed her out of her designer dress to put her in more comfortable pajamas, and left her dress discarded at the end of the bed. It looked dirty and faded. The only thing in life that had ever really mattered to Jane was her appearance, and she had completely let it go.

Mae tried to say a few comforting things to me, but there was nothing that could really make me feel any better about this. When I saw her at the club last week, I should’ve just dragged her away, no matter how much she fought me. Or better yet, I never should’ve told her about vampires, or let her see Milo after he turned. If Milo had never bit her, if she’d never found it, if she’d never even met me. I know I wasn’t the one that made her go to the club night after night, looking for a fix, but I had set this course of events in motion.

If had a made a different decision any number of times, she wouldn’t be here, knocking on death’s door.

I stood at the end of the bed, just watching her chest rise and fall with each breath. Every time she exhaled, it felt like forever before she breathed in again, and it was an eternity between heartbeats. Every second she was alive, I was certain it would be her last. I barely even noticed when Peter came in the room.

That’s how hard I was concentrating on Jane.

“Sorry. I just came into grab a few things,” Peter said apologetically, and hurried into his bathroom.

Since Jane had taken over his room, he was gonna sleep on the couch tonight, and if he was getting ready for bed, it meant that it was getting pretty late.

“You should probably go get some rest yourself,” Mae suggested. “I’ll stay with Jane and make sure she’s alright. It won’t do her in good if you stay up all day exhausting yourself.”

“You’ll let me know if something happens?” I chewed my lip. For some reason, I thought that when I stopped watching her, that’s when she’d stop breathing.

“I’m just across the hall from you,” Mae smiled at me. “She’ll be just fine, love. I can feel it.”

Reluctantly, I went out into the hall and gently shut the bedroom door behind me. I stood right outside the door, listening for a minute, and when her heart kept beating, I started to believe that maybe she wasn’t going to die right then. I let out a sigh of relief that sounded suspiciously like a sob, and then I took another deep breath to try to keep back the tears. Peter came out of his room behind me and almost bumped into me, since I hadn’t bothered to take a step away from the door yet.

“Oh, Alice, sorry!” Peter apologized and put his hand on my back gently, as if I was stumbling and needed him to stabilize me.

“No, no, it’s okay.” I shook my head and swallowed hard

“Are you alright?” Peter lowered his head, trying to look me in the eyes, but I just looked away.

“Yeah, no, everything’s great.” I forced a smile, and my vision started to blur from the tears.

“I mean, why wouldn’t it? I almost got my best friend killed, and my brother’s boyfriend. Not to mention, I have no idea where my own boyfriend is because I drove him away. But yeah, everything is just great!” Tears slipped down my cheeks, and I quickly wiped them away.

“What happened to Jane isn’t your fault,” Peter said quietly.

“Yes it is! I’m the one who introduced her to vampires!” I gestured widely to the hallway.

“Everything I touch gets destroyed! I mean, you had this stable family, and I came in, and I’m just tearing it apart! You and Jack, and now Mae and Ezra are splitting up, and I know that’s not directly my fault, but it is! It’s my fault by association! I’m the harbinger of doom!”

I expected Peter to tell me that I was being melodramatic, and just to knock it off and go to bed. Or at the very least to tell me in a very condescending way that none of that was my fault. Even I knew it was pretty egotistical to assume that the only bad things that happened in life happened because of me.

But instead he looked at me with the utmost sympathy and affection. I had never seen him look so gentle, and whenever he softened, he was almost blindly attractive.

When he reached out and pulled me into his arms, I knew that I should pull away, but I didn’t really have the strength for it. He held me to him, and I buried my face in his chest. Right then, I just wanted to sob, and I wanted someone to hold me. Peter’s arms were wonderfully strong and gentle, and it felt so good and safe that I almost lost myself in them.

“Honestly, Alice, everything is going to be alright,” Peter murmured into my hair.

“I wish I could believe you,” I whispered. My tears were calming down, but I left my head pressed against his chest, listening to his heartbeat.

“Peter!” Ezra suddenly boomed, sounding as if he was standing directly at the bottom of the stairs.

He broke whatever moment I had been having with Peter, and I realized how incredibly inappropriate and dangerous it was to let him hug me, even if I needed a hug. I pulled away from him and looked at the ground. Peter seemed disappointed, but he didn’t say anything. He just turned and went downstairs to see what Ezra wanted, and I slunk back to Jack’s room.

Matilda’s was laying on Jack’s bed, looking very sad, and I climbed in bed next to her. I rested my head on her back and ran my fingers through her thick white fur. She whimpered a little, and I knew that she missed him too. But there was nothing I could do about it. Although, I was starting to think it was maybe for the best that he left. Clearly, I wasn’t good enough for him.

Mae woke me up a few hours later. I sat up with a start, but she smiled wanly at me in the dark. “Jane is awake.”

Jane didn’t look any better, and she didn’t seem entirely alert. Mae had helped prop her up with a couple pillows. Her eyes were dull blue, almost glassy, and her expression was completely blank. She didn’t look happy to be alive or angry to be alive, but she watched me with kind of a subdued fascination. I think it was still hard for to get used to the idea that I was prettier than her, even when I’d just woken up and covered in white dog hair.

“Hey,” I said. I stood awkwardly off to the side of the bed and pushed a dark strand of hair behind my ears. “How you feeling?”

“How does it look like I’m feeling?” Jane asked me directly.

“Oh, she’s doing just fine,” Mae said before I could reply. She sat down on the edge of Jane’s bed. A glass of water with a straw in sat on the nightstand, and Mae handed it to Jane. She didn’t really look interested in taking it, giving Mae a bored look, but she did anyway, taking a long drink.

“She’s been through a lot lately.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. Mae pushed the hair of Jane’s forehead, and I didn’t appreciate the way she was fawning all over her. Jane did need extra care, but I didn’t like the way Mae was making me feel like I was incompetent.

“You don’t know anything. We haven’t spoken in months,” Jane snapped icily, glaring at me.

Why she was glaring at me? It wasn’t my idea to stop talking to her.

“That’s not my fault!” I was indignant. “I tried calling and texting you a million times! You were the one who didn’t want to talk to me!”

“Yeah! Because you turned into a vampire!” Jane sat up straighter in the bed, and Mae looked annoyed that I was upsetting her.

“You don’t need to get worked up,” Mae said gently, taking the water from Jane before she spilled it all over the bed.

“So what if I’m a vampire?” I countered, ignoring Mae entirely. “You seemed just fine spending so much time with them that it almost killed you!”