IT’S JUST A PHASE

Episode Thirteen

     Patience stood in the middle of the kitchen, soaked through, with snow and ice chunks scattered around her feet.

     “I feel funny,” she said, her hand on her stomach, rubbing in a circular motion. She had a refreshingly blue tinge to her skin—no longer that sallow, yellow glow that warned of a failing liver—she was long past that now.

     “I’m surprised you don’t feel worse; you did drink two full bottles of Absinthe,” I said.

     “No, I mean I feel sick, really sick,” Patience said. She looked at me for a moment, unsteady on her feet. Suddenly, her eyes widened, and she projectile vomited two bottles of Absinthe on my best pair of boots.

     “Sorry,” she said.

     I looked down at the neon green vomit, recalling my own transformation. My own illness.

     “Don’t worry about it; vampire blood has a strong effect on the body—I was already in need of a new pair of boots.”

     “Vampire blood? What do you mean, vampire blood?” Her hand instinctively reached for the bite on her neck. “You bit me? Oh my God. You bit me?”

     “Calm down,” I said, slipping off my boots and rinsing them in the sink before putting my feet back inside. “I didn’t bite you.”

     She looked at the blood on her hand, then at me.

     “Then why am I bleeding?” she asked.

     “Because I bit you,” Sterling said, leaning against the doorframe. “And I already regret it.”

     Patience hurried out of the room as fast as her unsteady legs would carry her and paused to look at her neck in the hallway mirror.

     “You bit me!” Patience yelled.

     Sterling followed her into the hall on long legs. “Yeah, I bit you; you should feel honored.”

     “You said you wouldn’t bite me,” Patience said.

     “I never said that, Candy said she would never bite you. And she didn’t; instead, she had me do it,” Sterling said. He leaned against the doorway, watching Patience become more and more panicked. A small smile touched the corners of his lips.

     “This isn’t funny,” Patience said, beginning to hyperventilate. “This is terrible. This is…”

     And she threw up on Sterling’s very expensive-looking boots.

     “Sweet Mother of…” Sterling said, stepping back into the kitchen and flipping me off before heading outside and slamming the door behind him. 

     “Now that was funny,” I said, moving in to try and calm her down. “We didn’t have a choice. It was either change you or let you die.”

     Patience watched me for a moment, her breathing coming in short gasps.

     “Do I even need to breathe?” she suddenly asked.

     “No, but it’s normal. Your body is just acting the way it always has. After a while, you won’t even notice that you’ve stopped,” I said.

     Patience began to calm down. Her body still shook from the rush of adrenaline, but she was no longer gasping for air like a drowning rat.

     “You didn’t let me die,” she said.

     “No,” I said, taking her arm and leading her up the stairs to her room.

     “Why?” she asked. “I’ve done nothing but cause you trouble. I lied about who I was and what I did for a living. I made myself sound important, and worse still, as if I could help you with those people, those vampires that want to kill you.”

     “That’s hardly a reason to let you die; besides, you’re my friend,” I said.

     “Really?” Patience asked, sitting on the edge of her bed.

     “Really,” I said. “Now get changed.”

     She grabbed my arm before I could leave the room, her eyes pleading with me.

     “Friends shouldn’t lie to each other,” she said, pulling me towards her.

     I sat beside her, doing my best to reassure her.  

     “Sometimes we lie to friends, too. Sometimes lying can be a way of protecting people we care about,” I said. “I don’t think less of you; if I did, I’d have to think less of myself, and I’m just not that kind of girl.”

     “I’m a stripper,” Patience burst out. “I’m a stripper at The Slammer downtown. I started as one of their cage dancers, but the owner, Darren Cobb, took a liking to me and let me dance on the main stage.”

     “So, Darren isn’t your boyfriend?” I asked.

     “More like my pimp,” Patience said, her gaze firmly fixed on the fringe along the edge of the rug. “But he did kick me out. I guess I don’t dance so well when I’m drunk.”

     “Not too many people do,” I said.

     We sat there for a moment in silence. Each, I suppose, lost in their own thoughts.

     I’m glad you didn’t let me die. I only wish you had been the one to bite me, not grumpy old Sterling with his brooding eyes and bad humor. But overall, I’m just happy to be here still,” Patience said.

     “You might not always think that way. You will find that a life as long as ours has more than its share of loss and loneliness,” I said. “In fact, you may come to resent me for saving you.”

     “You’re talking about that Albert guy, aren’t you?” Patience said.

     “Just one of many, but yes, I miss my Albert. My family. My friends. They all grow old and leave us.”

     “So why not change them, make them stay?” Patience asked.

     “To become murderers? A blight on society? No, it’s not love to change them, not love at all,” I said. “And that’s why I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t let you go. It’s been so long since I had someone real to talk to, to share my life with, my secrets. It was selfish of me.”

     Patience stood from the bed and walked across the room, unzipping her small bag and taking out a selection of dry clothes.

     “I know you seem to think you’ve done something wrong, but you haven’t,” Patience said, undressing and tossing her wet clothes onto the floor. “I don’t remember the last time I’ve felt so alive. I know that’s silly, but it’s true. I don’t feel like a nothing, a nobody. I’m something now, not just a drunk or a whore. I’m something more, something mysterious and dangerous. I may be one of the undead, but at least it’s something.”

     “Things are going to get rough,” I said, leaning back on the bed, my gaze moving from her naked body to the ceiling above us. “I’m in trouble, and I… I might not be around to help you adjust.”

     “You know,” she said, flopping onto the bed next to me in a fresh pair of jeans and a green knit sweater. The color matched her eyes, and I realized just how pretty she was now that she wasn’t dying of liver failure. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

     “And?” I asked.

     “And why should you have to go at all? I mean, are they any better than you? Who put them in charge anyway?” Patience asked. “Whatever you did was ages ago, and the old boss didn’t have a problem with it, so why should they?”

     “Vampire politics,” I said.

     “So, a bunch of corrupt old guys sitting around scratching their asses and passing judgment on you for things they’ve done themselves,” Patience said.

     “Pretty much,” I said.

     I hadn’t really thought about it much before; it seems silly now that I was so willing to just give in and answer to someone who probably murdered Alard Plamondon for killing Damian Plamondon. And now they planned to do the same to me.

     “The real question is, what do we do with Sterling Pool?” Patience asked, tapping her front teeth with her index finger. “And how do I get these damn things to grow?”