Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer.
"YourarmisbleedingIwillfetchaband-aid," Bella whispered on exhale and ran to the kitchen before I could object. Relative to how fast she was running, she spent rather a long time in the kitchen, while I was trying to calm myself so I could understand what was going on. So far I had only been worried about forgetting my whole life, all my precious memories, but now I thought I might have a different problem. I had to be hallucinating.
Sometimes when you are really tired, every movement seems to be fast, and Henry, a friend I once had who was epileptic, said things kind of shone when he was about to have an episode. I had to look up the symptoms when I got home. I fished a pen out of my breastpocket, feeling my right arm sting a bit where the knife had graced it, and jotted "sleepless" inside the cover of the paranormal book where I was bound to find it again. I did a breathing exercise I had picked up somewhere – in through the nose, out through the mouth – and felt my muscles relax a bit.
Bella came back with a band-aid and, clearly holding her breath, put it on my arm. The waitress, who had followed her, said the scratch didn't seem like much, quickly describing one that was slightly red but from which no blood leaked.
At least that was how I saw it in my mind.
The waitress returned to her job, having ascertained that no one was bleeding all over the furniture, and Bella sat back down. She smiled uncertainly. Glanced at the book which, despite being new, had a crease on the front cover.
"You haven't noticed anything abnormal, have you?"
I did not reply to that.
"Do you not eat food at all?" I asked instead, thinking about her and her family in the school cafeteria. They never seemed to eat.
Bella shook her head slightly. She had shut me out again, or it felt like that.
Her reaction to the blood had been odd. Many women were in fact scared of blood – and more men than would admit it. I guessed she'd never intern at her Dad's. But then, according to the waitress, there hadn't been any blood.
But the waitress hadn't said anything… Not with her voice.
In fact, I had often marvelled at people's ability to paint a mental picture …but surprisingly often I had not remembered hearing their voices?
I glanced at Bella.
She still hummed faintly. Even when she talked, I was starting to realize. The realization made me stare.
She dropped her glance and mumbled, "yeah…"
I felt sure she thought I meant something else than I did with my glance. I didn't say anything, but focused on eating my ravioli. Bella pushed her soup closer to me.
"I can't eat this. You should take it."
I did. My eyes kept going to the book that lay between us. Maybe it contained a clue to something. Maybe there was a reason I had felt like buying it. I reached for it, but Bella snatched it away.
"I'm sorry, I just wanted to look at it," she said with a shy smile. I shrugged.
There would always be time for reading, I told myself. But I felt uneasy as something else dawned on me: I was hearing the chatter from the restaurant very clearly. But at the same time, those same voices spoke unintelligibly.
Bella flipped through the book. Her eyes dwelled on the inside of the cover.
"Who is sleepless?" she asked in a strained voice, slapping the book down on the table. A little harder than she intended, I was sure. "You?" I tried, annoyed that she couldn't control her annoyance. What was it to her if I couldn't sleep? Or sometimes had headaches as if I couldn't sleep. But instead of snapping back she threw money on the table.
"We should go," she said. "I'll drive you home. I think we have much to talk about."
I nodded. Something about the soup's consistency made me uneasy anyway.
