Chapter Six
Jane didn't particularly want to hurt Mary. After all, Mary was only a baby, and her bloodlust was not for a human without a fully developed brain. So she bent over her desk, her pencil gliding over a spare piece of paper she'd found in Penelope's (their new human receptionist) desk. She always thought it was ridiculously stupid that so many humans were ready to win their favor by leading their own people to a bloody, gruesome death.
But she pushed this thought aside, beginning to shade the outline of the young girl she'd drawn over and over again, each one a different pose. This face continued to appear in her mind both day and night. Over and over again she saw the face, and felt the heart-wrenching guilt that came with it.
Jane opened the desk drawer and pulled out the jar of sweet-smelling liquid. Blood. She picked up her paintbrush, the one she'd had in her hair the day she got bitten. The handle was blue, and she could see the paint chipping off of it as she slowly filled the girl's irises with the blood. It wasn't entirely accurate, Jane knew, because the eyes of vampires only turn the color of the person they prey on, not their own blood.
It was also inaccurate because the girl was not a vampire. It's my fault, Jane thought, night and day. If I hadn't been so selfish, she'd still be alive. She never blamed the one truly responsible. He made his choice, and she could have prevented his being faced with the choice in the first place. No matter, the past is the past. Jane couldn't do anything about it. So if she knew there was no point in regret, then why did she feel this way? She just felt so…ashamed. The emotion hit her in waves, and she couldn't stop herself. She never wanted to feel like that, and sometimes when it wasn't there (the ocean of regret) she felt that her heart had finally calloused. She felt triumphant. But then she'd see their most recent receptionist lead their new prey into the room, and she'd see a little girl. Blonde, with a ribbon in her hair, sometimes with the same honey-brown eyes. Then she'd be drowning once again.
So, every day, Jane drew the girl's outline against the full moon, or lying on the barn with her platinum-blonde hair fanned out all around her, dressed up in her favorite blue dress, the one with the white lace. Her stockinged feet would be crossed, the absence of shoes noticeable, her hands folded underneath her head. She drew every detail, the girl's pale skin, the occasional flush on her cheeks from the cold. She drew the lack of definition in the girl's slender limbs. Every little detail was accurate, shaded and colored perfectly, except for the eyes. The eyes were painted to depict what might have been, what should have been. If only Jane had realized what was obvious to everyone else. Being an artist, she should have noticed.
Instead, she was here. Wallowing. Drowning in the sea of regret. Every night lying in the grave she had dug for herself, having to dig herself out again every morning. Some days, she suffocated.
Aro never noticed. Caius never cared. Marcus hadn't ever said more than a few pleasantries to her (which was quite odd, considering they had lived together for multiple centuries). Athenodora hated her, Jane knew. She said one so young shouldn't be allowed in. Though Jane had the body and stature of a fifteen-year-old, she was over a thousand years old.
Jane's only friend was Didyme, and Didyme (Dee) was her best friend. She was charming and thoughtful, with always an ear open to listen. Jane knew Dee had the power to make people happy, but she never abused this gift the way Aro did. But he was her brother, and Jane knew she could never have the heart to leave him though he hated her.
Sometimes she wondered how some people could bear to carry on.