Chapter X: Amazed

The grin never left him as he hurried home in the subdued light of the dawn. Their meeting had gone so much better than he ever imagined. And he had imagined it several times. When you require little sleep, you have all sorts of time to think. Pretty much the only thing he had been thinking about for the last few days was her.

He was feeling very proud of himself. In the past it was always very hard for him to open up to people, and talk to them. It was different with Victoria; he still felt shy, but he trusted her. Just her, being herself, made it easy for him to talk. She was amazing. He just wondered what she thought of him.

I can't torture myself with the thought of her maybe feeling anything for me... like what I feel for her. It is far too much to hope for...yet...what was that look in her eyes? It wasn't fear or disgust, like I thought it would be. Maybe it will not be too bad...to hope...just a little.

He got within the inner walls, and paused at the sea serpent sculpture that had caught her attention earlier. He raised his hand and ran the blades down its' neck, mimicking her action. He would have to create more creatures from the pictures on the old maps. She seemed to like this one, she may like to see more. He wondered if such creatures really existed at the edges of the sea. There was so much he had never seen. The boundaries of his property was his whole world. He had only experienced the rest of the world through books that his father had owned. He looked around his garden at his hedge sculptures. Most of them were based on the pictures in those books.

The sky brightened a few shades, and yellow rays hit the garden. Like a nocturnal creature, he immediately went to the gloom inside. Using his shoulder, he pushed the door shut behind him. The heavy wood made the hinges groan. The noise echoed through the cavernous room. It was always so quiet. The complete lack of noise sometimes drove him crazy.

He leaned back against the door, and rubbed his forearm against the front of his neck. He cleared his throat. His throat hurt; it had been so many years since he last spoke. In the last few hours, he had talked more than he ever had in his whole existence.

He replayed the evening over in his mind. The times she had laughed, her face brightening, and eyes sparkling...He had done that! The thought gave him a toothy grin. He had been able to cheer her, just like that man had. And he wasn't involved with her, he was her boss! He wondered what of. She had wanted to know so much about him; but she was the intriguing one. He wanted to know all about her. He would have to start asking her the questions.

He walked up the stairs to his father's library, and went straight to one of the books he knew so well. Carefully placing a blade on either side of the book, he pulled it out of the shelf. Kneeling down, he placed it on the floor in front of him. Using one blade, he opened the book. It opened right to the poem he wanted, "Annabel Lee."

He tried reading it, but couldn't focus on it; his mind kept coming back to her. He looked up from the book and smiled at the thought of her touch. He had almost forgotten what human contact was like. The first time she blindly reached out to him, it was like fire. A flame ran through his body, like electricity, igniting every cell. It was like she had given him life again. Every single time she touched him, and when she held him, every fiber of his being was aware. Just having her there, actually talking to him, sitting so close to him, was beyond belief. She was exactly what he had dreamed of.

Maybe none of this is real. Maybe I have died, or I am dreaming. What if I wake up, and she doesn't exist? What if she decides I am too strange, too much of a freak, and she never comes back? Have I let myself fall too far? How would I be able to go on with this life, if I never see her again?

He cycled from worry, to reading, to losing himself in daydreams; until the shadows on the floor shifted in such a way, he knew the sun was high. He stood up, oblivious to the book and map he had left out, and walked up the stairs. It was time for him to sleep...to dream.