The truth is, I've been avoiding writing this chapter.

There's this fantastic little game on the iPhone that just came out (no, I have no idea if it's out on Android since I don't own an Android anymore, so please don't ask) and it's been a great distraction for me.  I even allowed it to have push notifications so every now and again I get a little reminder that my pirates need to do some plundering or some similar nonsense.  The thing is that I know I'm using this game to distract myself and I'm still letting it do it to me.  Or since it's truth time, I'm still letting myself be distracted.

What happened isn't even that shocking, but every time I go to talk about it, I do that little thing we all do.  You know the one.  The one where I change the story, shift it to my perspective so I don't look like the bad guy in all of this.  It's important to me, to my ego and my memory that I don't look the bad guy here, and to that end, I've actually found myself changing the facts of what happened, actually changing the narrative.  All so I can look like the hero, when I know the truth of it.

I'm kind of coming to terms with it though but it's going to be hard to tell the turn of what happened, exactly as it happened.  My memory is already being affected by the bullshit I've been telling myself, so I might not get all of the facts right, but I'll try my hardest to be brutally honest.

Try to not hate me too much.

***

Three days is too long to be alone with your own thoughts.

Jaime had begun to stir about twenty minutes ago, her breathing becoming a lot less shallow and her heartbeat quickening ever so slightly as she began the slow process of waking up.  It was the longest twenty minutes of my life.

The three days preceding this twenty minutes had been horribly stressful as well, don't get me wrong, but that was a different kind of stress and I was actually actively doing something, problem solving and fixing and generally being super-fucking-useful. That was good energy, something that Jaime had admired about me when we first met, and was utterly unlike the energy of the past twenty minutes where I was just waiting for something to happen.  Where I was just waiting for her to wake the fuck up.

We were in a motel on the outside of town and I had taped down the curtains on the windows, turning the room into a vampire lair where we could hole-up and be safe for a couple of days.  Delivery options in the area were amazing, so I was always well stocked on food.  There was literally no reason for me to leave the room.  Not that I wanted to.

Nothing could have forced me from that room in the past three days.

I'd been going over all of the things I imagined I was going to say to her, but I was constantly second guessing myself as each line either sounded way too dramatic or really fucking stupid.  There was no in-between going on here at all and I was feeling utterly frustrated by the whole process.

When I'd first sensed the change in her I had thought she would be up in about five minutes or so and had prepped myself, psyching myself up with the speech I had so carefully prepaid, but the more I went over it, sometimes even muttering it out loud, the sheer lunacy and idiocy of what I was saying, just marched out, kicked me solidly in the nuts and left me panicking, knowing that no matter what I said, it was never going to be good enough.

That supposed five minutes had stretch on and on to the point where I was just getting resentful and considered just shaking her awake, or even dropping a handy lamp to "accidentally" wake her up.  Once she was awake then I could finally get through my massively revised and not stupid-at-all speech and just get on with the next part.

I positioned myself at the foot of the bed instead of my original position of right next to her.  Common sense had finally kicked in, managing to override the rising panic that was simultaneously kicking and eating holes in my gut, and I had realized that although it would normally be comforting, this was Jaime I was dealing with.  Out of kicking distance was the prime position for dealing with Jaime, especially with the bomb-shell speech I was about to drop on her head.  Hopefully it would catch her by surprise long enough for me to get all of the words out, and then I would have the chance to show her that I wasn't such a fuck-up after all.

Focus, dammit, focus!

Twenty minutes of nerves. Twenty minutes of psyching myself out.

Her eyes were fluttering now and I resisted the urge to peel her eyelids back again to look, to make sure—

Just like that, she was awake.

And she was looking right at me.

"What the fuck did you do to me Bob?"

The words dried up in my mouth, the carefully, messy and fucked-up speech which still sounded like nonsense no matter how hard I tried, that speech just flew right out of my head as I looked deep into the transformed vampire-blue eyes of my ex-girlfriend.  There was no confusion, no fear, no slow realization that she was different somehow.  If those emotions were there at all, they were checked off and marked for later observation when she was in a safe place.  That was just how Jaime worked.  She was efficient like that, just having the ability to take herself outside of her own situation, analyze it and obliterate the fuck out o whatever was currently threatening to her.  Emotions would wait for later; the only emotion she needed right now was rage, and she had plenty of if.  Since it was be, it was about a two years worth of rage, so I was prepared to burn.

Or at least I had fooled myself into thinking I was ready.

"It's not what you think!"

Fuck!  I could have slapped myself for that.  I had watched so many sitcoms and bad comedies where they play simple misunderstandings for extended laughs where a simple, "this is what happened" would have defused the entire situation, but instead the characters always somehow managed to utter that phrase that I swear I had never, ever heard anyone use in real life.  The one phrase I had just uttered and I knew was going to lead to much pain.  Hilarity might be involved, but for me that would only be in hindsight.

Jaime was already on the move, bouncing up off the bed in one fast movement, and I was glad, not for the first time that I'd gotten a chance to dress her in some new clothes.  Black jeans and black t-shirt seemed fitting at the time.  Besides, jaime looked good in black.  If she had been naked, or in any state of undress, things would not have gone as well as they did.  She stopped then, looking down at herself as she noticed the clothes.

"These aren't my clothes Bob. Whose clothes are these?" The inevitable question made her narrow her eyes and thin her lips in preparation of kicking my ass. "Did you dress me?"

"Would you prefer to have been naked? I was trying to be nice to you!"

"Where are my clothes Bob?"

"Listen—"

"Where are my clothes Bob?"

"Jaime, just shit up and listen—"

"GODDAMIT BOB! WHERE ARE MY FUCKING CLOTHES?"

A sob wracked her now, tears streaming down her face and for the first time I realized just how terrified she was.  She really had no clue of what had happened, but she had some facts in front of her and none of them were good.  The motel room, the strange clothes, the strange feeling of a body that didn't quite feel like hers, like she had been drugged or something... and then of course me, the hated ex-boyfriend.  All of those things in a normal world would point to her having been kidnapped and raped and there was possibly more to come and she was scared that she wouldn't be able to fight it.  She was scared she wouldn't be able to fight me.

Wow.  Just... fucking wow.  That one struck deep.  I'd never once considered that Jaime might have been scared of me, scared of what I could do to her, after all I had been stalking her for over a year, just swinging by to spy on her from the alley, always at what I considered a safe distance, but at some point in the past year she had found out and she knew I was out there.  I wondered for a second just how many sleepless nights I had caused her, but it wash;t something I could think of right then. I was already feeling her terror and didn't want to feel it that deeply, not just yet.  I could see the shape of her mind, the pulse of her fear and it burned as in her mind, the worst had already happened.

"Do you remember anything Jaime? Do you remember what happened to you?"

Her face twisted in horror and rage as she readied herself for an attack, my words hitting her and getting lost in translation, getting jumbled and coming out as some declaration of guilt from me.

"What did you do to me you sonofabitch? You knew you couldn't ever have me again so you drugged me and brought me here? Had a little party at my expense?"

Too late to take the words back. Why can't I keep not saying stupid stuff around Jaime?

"I swear it's not like that. I would never do anything like that to you."

"I. DON'T. TRUST YOU!"

Oh yeah.  Then there was that.

Jaime took a step toward me then and I'm sure it would have gone into a full on attack, but the after effects were now hitting Jaime hard, particularly in her stomach.  She hadn't eaten in three days, with only a small amount of water I had managed to get down her throat.  The remaining contents of her stomach had been used to paint the bathroom floor after I had failed to get her to the toilet in time, so I knew exactly how many fumes she was running on. 

She dry heaved, unable to stop herself as her stomach tried to eat itself out of pure frustration and absolute hunger.  Now she was awake she had to choice in eating so her hunger was going to kick her ass until she did.

I pulled out the Snickers bar I'd gotten from the vending machine and held it out to her.

"Here, eat this," I said, and she just glared at me suspiciously. I fought back my frustration at her suspicion, peeled open the wrapper and took a bite. She watched as I chewed,.  I offered it again.  "Please eat it Jaime.  Please."

One final look and she snatched it from my hand.  It was gone in seconds, nothing but an empty wrapper drifting to the floor.   Her eyes never left me.  Her brilliant blue eyes.

"I have no idea how to tell you this, so I'm just going to to for it, but you have to promise to listen to me, let me finish, okay?"

"Fuck you."

"I'll take that as a yes."

"You have another Snickers in your pocket. Hand it over."

"You saw that? How did you see that?"

"I know you Bob. You can never buy just one Snickers bar. Hand it over."

I handed the Snickers to her.  A pack of Piranhas have got nothing on Jaime versus a Snickers bar.  Such savagery, oh the horror.

"What if I were to tell you that three days ago you got shot in the face and almost died and the only way I could save you was by turning you into a vampire?"

"I don't know Bob. Is that something you're likely to say? Because if it is, then fuck you: come up with another one."

"Three days ago—"

"Stop it Bob."

"You got shot in the face. In the face Jaime.  Half your head was gone."

"I'm leaving right now. Either stop me or get the fuck out of the way."

Jaime shoved at me and I let myself be pushed.  That first push unlocked something inside her, all of her fear and frustration finally having a chance to break free, to be directed at something.  

"I had to turn you into a vampire Jaime! I didn't have a choice!"

I saw the punch coming and I could have dodged it, but I didn't. I rocked with it and let her hit me.  And then the next one and all the blows that followed as Jaime just unleashed on me.  Whatever it was, I had it coming, and I had no right to stop her.

She stumbled away from me, panting wildly and I had time to wonder if the people in the next room had already called the cops on us.  Tonight's ruckus would have just been icing on the cake of the past three days.  If anyone showed up and took a look at the mess that was lying in wait behind the closed door of the bathroom, they would have assumed that someone had been murdered while combating a stomach bug that caused them to spew shit and vomit everywhere. 

The whole turning into a vampire thing is a lot smellier and messier when you're the one watching.

The bathroom smelled horrible and I had been avoiding cleaning it for as long as possible.  I had even stuffed towels under the doors to stop the smell from seeping out and corrupting the rest of the room with the smell of blood and ass.

It was amazing that even now, Jaime couldn't smell what she had gone through in the past three days.  It was all waiting for her, one smell bathroom away.

Jaime had other things on her mind.

"You just gave me a snickers bar you dumb fuck! You don't give someone a snickers bar and then come up with something stupid like this vampire shit.  I have no idea what drugs you're on, but you keep me the fuck out of whatever fucked up twisted fantasy you have going on in your goddamn head."

I pulled myself up from the floor and reached out to her one last time.

"It's the truth Jaime.  Look at my eyes.  They're the same as yours."

Jaime looked back at me, looked me right in the eye and there might have been a moment of doubt, but she crushed it in the way she always did.  Emotions are for later after all.

She could have said something, a quippy comeback that would have put me in my place.  But she didn't.

She just slammed the door behind her.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:  Please vote, and leave a comment.  I'd love to hear what you guys thought of this latest chapter.  Your votes and reads mean a lot and keep this book going, so I like to know I'm telling a good story.