"Hello," someone said, the waitress, introducing herself. Her thoughts were loud, and more explicit than
the hostess's, but I tuned her out. I stared at Bella's face instead of listening, watching the blood
spreading under her skin, noticing not how that made my throat flame, but rather how it brightened her
fair face, how it set off the cream of her skin...
The waitress was waiting for something from me. Ah, she'd asked for our drink order. I continued to
stare at Bella, and the waitress grudgingly turned to look at her, too.
"I'll have a coke?" Bella said, as if asking for approval.
"Two cokes," I amended. Thirst-normal, human thirst-was a sign of shock. I would make sure she had the
extra sugar from the soda in her system. She looked healthy, though. More than healthy. She looked
radiant.
"What?" she demanded-wondering why I was staring, I guessed. I was vaguely aware that the waitress
had left.
"How are you feeling?" I asked.
She blinked, surprised by the question. "I'm fine."
"You don't feel dizzy, sick, cold?"
She was even more confused now. "Should I?"
"Well, I actually I'm waiting for you to go into shock." I half-smiled, expecting her denial. She would not
want to be taken care of.
It took her a minute to answer me. Her eyes were slightly unfocused. She looked that way sometimes,
when I smiled at her. Was she...dazzled?
I would love to believe that.
"I don't think that will happen. I've always been very good at repressing unpleasant things," she
answered, a little breathless.
Did she have a lot of practice with unpleasant things, then? Was her life always this hazardous?
"Just the same," I told her. "I'll feel better when you have some sugar and food in you."
The waitress returned with the cokes and a basket of bread. She put them in front of me, and asked for
my order, trying to catch my eye in the process. I indicated that she should attend to Bella, and then
went back to tuning her out. She had a vulgar mind.
"Um..." Bella glanced quickly at the menu. "I'll have the mushroom ravioli."
The waitress turned back to me eagerly. "And you?"
"Nothing for me."
Bella made a slight face. Hmm. She must have noticed that I never ate food. She noticed everything. And
I always forgot to be careful around her.
I waited till we were alone again.
"Drink," I insisted.
I was surprised when she complied immediately and without objection. She drank until the glass was
entirely empty, so I pushed the second coke toward her, frowning a little. Thirst, or shock?
She drank a little more, and then shuddered once.
"Are you cold?"
"It's just the coke," she said, but she shivered again, her lips trembling slightly as if her teeth were about
to chatter.
The pretty blouse she wore looked too thin to protect her adequately; it clung to her like a second skin,
almost as fragile as the first. She was so frail, so mortal. "Don't you have a jacket?"
"Yes." She looked around herself, a little perplexed. "Oh-I left it in Jessica's car."
I pulled off my jacket, wishing that the gesture was not marred by my body temperature. It would have
been nice to have been able to offer her a warm coat. She stared at me, her cheeks warming again.
What was she thinking now?
I handed her the jacket across the table, and she put it on at once, and then shuddered again.
Yes, it would be very nice to be warm.
"Thanks," she said. She took a deep breath, and then pushed the too-long sleeves back to free her
hands. She took another deep breath.
Was the evening finally settling in? Her color was still good; her skin was cream and roses against the
deep blue of her shirt.
"That color blue looks lovely with your skin," I complimented her. Just being honest. She flushed,
enhancing the effect.
She looked well, but there was no point in taking chances. I pushed the basket of bread toward her.
"Really," she objected, guessing my motives. "I'm not going into shock."
"You should be-a normal person would be. You don't even look shaken." I stared at her, disapproving,
wondering why she couldn't be normal and then wondering if really wanted her to be that way.
"I feel very safe with you," she said, her eyes, again, filled with trust. Trust I didn't deserve.
Her instincts were all wrong-backwards. That must be the problem. She didn't recognize danger the way
a human being should be able to. She had the opposite reaction. Instead of running, she lingered, drawn
to what should frighten her...
How could I protect her from myself when neither of us wanted that?
"This is more complicated than I'd planned," I murmured.
I could see her turning my words over in her head, and I wondered what she made of them. She took a
breadstick and began to eat without seeming aware of the action. She chewed for a moment, and then