After Kip made sure that I was okay for the hundredth time, he drove me back to my apartment and dropped me off. On the drive, he seemed forlorn and quiet. It was a huge juxtaposition to his normal, goofy personality. I tried to reassure him that it was okay, but nothing seemed to help. I didn’t like the silence coming from his side of the car. But I decided to stop pushing it, and give him time to adjust. If I’m not upset with him, I don’t think he should be upset with himself. However, no one can control the way he feels except himself.
I know that Kip thinks I should be more upset. And I am…but at the situation, not at him. I don’t believe that he had any control over his actions. I saw his eyes, and he wasn’t behind them during the attack.
However, I will say that if it was anyone but Kip, I’d write them off. But Kip…I can’t walk away from him. I can’t even blame him or stay mad at him. It’s…weird. He bypasses all of my usual defenses.
In the moment, when he was latched onto my arm, I was terrified. But not necessarily of dying. More of Kip realizing what he did and hating himself. I can’t stand the thought of that. I’ve never been so invested in someone else’s emotions.
Anyway, that was yesterday. I gave him space after he dropped me off, thinking he needed it. Since then though, my texts have gone unanswered. The first two were left on read, but after that, the rest are still sitting on delivered.
Charlie: How’s it going?
Charlie: Are you okay, Kip?
Charlie: Please don’t be upset with yourself. It was a mistake.
Charlie: I know you’re busy beating yourself up, but it’s not necessary.
Charlie: We’ll just be more careful from now on. It was a stupid thing of me to do, and it was my fault.
I sigh, staring down at the texts, willing a response to come from Kip. I feel connected to the guy, especially after what we went through together yesterday. We were already on our way to becoming friends, maybe more, and then we forged a trauma bond on top of all that.
And it’s crazy but…I miss him. He has a way of making things fun and bright. I’ve been stuck alone inside of my gray little world, and he brought the first bit of color I’ve seen in a long time. And I know, okay, Iknow, that I should be more afraid of him, especially after last night. But I’m just…not. It goes against all reason, all sanity. I feel like my heart knows his in some strange way. Maybe it’s supernatural? I mean, who really knows how this shit works? I just found out yesterday that vampires are real. Maybe there are more supernatural things at play that I don’t know about. Isn’t it a thing in some supernatural lore that there are ‘fated mates’?
Okay, now I’m going off the rails a bit. I snort out loud. Fated mates? Really, brain? You start liking a guy, and you automatically jump to him being your fated mate? What is this, a romantasy novel? Please.
What the hell has gotten into me? I’m Mr. Moody Broody, Mr. Pessimistic. Nothing ever goes right for me, and life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Okay, so I had one really weirdly awesome day with Kip, followed by some intense trauma at the end of the night. That’s bound to fuck with anyone’s psyche. That’s all this is. It’s all the trauma ofalmost being drained by a vampire. A hot, muscly, sweet, goofy, vampire.
“Charlie!” Someone snaps their fingers in my ear.
“What?” I spin in my office chair.
“I’ve called your name like five times.” Nancy, the puker, says. Her arms are crossed and she’s snapping her gum in irritation.
“Sorry, I was focused.” I reply, my face heating a bit.
“Yeah, you look hard at work.” Nancy rolls her eyes. “Listen, my computer won’t turn on. Can you fix it?”
“Is it plugged in?” The amount of times that people don’t check to see if something is plugged in before coming to me is a lot more than zero. Ninety-nine percent of my job is plugging cords into outlets and hitting the power button. Not kidding.
“Doy, I checked before I walked over. I’m not stupid.”
You sure about that, Nance?
Guess what? It isn’t plugged in. “Really, Nancy? You didn’t actually check, did you?” I grumble under my breath as I crawl beneath her desk to plug in the PC tower.
It’s like magic, I plug in the power, hit the button, and ta-da! The computer boots up. Imagine that.
“It didn’t work for me when I did that.” Nancy pouts.
“Mhmm…well, it’s probably my I.T. magic that did the trick.” My tone is laced with sarcasm, but Nancy doesn’t seem to pick up on it.
Seriously, when I went into IT, I didn’t think it was going to be me hitting power buttons and plugging in cords. I thought I was going to be doing something more…intensive? Grand? Something that takes more than one singular brain cell?
Why do I still work here?
You know what, maybe I’m buying too much into this thing between Kip and me. We hung out once. Sure, we exchanged blood, and it seemed kinda fucking intimate, but maybe that was wishful thinking.
I’m brooding in bed, the TV on playing random classic horrormovies. I’m really trying not to pout, but my damn head and heart aren’t on the same page with this whole Kip-uation.
