9 Truths (and Much Yearning.)

By Tom Chatterton.

1. She is not a vampire.

Her skin is the colour of apple juice, the colour of honeyed biscuits. Her hair is a pale blonde, bleached by the sun she loves so much. She doesn't mind garlic.

"It's healthy."

She is somewhat delicate, and compassionate, and full of mistakes as well. She is coldhearted, she is ruthless, she is perfect.

She is all too human.

2. She is not a witch.

I do what I do for her because I love her. And if that is taking a bee sting for her, if that is digging around for her lost ring, if that is running a mile to retrieve her hat from the wind, so be it. She is beautiful at her age (thirty two) because she just is. There is no plastic, no surgery, not even makeup, and no magic either.

(Actually, maybe she is a witch. I guess it would explain a lot.)

3. She is not in love with me.

Yes, I am her butler (of sorts). But no one who sees her take millilitres of my blood knows the reason why. She doesn't drink it to keep her young (I'm younger than her, but five years isn't going to help any, doesn't need to help any) and she doesn't take it for some potion, or painting, or whatever.

She takes it for the roses.

4. I am jealous of a dead man.

But how can I not be? He has her heart, he has her everything. He has me, even. The roses he left her were from a whole other letter of Zed, yes, but even they cannot grow without sacrifice.

(By the way, that's me.)

5. I am not allowed near the roses.

When she dilutes the blood in her watering can, puts on her best dress and steps out to the garden, I cannot do anything but look from a distance. She doesn't want me near the roses. She doesn't want me near what's left of him. To her, it is bad enough that she has to use me for the roses to survive: she would have used her blood if she could, but it won't work.

(Of course, she doesn't say any of this. But I know it. But I love her.)

6. I am not a good cook.

I can clean, I can run, I can lift, shift, carry, mend, build, I can –

I can't cook, but I don't really mind.

When she just smiles at my kind of runny omelet, and takes over the element for me, I can almost pretend that she loves me, and she can almost pretend I was him.

(He couldn't cook either.)

7. We don't sleep in the same bedroom.

We don't sleep together. In any form. I am not his replacement. I am myself.

(We can never sleep together. In any form. I can never be his replacement. I am too me.)

8. We will not be buried near each other.

I will be in my family plot. And she will be scattered all over another letter of Zed, because that was where he was last seen.

She wants to be with him, especially in death.

9. We are doomed together.

I wonder how this all started. Why is it only her? Why can it not be someone else?

When will this end? Why is it only him? Why can't it be me?

We can't go on without the other. But she (and her love, her love for him) is making me sad sad sad and I hate to be selfish but I love her so much. I can't leave her.

And for her, well, who else in the world would do this?

A/N: And there is the end. This takes place in a world (of sorts) called Zed. I'm not very adept at writing romance, but for experiment's sake, there it was. (There it wasn't.)

Thank you for reading this, and please do not repost this anywhere else. If you spot any grammatical or spelling errors, please leave a review or message so I can change it.