The Taste of You

When I finished the story, Dr. Parrish said, "You miss them."

"I miss Keats," I said, confused.

"Will, too. You miss seeing him all the time, miss him coming to your rescue."

"Well, sure," I said. "Yeah. I miss Will."

"And since he's not here to help, you're doing everything yourself. You're handling all the problems you've never had to handle before, and more because you have this new responsibility."

"Point, Parrish?"

"No point," he said smiling. "Just a thought. I don't think you're good for Humphrey. You know that. But I think he's good for you. And Will's absence is good for you, too. You were alone at first, as a vampire, and you adjusted. In fact, you adjusted far more efficiently than the other vampires you've mentioned and, I suspect, far faster than any of the vampires you know. But you don't depend on yourself when there are other people around. That's not good."

"I'm depending on you," I countered, but silently, I was applauding him for saying "vampire" without flinching.

"How?" he asked.

"Well, I…talk to you…."

Dr. Parrish grinned. "You talk to me. If that helps you, I'm glad. But the big events in your life, the big challenges—you turn to Keats and Will, and they face them for you."

I stared at him, waiting for him to continue, or waiting for him to make me angry enough to hurt him.

"Now you have this challenge," he said. "Maybe the timing is perfect. This time, you have to go it alone."

The fountain chuckled.

I said, "Would you be offended if I thought you were full of shit?"

Dr. Parrish sighed. "Never mind. I should write things like that down and keep my spoken comments to 'mmhm' and 'very interesting.'"

"I think that would be best."

"See you Thursday?" he said.

"Of course."

I left.

Dr. Parrish had stomped on my cherry-scented buzz. Had I truly been relying on Keats and Will for everything? I couldn't think of a single time when something had gone wrong and I hadn't turned to them, but was I not supposed to? Was I supposed to slog through it all on my own just to know that I could?

Moronic. Yet, I had called Will as soon as I'd taken Humphrey from Lydia and Kevin's apartment. And I'd called him and went to his apartment dozens of times since then, hoping he would be around to help, if only to watch Humphrey for an hour so I could do something normal like take a bath alone or hunt. Every time he wasn't there, I was more ticked at him for not being there because I needed him. But I should've been worried that he was hurt or that something had happened. Those concerns had drifted in and out of my mind, but they had only swirled around the rock in my head that was shaped like needing him because I couldn't do this alone.

And naming those swirling concerns, and realizing that I'd again left my cell phone on the kitchen counter, I headed home in a rush.

Then I remembered the Zip-lock bags in my pocket. Damn. I hunted quickly, not pausing for one sip of fresh blood. I piled the blood bags and the cash from the woman's wallet into the canvas bag, which had also been folded and stuffed in my pocket, then I took a taxi to the apartment.

Buildings blurred past.

What would I do without Will? Forget it. That was a dumb question.

I rushed Namid out of the house, telling her that I wished I could chat, but I had some important calls to make.

She looked as suspicious as I knew she must be, but I didn't care. I closed the door when she was an inch outside.

Humphrey sat on his blanket, playing with his toes. I grabbed my cell phone, the phone book, and my little yellow address book and went to sit with Humphrey on the floor.

Will's cell number still reached no one.

Calling all the local hospitals would be a waste of time, so I began by calling all the morgues. Then police stations, fire stations, then the hospitals, just to be sure. Then the U. S. consulates in Will's twelve favorite countries.

I would've called everyone he knew, but I only had one phone number from my days in Will's gang. I don't know why I hadn't kept up with any of the other numbers. Maybe there was a paper-hungry brownie that lived behind my refrigerator, and just in case there was, I cursed him for leaving me this phone number, and no others. But it was probably just a mistake. When I had been ripping pages out of my yellow address book after I lost Keats, I'd probably just missed this one. If I had figured out how to put numbers into my phone instead of just memorizing the ones I used most often, I probably would've thrown the address book away, then this whole crushing decision of whether or not to dial the number I was staring at would never have to be made.

I gave a frustrated growl, and Humphrey's head snapped to face me, a little whine escaping his tiny mouth.

"Sorry," I said in a cheery voice. "How about a nap?"

I scooped Humphrey up and put him in his crib with Señor Elephant, told them both to be very quiet, and stood in the kitchen with my head against the freezer while I called Lydia, Humphrey's worst foster mother.

She cackled into the phone before she said hello. Music and voices filled the background.

"Hi, it's Annie," I said. "Have—"

"Who?" she shouted

"Annie," I shouted back, knowing that this was ridiculous and pointless and potentially painful. "Have you seen Will?" I added.

"Annie?" she said, and I could hear her spitting my name and knew that I couldn't believe anything she said. I would be a demon to her forever.

I thought about hanging up, but I stood there instead, my phone compressed to the side of my head, the front of my head rhythmically pounding the freezer door.

"Yeah, he's here," she said with a giggle. "Close enough to lick."

I hung up. Then I wondered what to do next.

Then I realized that I could do nothing.