Page 88 of So Thirsty

“It’s survival.”

“It’s murder.”

“Not always,” he says. “We’re of a different mind, the rest of us. We come from another time. Lived through plagues. Fought in wars. Death is nothing to us.”

“I’m not talking about death. I’m talking about killing.”

“You didn’t kill anyone tonight, did you?”

“I was involved.”

“To exist is to participate in destruction.”

“You’re full of shit!” I say, so infuriated by the conversation that I scoop some snow off the bridge and throw it at him.

It lands at his feet. He’s amused by it. He does his goofy grin.

“Don’t,” I say. I turn to continue crossing the bridge, but there’s ice under the snow, and I lose my footing and fall, landing hard on my ass. The embarrassment and the frustration are too much. I lie back in the snow, roll around so I’m covered in it. I want to bury myself. I want to disappear.

“Am I allowed to come onto the bridge?”

“No!”

“Not even if I answer a riddle?”

“Hey,” I say, sitting up and looking back. He’s at the other end of the bridge. He lowers himself to the ground, stretches his legs out, props himself up on his arms.

“What if I dared you to let me cross the bridge?” he asks.

“I’m not playing games with you. It didn’t end well for me last time.”

“It didn’t?” he asks, giving me his fox grin.

“I wish I never went to that house,” I say, unconvincingly. “I wish we did anything else that night.”

I’m surprised by how little I mean it. Ashamed, and yet maybe—maybe —exhilarated.

He hangs his head. “Another regret?”

“If you could be…be normal again, would you?”

“No,” he answers, too fast. “I’ve been this way for so long, I’ve forgotten how to be any other way. It’s this or nothing.”

“Nothing?”

He draws a finger across his neck.

“Is that possible?”

“There are ways,” he says. “But I told you, I am a coward. There have been times when I have wished for the forever sleep, the release of death. Not now. Not when things have just gotten interesting.”

“What’s interesting?”

“You.”

“Me?” I can’t help it; I laugh. “You just met me! Two nights ago. Maybe. Three? I don’t know.”

It feels like another life. I guess it was.