"You weren't worried that I might kill you?" Esther asked.
"I hoped you wouldn't." AnnMarie said. "And if you did, then... oh well."
-‐------------------------------‐-------------------------
Esther LaGrange never stays in one place too long...
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"Do you ever call me just to chat? Why does it always have to be to complain about something?" Adam said. "It's like you're never in a good mood."
"Please, don't start with me." Esther said. "I know if there's two things you love it's a good bitch session and gossip."
"Hm. whatever." Adam said. "What were you complaining about this time?"
Esther sighed, knowing good and well she was about to be intensely mocked for the next quarter of an hour or so.
"The girl I'm staying with. It's— well— she kissed me a few nights ago and— well, I—"
There was a long stretch of silence over the line, before Adam laughed, loudly and with purpose. Esther felt herself begin to bristle with anger.
"Really? That's what you're upset about? Good God, Esther. I never would have dug you out of the ground if I'd have known you'd spend the next century moping around and being a stick in the mud."
Esther sighed, rubbing her temple as though she had a headache, though there wasn't any pain.
"Remind me why I bother asking you for advice?"
Adam sighed into the phone.
"Listen, as your friend, can I be honest with you?" He said.
"You're going to say whatever it is no matter my answer, so go ahead." Esther said.
"You clearly crave companionship, but you push everyone away. You're punishing yourself, Esther. It's why you're never happy. You constantly seek out these women to feed from, just start to get just close enough to feel like you have a friend, and turn around and disappear."
"I can't exactly be friends with them. They're human. I'll hurt them." Esther argued. "You're just reading too much into it."
"You do it to me too." Adam said. "And I'm a vampire just as much as you."
Esther made a noise of disgust into the phone.
"You're not a better person because you don't want to be." Adam said. "You think your happiness is out of your control, but it's not. You do this to yourself."
"I don't need anyone." She snapped. "I'm fine on my own."
"Then why do you try and find people to live with while you travel? Why not just sleep in alleyways and attack random people who pass by?"
Esther shook her head. "Stop it."
"It's because you do need other people, and you know that." He said.
