Vampire Blood

Growing Pains

"Sure."

"Why and when did you get that tattoo?" He traced his cold fingers along the short staff with a snake in my forearm.

"Those are two questions but I'll allow it." I rolled my sleeve so he could appreciate it better. "Do you know what this is?"

"Is the thingy people always use on the logos of anything medicine related." He replied and I let out a chuckle.

"Well you're not entirely wrong, this is the rod of Asclepius, the greek God of healing or something, I got it when I was accepted at nursing school." I explained and Lewis made an understanding noise.

"I thought it had two snakes and wings."

"That's the caduceus staff, that one is more commonly used in the pharmacy industry, something about business, I don't know, it's a small difference." I paused to grab my soda and drink, my mouth was dry. "Apollo gave Hermes the caduceus and to Asclepius the rod of Asclepius, don't know why he didn't think of a more creative name." He got his knees to his chest and rested his face on them.

"Got it." He nodded before asking another question. "Why did you decide to become a nurse and not a doctor?" Maybe I should've put a limit to his questions. "If you want to tell, of course, you don't have to." He took my silence for what it meant, hesitation.

"It's, well, it's fine, I'll tell you." I took a deep breath before continuing. "I was bullied a lot in highschool."

"You? Big beefy Parrish? I can't imagine someone making fun of you" He laughed.

"Shut up, I wasn't 'big beefy Parrish' back then." I got up and started picking up the trash from the table.

"What were you even bullied for? Being gay?" Lewis grabbed his burrito and took a bite.

"No, who gets bullied for being gay nowadays?"

"It wasn't exactly yesterday but point taken, what was it then?" He took another bite and looked at me expectantly.

"Someone found out my mom was an addict and overdosed." I simply said and waited.

He choked on his burrito, it was alway funny catching people off guard with that information about my life. I handed him his coke so he didn't die, he took a big sip before speaking again.

"Sorry." He coughed and took another sip.

"You good now?" I asked, cracking up.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, I didn't-" He started apologizing and I cut him off.

"It's fine, you don't have to apologize for something you didn't know about and that wasn't your fault." I got up, taking the trash to the kitchen bin.

"Still, that sounds awful, I'm sorry." His voice was so sincere that I had to pause for a minute before turning back because my eyes teared a little.

"Anyway." I rubbed my face and kept talking like nothing happened. "Someone figured that out and made it his life mission to make sure everyone in school did too." I got back to the couch and sat down. "They made my life hell after that, it wasn't pretty, sometimes they would beat me up for no reason and I was everyone's doormat."

"And you never told anyone?" Lewis had placed his food down again, I was certain that he was not gonna finish that by this point.

"Not really, well I did tell a teacher once but that only made it worse and I wasn't exactly close with my that at the time, it was complicated." I leaned my head back and rubbed my face before continuing, this was the hard part. "One day it all became too much and I found my dad's sleeping pills." It became hard for me to swallow so I decided details were not necessary. "I ended up in the ER and what do you know? Maggie was my nurse."