Eyes Like Ice

Chapter 8: First Kiss

Much to my surprise, I got the day off after explaining everything to Miss Lumberton. I didn't think she was being sympathetic so much as she simply didn't have anything for me to do.

I walked out of the house at about ten o'clock in the morning with a sigh, having realized that I couldn't get myself to sit down and rest or anything. I needed to go out and do something. But...what was there to do?

The answer came to me in the form of a call of, "Raven!"

I looked away from the ground to find Riley waving at me from outside the gate at the front of the mansion, grinning happily.

"What are you doing here, Riley?" I asked as I opened the gate and walked out, closing it behind me.

"I just came to make sure you were okay. Besides..." The blond's smile transformed into a frown, his gaze dropping to the ground. "Dad's drinking again. I don't like being around him when he's drunk. Mom left because he's an alcoholic, but he just won't stop..."

My own lips mimicked his, surprising me. What...what is this? What's wrong with me? Why does he have the ability to make me feel so...sad?

I forced my stoic expression back into place when he looked up at me, smiling once again as he said, "I also wanted to ask you if you...uh..." He turned away once again, his cheeks reddening. "W-wanted to go get some breakfast with me..."

"Riley..." I said softly, trailing off and slowly cocking my head.

He looked at me once again, suddenly alarmed. "You do eat real food, too, right? Not just...um..."

"Blood?" I finished for him. He nodded, and I said, "Yes. Levellua eat real food. We don't necessarily need it, seeing as it does nothing for our bodies, but most of us do enjoy the occasional real meal."

"Does that mean you'll go get breakfast with me?!" Riley questioned excitedly.

I thought for a moment, only to end up nodding. "Yes."

The human grinned once again as he quickly took my hand and began to drag me up the street. "Good! Denny's has some really good French toast! You like Denny's, don't you?"

"I've never been there."

"Oh...Well, you should like it! They have great food!"

And so, we made our way to Denny's, where the greatest French toast in the world resides...according to one adorable little blond boy in Ohio.

"What?" I asked emotionlessly as I poured the contents of another five sugar packets into my iced tea, feeling Riley's dark eyes on me. We had been seated in a booth in the corner and were now awaiting our French toast, which the blond boy had pretty much forced me to order so I could try some.

"You're using an awful lot of sugar," was all he said, watching me pick up three more sugar packets and tear them open.

"I'm sorry," I apologized, being careful not to spill the grainy white substance as I poured some more of it into my tea. "I just..." I couldn't find a way to really explain it to him, so I put the empty packets down on the table and said simply, "Sugar makes me...kinda...feel good."

He took a sip of his Coke and cocked his head at me, confused. "It makes you feel good?"

I nodded slowly, now carefully putting the thirteen empty paper objects in a neat little pile just so I wouldn't have to look at Riley as I tried to explain my love of sugar better. "It makes me think of my mother," I told him softly. "When I was younger, before I had to leave, she always used to drink a cup of heavily sugared coffee every morning, even though it made her throw up afterward." I finished arranging the empty packets and turned my attention to the pile of sugar sitting on the bottom of my glass. "Our stomachs don't handle real food well. We can take the occasional drink or meal, but to consume anything but blood every single day simply isn't something we can take. That's why I never understood it. Drinking coffee only to throw it up later? It's absurd. Pointless." A single stir with my straw sent the ice in my glass clinking, the sugar rising in the liquid, only to fall back to the bottom when I stopped. "But when I asked her why she did it, she had an actual answer. 'It helps me forget about the pain,' she told me. 'It helps me stop thinking about the future, the past...your father. The sugar is incredibly soothing for some reason. Remember that.' It's only soothing for me because of her, so I don't really know why it had such an effect on her."