Eternity and a Year by Ranae Rose

covered the wound with a bandage. When the woman had finished and given her care instructions, Carrie rose stiffly from the table and made her way towards the desk near the lobby, still numb.
    The night air was cool and crisp outside the hospital. Carrie stood on the sidewalk in the light that poured through the tall, glass doors and windows, waiting for the cab she had called. She sighed. Her adventures of the day had added up to be quite expensive, and her modest income as Anne’s retail assistant left little room to accommodate such anomalies. She had charged the expense of her trip to the hospital to one of her already overburdened credit cards. She and Brendan had lived comfortably together before his disappearance, but now… She surprised herself by chuckling at the thought of a vampire trying to hold down a regular job.
    The yellow taxi she’d called rolled up to the kerb, and she settled gingerly into the back seat as she gave the driver her address. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. Had Brendan kept his promise? She tried not to imagine the vampiress who had converted him entering his dark, dusty lair as the ambulance’s lights faded into the night. A wave of panic enveloped her anyway as a terrible scene of reunion played out before her mind’s eye, and nausea washed through her again. She tried to bow her head towards her knees, but a stabbing pain and an uncomfortable tightness in her lower back prevented it. She rested her head against the cold window instead and tried to think of anything other than what the vampiress might try to do if she found Brendan again.
    Carrie’s heart leapt in nervous excitement when her apartment finally came into view. She could see the living room light was on inside, and she knew it hadn’t been when she’d left. She paid the cabdriver with the last of her cash and hurried down the walkway to her unit.
    Brendan met her at the door. “How was it? Are you all right?” He pulled her into a hug, careful not to squeeze below her shoulders.
    “I’m fine,” Carrie replied. “The numbing was the worst part. I got twenty-four stitches.”
    Brendan winced. “I’m sorry, baby.”
    “It’s all right. I have to say, I’m actually kind of relieved to know that’s how you would have acted if she’d shown up there.”
    Brendan stiffened. “I hope you didn’t think I wanted anything to do with her. I don’t.”
    “I know.” She slid her arms beneath his and wrapped them around his waist. The pain and expense of her injury were worth knowing for sure, she thought privately. She never would have confessed that to Brendan—it would have hurt him to know his word hadn’t reassured her completely. A little over a year ago, it would have. But things had changed, and her mind was still reeling with revelations and their painful consequences, leaving her trapped in an emotional purgatory.
    “Are you hungry?” Brendan asked. “You haven’t been home all day, and you lost a lot of blood.”
    “Yeah,” Carrie replied. “I guess I am pretty hungry.” It felt good to have such a simple, ordinary need to compete with the many more complex emotional wants and demands that had grown tangled in her mind.
    “Let me make you something.” He released her and hurried to the fridge. “Uh,” he called from the kitchen a minute later, “there doesn’t really seem to be anything to make.” The sound of cupboard doors opening and closing filled the air.
    She sighed. “I’m out of pretty much everything. I need to go grocery shopping.”
    “It’s only Monday,” he said. “You don’t get paid until Friday. Do you have any money?”
    Carrie sighed again and settled carefully onto the couch. “No.” So much for not tipping him off to her financial troubles.
    Brendan crossed the distance between the kitchen and living room in a few strides and sat on the couch beside her. Pity filled his eyes, and it made her feel pathetic.
    “It’s not much,” he said, digging into his