Sunrise at Sunset (10 page)

He zipped his slightly worn leather jacket halfway up to keep out the chill of a gentle breeze and noted with a quick glance that her black leather jacket was wide open. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked.

“Me?” she replied with surprise. “No, not at all. I like the cool evening breeze.”

“Warm natured?” he asked with upraised brows.

She smiled pleasantly back at him as they walked. “Something like that.” Then she amended, “More like cold-tolerant, really.”

He found it to be an unusual quality in a woman. Most of the women he had known or dated would have complained they were chilled to the bone after walking outside for just a few minutes on such a late fall evening. But he already realized that Katrina was no ordinary woman. That appealed to him in so many ways, actually. For years, he pursued dating in a traditional manner, but always somehow managed to select the wrong type of person in his endeavors. Meeting Katrina was the first time that a woman took the initiative to pursue him, and it was an appealing quality for him.

Both of them remained relatively quiet for a time as they each pondered their own thoughts and feelings, albeit on entire different lines of thought.

“Would you like to sit down?” she finally broke the silence in a resolute voice, having made her decision on how to proceed.

“Sure,” he replied suspiciously as he broke from his own silent reverie. He noticed the more serious tone in her voice, which momentarily concerned him.

She guided him to the next park bench, where they both perched tentatively on the edge of the seat so they faced each other. She reached out to take his right hand between both of her own, appreciating how his hand felt soft and warm. He had the hands of an artist, a gentle soul. It made her smile warmly at him. However, Katrina noted some concern in his eyes. Or was it suspicion?
Are his childhood memories beginning to return?
She pushed the thought from her mind as she considered the topic at hand.

“Caleb, I think honesty is so important between two people, and there’s something I want to tell you,” she began with a resolute expression, her green eyes catching his pale blue ones intently.

“Yes?” he asked after locking eyes with her gaze.

Her hands felt soft around his, but they had grasped his hand tighter after her last statement.
Is she bored with me
? he wondered.
Or worse, maybe she doesn’t feel the same connection to me that I’m feeling for her
.

“I’ve had a number of relationships in my time,” she began awkwardly.
In my time
, she thought ironically.
If he only knew
.
But then, perhaps in a few minutes he will
.

Oh no
, Caleb thought,
maybe she senses something in me that reminded her of a previously failed relationship
. His hand flinched between hers.

She quickly detected his flinch and asked with concern, “Is something the matter?”

“Me? Not at all,” he replied a little too quickly.

She narrowed her eyes at him slightly before reverting to a more relaxed expression. “Relationships are hard for me. It’s hard for people to accept me as I am,” she continued carefully.

“Okay,” he nodded.
Oh great
, he thought,
she’s going to tell me she’s a lesbian
.

“You see, I’m not like most people you know,” Katrina continued.

He raised his eyebrows.

She immediately realized that things weren’t proceeding like she’d hoped. She was stalling, and it was apparent he was becoming confused. The palm of his hand had already started to perspire a little between hers.

“For example, I’m not a day person at all,” she stated matter-of-factly. “In fact, I can’t be in sunlight. You might say my sunrise begins at sunset.”

His eyes widened slightly.
Okay
, he thought,
she has a disease that keeps people from being in sunshine?
“Oh, I saw something about that on a Discovery Channel program about a year ago,” he offered encouragingly. “It’s not as uncommon as you might think, really.”
It might help explain why we’re were never able to get together during the daytime
, he thought with some relief.

Katrina arched one eyebrow and shook her head. “No, you don’t understand,” she tried to correct him. “Those people have a disease. I don’t have a disease. It just hurts me to be around strong ultraviolet radiation.”

“Um, okay,” he replied with a single nod and a deepening frown.
UV radiation sensitivity
, he contemplated wildly.

“It’s the result of a genetic mutation,” she explained. “Like a medical treatment gone wrong?” he inquired with an expression of disbelief.

“No, it wasn’t a medical treatment. It’s…” she tried to continue.

“Government experiment?” he interrupted.

She frowned at him and corrected, “This has nothing to do with the government.”
Thank goodness
, she thought to herself as an afterthought. Her kind definitely tried to keep governments from being involved, which would probably be disastrous, at best.

Her clarification seemed to stump him for a moment, but she could tell that his thoughts were already racing. She had no way of knowing that he doubted her sanity at that moment.

“Okay,” he conceded politely. “Anything else?”

“I don’t like to eat most normal human foods,” Katrina added carefully.

Caleb winced.
What the hell
? he wondered wildly.
Normal human foods?
It was turning into a conversation from hell for him.
Well, she does normally order salads when we go to restaurants,
he recalled. “So, you’re a vegetarian?” he asked hopefully as he started to pull his hand from between hers.

Uh-oh
, Katrina thought as she allowed him to withdraw his hand. She hadn’t realized that she had been holding her breath, and she exhaled a heavy sigh. “I’m what society would best describe as a vampire,” she said finally.

Caleb actually laughed out loud once, then seemed suddenly ashamed, and quickly clasped one hand quickly over his mouth.
And I thought Melanie was half-crazed
, he mused darkly.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologized. “You just sounded so...”

“Serious?” she offered helpfully.

“Um, no,” he corrected without actually using the word “crazy.”

“I’m quite serious,” she insisted evenly.

“It’s just that vampires aren’t real, Katrina,” he added with a growing sardonic grin. “I mean, I love vampire horror films as much as the next guy.”

His tone sounded somewhat condescending, and she resented his speaking to her like some superstitious child. “Oh, but we are real, Caleb,” Katrina retorted heatedly as her eyes glowed green in the dim light of the lamp.

Caleb jolted slightly in surprise and demanded, “How did you just do that?”

Something dark stirred in his memory for just a split second, and it sent a chill up his spine. Then it was gone, like some fleeting flash from the past.

Katrina took a deep breath to relax and regained her composure as her eyes returned to their normal green hue. She didn’t want to upset him further and risk continued misunderstanding.
Have I just made a terrible mistake?
she wondered.

“Caleb, it’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” she continued gently.

Had the light from the nearby lamp merely caused an optical illusion? he wondered.
And yet, why did the sudden change in her eyes seem somehow strangely familiar to me?

He suddenly felt edgy and irritated that the evening had taken such a negative turn. Mostly he was disappointed by it all. He’ had hoped their connection was the beginning of something special. Now it just seemed that Katrina was just another of society’s misguided souls suffering from some sort of mental illness. He sighed, and she looked into his eyes curiously.

“Caleb?” she asked tentatively and reached out to grasp his hand in hers again.

But he pulled back from her outreached hand with a jerk and rose to stand from where he sat next to her. “I’m very sorry, Katrina, but I think I better go,” he said nervously.

She sat where she was but pleaded gently, “Caleb, please sit back down so we can discuss this.”

He shook his head and turned to depart in the direction from which they came. “I’ll call you, Katrina,” he added almost as an afterthought, but it was an empty comment that he immediately knew he didn’t mean.

He felt about as disappointed as he could recall in his adult life. Katrina was supposed to have been someone special to him. He’d been falling in love with her, after all. Now everything felt like it was melting away in a matter of minutes. The help she needed was far beyond his ability to cope with, and at that moment he felt he just needed to leave so he could sort out what just transpired between them.

“Caleb,” she called as she watched him walk away, his pace quickening after he briefly glanced back over his shoulder at her. “No,” she whispered angrily. “Not like this.”

She was determined not to let him depart on such bad terms. At the same time, she silently berated herself for not having taken a better tack with him on the subject. It had been so many years since she’d confided her secret with someone she thought she could trust. She’d obviously lost her touch completely. In a split second, Katrina rose from the bench more quickly than any human could and raced ahead of him in a blur of motion.

Caleb was staring down at the sidewalk as he walked, but he thought he heard something swish by him in a dark blur to his right. He glanced up and saw Katrina standing in front of him with her arms folded across her chest. He frowned, glanced back to the empty park bench down the path, and looked back at her. His eyes narrowed slightly.

“How did --” he started to ask.

“Please, Caleb,” she began.

He shook his head and turned to walk in the opposite direction. “Goodnight, Katrina,” he said as he walked away. This time, he kept his face upwards but realized he was going in the wrong direction. He rolled his eyes upwards and muttered, “Crap.”

Suddenly she appeared before him seemingly out of nowhere. “You’re going the wrong direction, Caleb,” she offered gently.

His eyes widened with complete surprise, and he jumped slightly as he realized that he hadn’t even heard her footsteps before she appeared before him. He backed away from her quickly, and this time he kept his eyes on her as he withdrew.

Katrina seemed to stay where she was, and he turned to walk quickly away from her. Only this time his pulse was quickening and his nerves felt deeply unsettled.
What the hell?

She heard his heart racing even from the distance between them and called after him, “Caleb, please stop.”

He began running down the path and glanced over his shoulder to see if she were still there, but she was already gone. He quickly jerked his head forward and saw her waiting with her arms crossed in front of her again. Only this time, her eyes were burning with a bright green illumination.

Abruptly, something sharp triggered from deep in his memory. His eyes widened as he stared back into her eyes. An intense shock went through his body, hammering at his chest and burning in his stomach. He didn’t understand where it came from or why, but he knew immediately what it was: sheer terror. His heart felt as if it was going to burst from his chest. Something visceral from his distant memories yelled,
Run!

Katrina saw the nearly simultaneous transformation in his eyes and heard his heart suddenly erupt in thundering beats. Confusion ran through her as she tried to gauge what just happened to him.

Caleb spun to his right and sprinted perpendicular to the sidewalk path and into the nearby trees. Terror gripped him like a claw tearing simultaneously into his mind and heart. All that he knew was that he needed to escape. He picked up speed and dashed through the trees, thinking he could elude her somehow.

She watched him divert from the path in a blaze of sudden speed as her mind raced for an answer to what was happening to him. She hastily recalled something about the topography of the area that forced a sense of dread through her stomach and swiftly began to pursue him while shouting, “Caleb, stop! There’s a ravine!”

Caleb was unknowingly heading towards the deep drop-off located beyond the trees just past the manicured portion of the park. It fell off for about forty feet from the ground with a number of large rocks interspersed among the low brush all the way to the bottom.

He thought he heard Katrina calling to him again, but he kept running and maintained an impressive speed as he sprinted across the grass and between the tree trunks. Suddenly, the grass was taller and small bushes appeared, but he kept sprinting blindly into the darkness. He was winded, but still making good time and glanced over his shoulder to see if she were pursuing him. Suddenly, there was emptiness under his right foot, and he felt himself tilting into open air.