sixties. Or the seventies, ugh!" he shuddered. "The eighties were bearable."
"Are you ever going to tell me how old you are?!" I yelled.
"Does it matter much?" His smile, to my relief, remained unclouded.
"No, but I still wonder..." I grimaced. "Besides, it's kind of.. I don't know... it's kind of cool to be with an older man."
"I wonder if it will upset you," he reflected to himself, "to be with a man... this old..." He gazed into the sun. The minutes passed until he sighed and looked into my eyes, seeming to forget the road completely for a time. Whatever he saw there must have encouraged him. He looked into the sun again—the light of the setting orb glittered off his skin in ruby-tinged sparkles, refracting back into my eyes which smoldered only for him—and spoke.
"I was born in Chicago in 1893," he said, with a slight Midwestern twinge. He paused and glanced at me from the corner of his eye. My face was carefully unsurprised, patient for the rest. He smiled a tiny, encouraged smile and continued. "Carlisle found me in a hospital in the summer of 1910. I was seventeen, and dying of Tuberculosis."
He heard my intake of breath, though it was barely audible to my own ears. He looked down into my eyes again.
"I don't remember it well—it was very long time ago, and human memories fade." He got lost in his own thoughts before he went on. "I do remember how it felt, when Carlisle saved me. It's not an easy thing, not something you can forget."

288

Chapter 14

←

→

main contents contact