Chapter 35: Genie 2.0

Tennan and I were eating breakfast. The burnt waffles tasted horrific. Poor Emerald loved to cook, but her skills in the kitchen were terrible. When she came up to me ecstatic that she had made food for me, I didn't want to discourage her from trying again. I had slathered them in syrup, but even that didn't really help much.

"Tennan, have you ever been in love?"

"Yes, once, but-"

He paused for a minute before speaking again. "I lost her."

"I'm sorry. Who was she?"

"Many years ago, before you were born, I had been assigned to be a protector to another young woman from your family."

"Before I was born? How old are you?"

Tennan laughed, before replying, "113."

I almost choked on my food. "Holy berry! You look... amazing."

"Ha-ha. One of the perks of being a vampire. I age much slower than humans. This woman was much like you, strong willed, and stubborn. She hit on me whenever she wasn't pregnant. One night I gave in to her. We became a couple for a little while. A few weeks later, I felt terrible. I was in constant pain. My muscles ached all the time. I felt like I was being ripped apart from the inside. Since the hospitals in your world don't know anything about vampire anatomy, I went back to my world and had my doctor give me a checkup."

"He found out that my blood was slowly turning to poison. Only the blackest of magic could have done that. The poison levels were still low at 35% when I went to the doctor, so I can only imagine how painful anything higher than that would have felt like. I stayed in the hospital for a while, hooked up to IVs that took the poison out of my system. Then I had a blood transfusion to replace what was lost. After I was cured, I went back to her house. A few days later, the pain returned, and I was in the hospital again."

"What was causing your illness?"

"She was."

"My father declared my protection job over, and I was never to go to her again. Once I stopped seeing her, the illness never came back. My father sent another vampire out to do what I couldn't, but he was too late. He found her on the train tracks. She had parked her car on the railroad crossing."

"Tennan, I'm so sorry."

"It's ok. Time has healed me and opened my eyes to the importance of my job here. I will not lose you as well."

I got up and walked away, feeling sad again. I felt so sad for him and myself at the same time. Tennan followed me. He grabbed my shoulders and looked at me.

"Hey, Sicily. What's wrong?"

"I'm afraid I'm going to screw it up. I've managed to lose two people already. I know you're strong, but I'm scared I'll involuntarily hurt you... or get you killed. It's so powerful when it comes over me."

"Shh.. it's okay. My father is keeping a close watch over me since the incident before. He won't let me get killed. I know this is hard, but you have to keep fighting. You'll find your happy ending someday."

He rubbed my back softly. "Tennan, you are great," I mumbled into his shoulder. I couldn't say the words that held my true feelings, which were that I loved him. Sometimes I wonder how it's possible to love so many people. Maybe it's the hopeless romantic in me, or maybe I misinterpret every strong attraction as love. That string of one night stands I had before Matt made me so unhappy. I considered myself lucky that I'd been able to love at all. I don't even know if I truly loved Matt, or if I was just happy that he had stayed in my life for more than fifteen minutes.

I went for a walk after bringing Heath home from the hospital. I came upon a junkyard. There were piles of discarded things everywhere, some tires, lots of pieces of metal, and even some sparkly gems. I decided to dig through one of the piles to see if I could find anything interesting. I found a lot of scrap metal, but I also found a genie lamp. It was dusty. I couldn't tell how long it had been in there. Why would someone throw this away? Maybe because it was broken? I used my shirt to dust off the lamp, curious if it still worked. Some sparkles came out of the end of it, and then a puff of smoke. A green haired genie appeared in front of me.

"AAH!" He collected himself, stretching his arms above his head. He was very built. I wondered how he could fit all those muscles in that tiny lamp. The smoke and sparkles cleared, and he stood in front of me with a cute smile. His green eyes were surrounded by a layer of eyeliner. He was really handsome.

"Thank you for letting me out of there. You get three wishes, my mistress."