My Ice Prince

– No, I wasn't asleep. So, how was your time?

– I had a great time! You should definitely come with me next time! I took off my piercing, see?

I looked at her nose: indeed, the earring was gone, but there was a small but rather repulsive hole. I felt uncomfortable, so I looked away.

– Mary, I wanted to say… Don't swear… My bike was stolen» I said in an apologetic tone.

Mary giggled, which surprised me: our bicycle was stolen and she was laughing!

– It's not a big deal! I've had it stolen six times, and that's because it doesn't have a lock on it! – she said cheerfully. – Don't be upset! Tomorrow we'll go to the police and report it.

– I've already reported it» I said, feeling proud of what I'd done.

– All the more reason to report it. Oxford is a city of bicycles, and they go missing a lot, but they're always found. You left them a phone number, didn't you?

– Yes, and the address too… And I wondered why the policeman was smiling like that! – I laughed: when I gave him my address, he looked at me with a smile. He must have taken this particular bicycle theft report more than once.

–Do you mind if I borrow the bathroom for a couple of hours? – Mary asked, pulling a large fluffy towel out of the cupboard.

– No, of course not. I'm going to go to bed. – I got to my feet. – Just give me your phone number, just in case.

– Okay, write it down.

Mary dictated her number to me and I wrote it down on my smartphone.

Mary started going through the nightstand.

– Where the hell is that gel? Did I forget it in Scotland? Misha, can I borrow yours?

I was a bit taken aback, but I brought her my shower gel.

«I must make sure I drink blood tonight when Mary's asleep, it's the third day». – I thought as I locked myself in my bedroom.

Suddenly Mary's voice came from outside the door:

– «Misha, open up! I'll switch on the fireplace for you, or you'll freeze at night: it's terribly cold outside!

I opened the door, Mary came in, switched on the fireplace, wished me good night and left. A minute later I heard the sound of water in the bathtub. So as not to hear Mary taking a water bath, I put my headphones in my ears, opened my laptop, turned on some music, and logged onto social media to chat with some of my own. Only Maria was online, and I was happy to lie to her: that I lived alone, that I didn't talk to anyone, that I was considered a bitch and an arrogant girl, and that people were tedious and I had no desire to communicate with them. I lied, because I couldn't tell her the truth lest she rush over and take me back under her parents' wing.

At four o'clock in the morning, I switched off the music and the laptop, listened and heard Mary's steady breathing: she was asleep. So I went to the kitchen, silently, without switching on the light, took one of the juice pouches out of the fridge, poured the blood into a glass and began to drink it slowly, savouring it, feeling the pleasure spilling over my body, filling my mind with a light fog. I drank all two litres of blood, crumpled the empty bag into a small ball, threw it in the bin, washed the glass thoroughly, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and, feeling a frantic rush of energy and a pleasant feeling of satiety in my body, filled the bathtub with water and lay in it for several hours.

At six o'clock in the morning I went for a run, got dressed, even put on a warm jumper so as not to look strange, and went in to Mary's room, for she had said she would run with me.

Mary was asleep, stretched out almost across the bed with her hands behind her head. She was breathing heavily in her sleep. I shook her lightly by the shoulder.

– Mary, wake up» I said quietly, but she mumbled unhappily and turned on her other side. – Are you going for a run? – I shook her again, harder.

Mary opened her eyes, turned to me, and looked at me with a sleepy, disgruntled look.

– Oh, is that you? What's the matter? – She asked in a husky voice.

– I'm going for a run. Are you coming with me? – I asked.

– Jogging? Mm-hmm. What time is it?

– Six o'clock in the morning.

– Six? It's so early… I probably won't go with you today. I'll go tomorrow. No offence, okay? – She rubbed her closed eyes with her fingers.

«I knew it! Just words!» – I disliked her, I thought.

– All right, sleep! – I said grudgingly.

– Thank you. I owe you breakfast» Mary mumbled and rolled over onto her other side.

Why did I trust her to run with me? Who could I trust? A person!

I put on my sneakers, stuck my headphones in my ears, turned on some music, and ran happily for two hours, facing the scattered sunshine. When I got home, Mary was still asleep.

On Friday we went to Auntie Mel's, picked up our order, walked around town, and Mary showed me around my college. The last few days had been so busy that I even began to forget that I was alone in a strange city, among people, and began to feel the freedom that first pressed on me and then began to choke me with happiness. But it was not my merit – Mary helped me in many ways to adapt to the new world around me, and most importantly, living and communicating with her, I slowly began to understand how the human body works, how people live, what they want, and how to communicate with them.

Mary behaved as easily and naturally as if we'd known each other for a hundred years, and at first it surprised me-I wasn't used to such frank conversations and stories about other people's private lives-but then she began to talk about herself, of course, hiding the fact that I was a vampire and that my family wasn't supposed to know that we were living under the same roof. Mary had a strange effect on me. On Thursday night she talked me into watching some melodrama with a simple plot: a guy and a girl see each other all the time, but they can't meet in the big city. And at the end of the film it turns out that the guy is a ghost, and the girl is the one who hit him to death with a car and left the scene. The film is so bad – I watched better, but the end, but the end, nevertheless, did not leave me indifferent: the girl, tormented by thoughts and conscience for the murder of the guy in whose ghost she had already fallen in love, committed suicide by jumping from the roof of her multi-storey building. And so, she fell on the pavement, her brains spilled on the road, and then her ghost rose to his feet, and in front of her – the guy she killed. He gave her his hand, she accepted it, and together they walked away from her dead body with a bunch of people gathered around it. Oh yeah, the ghost forgave her and was in love with her too.

And so, after watching this film, I sat on my bed and thought: why? I wasn't going to watch it at all! But as soon as Mary said: «Let's watch a great film!», I immediately said, «Let's do it!», and I wasn't sorry for the time spent watching it: it was a new experience – watching a film with a person, with a friend. After all, people often do this: for some reason they always need someone to be with them while watching a film.

Our bike was found quickly: I got a call the very next day after I filed a theft report, and it turned out that the bike had been stolen by a local naughty guy named Frank, who likes to steal other people's vehicles, especially two-wheelers. In addition to the bike, we got a «super-secure lock» from the police so that the theft would not happen again, apparently they were tired of looking for our bike all the time.

As cliché as it is, Mary never got round to ru