This is my entry for round one of the NYC Midnight – 250-word Microfiction Challenge 2019. The challenge, to write a 250-word piece of micro-fiction based on a Genre / Location / Word in 24 hours.
Well, it was inevitable that if I did enough challenges that I would get Romance one day. So it was with a groan that I opened the challenge e-mail – Romance / Giving Blood /popular – erk! (248 words). I know some writers that would have been delighted to see this prompt, I literally do not share their passion. It’s certainly not Jane Austen.
Bea was a phlebotomist, a vampiric pariah, cursed by all. She was not popular, no one was ever pleased to see her, except for him.
His eyes would light up when she entered the room, always quick to offer a smile and an arm. He’d never complain when she inadvertently hurt him, instead they’d laugh and joke. He’d become a regular on her daily rounds, she’d seen to that. It was no accident that he was her last before lunch.
He was so full of life and they had so much in common. They’d talk endlessly about their lives, their dreams. Over the week’s, friendship blossomed into something else. He’d given her recycled flowers the day he’d first kissed her. When he’d said he loved her she knew she’d finally found her soul mate. Secretly, lest the matron overheard, they’d made plans for their life together, just as soon as he got out.
It broke her heart the day she walked into his empty room. His belongings tossed into a clear plastic bag on the bed. She’d seen too many of those bags in her time. He never did say why he was there. She’d been too scared to ask; it was the one thing they never discussed.
After all, good things never happened to her. Tears traced her cheeks and she sobbed; she truly was cursed. She didn’t hear the footsteps behind her.
“There you are, I’ve been looking all over for you,” said a familiar voice.
Cover image courtesy of Daan Stevens
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