The Vampire's Apprentice

No one answered the door, and no one seemed to be home. Except that there was music coming from the backyard.

Norville lounged out on a folding beach chair, a thin bit of smoke curling up from the end of a nearly finished mushed cigarette. He seemed to not have a care in the world as he listened to some kind of progressive rock music.
 
Kitty heard, and she gingerly pulled herself around the side of the house. She waved lightly upon seeing him, trying not to let her distaste show within her nose's impulsive crinkle at the smell.
 
Norville caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and jerked, looking guilty for a second, then relaxed when he saw who it was. "Oh, hey, Cat!" he called with an easy smile. "What's up?" He reached over and turned down the music though he did not put out the cigarette just yet.
 
"Yeah, yeah, it's all good," Norville nodded. He took a final drag then carefully stubbed out his fowl cancer stick as he let out the breath slowly. "Sweet, cookies!" He reached out for the treats eagerly. "Thanks!"
 
"Wait, don't you want to hang out?" Norville called after her, seeming genuinely confused. "Why not pull up a chair and share the goodies?" He indicated the stack of folded chair by the back door then opened the lid on the box.
 
"Mm- I mean, I guess." The girl didn't find much wrong with this besides the obnoxious scent of cigarette smoke. Still, she hesitated a moment before pulling out a chair and sinking slowly down into it. The day was nice. Maybe a bit later, if she had time, she'd come and read a book outside.
 
Norvile took one of the cookies and offered the box to Kitty. The lingering smoke was nasty, like all cigarette smoke, but there was also a faint sweet aroma to it that plucked at the hunger strings. Norville devoured his cookie in two bites.
"So, what are you up to today other than cookies?" he mumbled around a mouthful.
 
She snatched her own cookie and nibbled on it, savoring it for far more bites than he had. "Chores, mostly. Nothing too exciting."
 
"Everyone's out today, so I'm enjoying some 'me time,'" Norville told her, helping himself to a second cookie. "How's work?"
 
"It's been better. Not bad, though." Kitty knitted her fingers together and leaned back into the chair. "Heya, Norville, do you think I'm crazy? Even just a little bit?"
 
"Well, sure," Norville shrugged. "Although I'm beginning to think the truly crazy people are the ones who refuse to accept that they are even just a little bit weird or crazy." He gave her a friendly smile, his eyes twinkling a bit in amusement.
 
"Nobody said it out loud," she answered with a slight eye-roll, "but that's usually the impression placed towards therapy; is that the person going must've been pretty crazy to get there in the first place."
 
"Oh, you've been put in therapy?" Norville said with mild interest. "That's cool. I liked going. It was someone to talk to who was paid to actually listen to you. It was kind of nice." He heaved a sigh. "Then EJ pulled a prank on the guy and he kicked us out."
 
"I don't want to be listened to, Norville; I want to be understood." Kitty spread her fingers, palms up. "Being given advice from a different perspective is not understanding."
The girl nestled her fists into the crooks of her arms and grumbled a little. "Maybe you and I should switch places. You go to therapy and I sit out here doing nothing. Sounds like a fair trade."
 
Norville scratched behind his ear, frowning as he thought about what she said. Apparently, it was a lot of effort. "But... if you aren't listened to... how can you be understood? If you don't talk?" he asked slowly, brow knit in concentration.
 
He had a point, but she didn't let up on her bias.
"I don't just want to be listened to," Kitty restated. "But just because I tell someone what's going on in my life... usually they'll try to change the way I think about it instead of finding some common ground. Take you for example. You don't think of me as out of my mind when I say I live with a vampire. If I was to tell the therapist that, she'd probably try to convince me otherwise, but you know Mr. McCleary really is allergic to the sun. So, I've been understood by you."
 
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