Bill tells Sookie about Selah moving away

bk 8

Bill stepped out of the woods and strolled silently over to the yard set.He sat in one of the other chairs.
We didn’t speak for several moments. I didn’t feel the surge of anguish I’d felt over the past few months when he was around. He barely disturbed the fall night with his presence, he was so much a part of it.
“Selah has moved to Little Rock,” he said.
“How come?”
“She got a position with a large firm,” he said. “It was what she told me she wanted. They specialize in vampire properties.”
“She hooked on vamps?”
“I believe so. Not my doing.”
“Weren’t you her first?” Maybe I sounded a little bitter. He’d been my first, in every way.
“Don’t,” he said, and turned his face toward me. It was radiantly pale. “No,” he said finally. “I was not her first. And I always knew it was the vampire in me that attracted her, not the person who was a vampire.”
I understood what he was saying. When I’d learned he’d been ordered to ingratiate himself with me, I’d felt it was the telepath in me that had gotten his attention, not the woman who was the telepath.
“What goes around, comes around,” I said.
“I never cared about her,” he said. “Or very little.” He shrugged. “There’ve been so many like her.”
“I’m not sure how you think this is going to make me feel.”
“I’m only telling you the truth. There has been only one you.” And then he got up and walked back into the woods, human slow, letting me watch him leave.
Apparently Bill was conducting a kind of stealth campaign to win back my regard. I wondered if he dreamed I could love him again. I still felt pain when I thought of the night I’d learned the truth. I figured my regard would be the outer limits of what he could hope to earn. Trust, love? I couldn’t see that happening.