"Stella I'm sorry. I didn't mean...." Simon began as he walked towards Stella but she held up her hand.
Simon tilted his head and Stella replied, "It's more difficult the closer you are to me. So if you don't want me getting into your head, stay away."
Simon sighed and walked over. He put his arm on top of Stella's and said, "You don't understand. It will be the best of all of us if your power isn't known among our kind. I already think you shouldn't have showed it to us."
Stella tilted her head, "But you guys are my friends right?"
Simon hugged her and said, "Of course. I'll do my best to protect you."
Stella smiled and wriggled out of Simon's embrace and continued her work, "What is with you vampires and hugging. Seems like I'm always inside a refrigerator whenever I'm with any of you."
Simon chuckled as he helped Stella, "We can't help wanting to hug humans. They're so warm and soft. Like a...."
"Warm plushie." Stella completed his sentence.
The two worked in silence. Simon trying his best not to think of anything and Stella to tune out Simon's mind.
"Say Simon, can I ask you something?" Stella asked, as she shut the last drawer and looked around her room.
"Sure." Simon replied, dropping into a chair.
Stella frowned as she tried to open up her mind, remove the barrier, as Allen had told her to picture it.
Simon seemed to have understood as she walked over and put a hand on her shoulder, also frowning.
Stella was barely able to communicate one word before she sighed. But Simon seemed to have got it as he was back the next instant with a pen and paper.
He wrote something and handed the paper to Stella.
Simon: 'What do you want to ask that Den can't know about?'
Stella: 'Who is that girl whose paintings are there in Sharp's bedroom?'
Simon read the question, frowned and crumpled the paper.
But Stella had gotten her answer.
She had seen a picture of a beautiful girl very like, yet unlike herself in a big garden.
She had been looking at the girl from outside the fence, from Simon's perspective most probably, as she strolled in the garden among the flowers.
Stella had watched Sharp in ancient costume with a coat and hat walk towards her and the girl's face break into a smile, her bushy hair swaying in the wind.
But then Stella had stopped herself seeing.
As she was seeing things from Simon's perspective, Stella felt the hurt he felt upon seeing the girl, whose name Stella had found out to be Helen, with Sharp.
Stella could not handle the love both Simon and Sharp seemed to hold for Helen and had stopped herself, before she began wondering why two people with so similar a face had so different lives.
The girl looked royal and like she had been pampered all her life. Whereas Stella had marks all over her body that would probably scare a kid to death.
"I'm really sorry. I'll never ask about this." Stella said. She did not need to hear Simon's mind to know how hurt he was that she had looked into his mind like that. She could plainly see it in his eyes.