TWO 

 

I'd seen Jean cry so many times, watched those scarlet tears trickle down her cheeks, and it never once occurred to me that crying blood would sting. Had I known, I might have been nicer to her in order to quell them.

I frantically wiped at my eyes with the backs of my hands, tried to blink away the burning sensation, but the more it stung, and the more the room became a watery red haze, the more the tears came flooding out. Then after a while, the burning didn't matter. It was the least of my worries.

I was dead. There had been no warning, no passing through purgatory on my way to this forbidden realm between life and death. I'd opened my eyes in our bed, and felt it immediately. Felt an emptiness, like the life had truly left me. But Jean's tears confirmed any doubts I'd had about whether or not I'd survived the attack.

She wasn't smiling, and her dark eyes were filled with sorrow. She couldn't open her mouth to utter the words.

"What's going on?" My voice had come out in a choked whisper. It sounded distant, as though it was coming from across the room.

"I'm sorry, Lissa," was all she said before covering her face with her hands and weeping into them.

I'm sorry. Over and over again, without explaining what had happened. She couldn't say it, and I couldn't hear it.

The tingling began so suddenly, and I gawked at my hands and arms in horror. It felt as though my veins were dancing.

"I didn't survive, did I?" Those words, too, came out choked. I was terrified of the answer, though deep down I knew it.

She could only shake her head before erupting into tears once more. And that's when my own began to fall. I screamed when I noticed that they weren't the clear, watery kind I was used to shedding. I didn't even take much notice of the burning at first.

"It's okay," Jean had said, but she didn't believe that, and neither did I.

I didn't know how much time had passed when I'd stopped crying. Jean had left me alone on my insistence. When I climbed off the bed, I felt a tingling in my legs when my feet touched the floor. My whole body suddenly felt light, as though it weighed nothing. I thought that I would float away at any moment. A lightness and a nothingness. I felt around my face and head to check if everything was still there, then rushed over to the mirror. Despite knowing that the whole missing reflection thing was a myth, I was relieved to see myself. Relieved to see that nothing had changed.

Maybe she's wrong. Maybe I'm still alive. I look fine.

The blood tears could be explained away, couldn't they? And the tingling sensation, nothing more than pins and needles. This could all have been one very bad dream.

I told myself anything I could, no matter how nonsensical. Anything so I wouldn't have to face my new and heinous reality. Because I wasn't ready for that life. I'd never wanted it.

"Oh God," I cried, suddenly tearful again. "Please let this not be real." I was ready to become a believer in just about any god, from any religion, if it meant sparing myself this agony.

I noticed something then. Or rather, I noticed the absence of something. I stroked the area where Dallas had bitten me, felt around for any sign that a bite had once been there, but there was nothing. Clear, unusually pale flesh, blemish-free. It took only a moment to realize that wasn't the only wound missing. The scars from the wolf attack in the woods had also vanished.

Every check I did, in search of every scar I'd ever gained throughout my twenty-four years, came up trumps. The cut on my knee I'd gotten after falling off my bike at six. The burn on my elbow when I rested on the cooker at eleven. And, oh God, the piercings in my ears! All gone.

Scar-less, wound-less, lifeless.

Yet I still clung to the hope that I would wake up from this nightmare, wake up in Jean's arms, alive. I was nothing if not hopeful. I'd been through the worst of everything and come out smiling. Death was no match for me.

I needed to eat. There was bread and lunch meats in the refrigerator. A huge sandwich with all the trimmings, that would do the trick. Then I'd wash it down with cranberry juice. Diane and Camille had been raving about the stuff for weeks, and I'd finally given in and put it on the shopping list for Sandra to buy.

"It tastes foul, but it's good for you. The foul-tasting stuff usually is," Diane had said.

I'd never wanted to try anything so badly in all my life.

I crept out of the room, made my way quietly down the stairs and into the kitchen, all the while the hunger pangs played my stomach like an instrument. I would make the biggest sandwich anyone had ever seen, and I'd eat it in one sitting. I'd eat everything in the refrigerator, even the stuff I didn't like. Maybe even the stuff that was past its use-by date.

I grabbed as much as I could and tossed it onto the counter, then got to work making my super-sandwich. Every second, the hunger raged on. Four slices turned into six, which then turned into eight. I piled on tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, onions, squirted generous helpings of English mustard.

"Lissa, what are you doing?"

I looked up to find Jean in the doorway. She didn't seem at all impressed with my gargantuan sandwich.

"What does it look like? I'm making myself a sandwich."

"You can't eat that," she said. I hated that pitying look in her eyes, like she thought I was some stupid child who didn't know what she was doing.

"Watch me."

"Lissa!" she shouted, and tried to stop me as I brought the sandwich to my mouth. I twisted away just in time to take a big bite. I was going to enjoy it.

She just stared at me, eyes sad and heavy.

I chomped and chomped and couldn't taste anything. Not the three different kinds of meat, not the salad, not the sauce. Nothing at all. Was I eating it wrong? I could feel the food, but I couldn't taste it.

I swallowed it down and took another bite, chewing like I'd never chewed before. Determined to taste my goddamn sandwich that I'd spent so long preparing.

"Baby, you can't eat food anymore. Our bodies aren't equipped to process it."

I opened my mouth to take another bite – in defiance more than anything, because this food wasn't satiating my hunger – when I felt my stomach rumble. It took only a second for the rumbling to escalate in severity, and before I knew it I was gripping onto the counter, keeled over, my other hand clutching at my stomach in agony. The pain was so severe I thought I would pass out. The sensation was like being stabbed multiple times in the abdomen.

And then, without warning, everything I'd just eaten came pouring right back up, all over the kitchen counter, the floor, my clothes.

"This is really happening," I wailed, letting the reality sink in. "I'm really dead."

Jean shredded off some paper towels and wiped my mouth and top, then wrapped her arms around me. She didn't care that I had vomit stuck to me. She held me tightly as I wept into her shoulder, and she didn't pull away as her top became soaked with blood; ruined.

"It's okay, my darling. We'll get through this together."

"I don't want to be dead. I don't want to be a vampire. I want to eat food, I want to see the sun rise again."

"I know, but those things aren't possible now. I'm sorry."

There were those words again. So meaningless, so worthless.

"I'll get Sandra to clean this up, all right? Let's get you to bed."

Upstairs, I let her change me, remove my sodden clothes and put on a clean T-shirt and pants. I was like a doll, motionless and lifeless.

"Do you want me to tell you what happened now?" she asked, once we were both changed. She sat on the bed beside me, took my hand in hers. Her touch, which had always been chilly to me, was no longer cold. I guess in death everyone is the same temperature.

I shook my head but said nothing. Words didn't matter anymore; nothing mattered.

"Are you hungry?"

At any other time, such a question wouldn't have forced tears from my eyes. But hunger in my new condition meant only one thing, and it was the very thing that made me what I was. I would never drink that stuff, no matter how hungry I got.

"I'm not drinking blood," I said.

She sighed, squeezed my hand tighter. "Lissa, you have to drink something, otherwise you'll be too weak."

"Then I'll be weak."

"Honey, that craving you just had, it isn't going away. It will grow more fierce, more all-consuming, until you end up doing something you'll regret."

I knew what she was talking about. That's what had happened to her. She woke up a vampire, woke hungry, and took the life of the first human she saw – my mother.

"I'd never let that happen," I said, shooting her a callous look. "I won't be that weak."

"I didn't think I would be that weak, either, until I was. And that's something you can't take back. You have a duty not to put other people's lives at risk."

"I don't care about anyone else!" I screamed at her. "Why do I have to suffer when everyone else can go on living a normal life? It's not fair!"

"Honey, I know. You're the last person who deserves this curse. You've been through so much. And I know it's hard right now, but we'll get through it. And I'll be right there with you every step of the way."

At first I shoved her away when she tried to hold me, but after a while I gave in and let myself be comforted. I needed her more than ever now. This was her world, and I would need her help navigating through it.

"Over the course of the next few weeks, your body will go through a number of changes you won't understand nor expect. It's going to be a confusing time for you. But I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere."

She held my head in her hands, gave me a serious, sincere look. For the briefest moment, I felt like my old self – the younger human being cared for by the older, loving vampire. There would come a time when I didn't need her protection, but for now I welcomed it.

"Where will I sleep?" I asked. I had so many questions.

She stroked my face. "With me. There's plenty of room in my casket for both of us."

I let out a long, exhausted breath. The old Lissa would have jumped at any opportunity to wake up every evening beside the woman she loved. But what good is love when you're dead?