Oliver sent the women home, all of them, when I showed up on his doorstep with everything I owned.
"This isn't what I imagined reconciliation would look like," he'd said, giving a cursory look to the large suitcase and torn black bag.
"It's over," was all I could bear to say, then ran up to my room and locked myself in. I spent the rest of the night bawling my eyes out, cursing the ground Jean walked on, scolding myself for not ending her sorry life.
But no, I wasn't the killer, she was. First my mother, then me. She wouldn't stop until she'd taken everything from me.
Well, she had. I had nothing, no one. The last time I'd been delivered a blow like this, from one of her secrets, I'd at least had my humanity. That was gone.
Oliver stopped asking me what had happened at the house after a few nights, and just accepted that I was there to stay, whether he liked it or not.
"Well, I for one am thrilled that you finally came to your senses and ditched the bitch," he said, one night while we took turns sharing a brunette he'd picked up outside a restaurant.
She tasted like the cheap wine she'd consumed at dinner, but sweet all the same. She was cute, too. If she liked women, I decided she would be the first woman I had after Jean. For no particular reason other than I was lonely, horny, and she was there. If she could make me forget that other person, that witch who'd destroyed my life, she could have me as many times as she wanted. It was open season, as far as I was concerned. Time to get as promiscuous as everyone else in the race.
"So am I," I said, wiping the remnants of the girl from my mouth. "Good riddance to bad rubbish."
"That's the spirit," Oliver said.
My words were easy enough to say, but far more difficult to feel. Because the truth was, I wasn't quite there yet. At that point where she meant nothing to me, where I could simply disregard the love I had for her. If it were that easy to forget, it meant it had never been real.
She had no doubt expected me to tell her I hated her, and it would have been my right to. Except, that didn't represent my true feelings. It wasn't hate that had driven me to press the dagger to her flesh, watch her scream in agony as the metal burned her skin. Nor was it hate that prompted me to tell her I never wanted to see her again. Quite the opposite, in fact.
When I was alone in my room again, I cried while hugging the pillow to myself. Crying seemed to be the only recourse left to deal with the heartache. I imagined her doing the same with her pillow, the one I used. Maybe it still carried my scent.
She would never know that I didn't hate her; that was my revenge. She would live her life not knowing that it wasn't her decision to turn me that had destroyed me, but her insistence on hiding it from me. That was why I'd left.
An impossible situation, a choice between life and love. Not her decision to make, but someone had to make it. Would I have chosen differently?
I already knew the answer to that. No, and it wouldn't have taken me long to decide. I loved her more than the sun, or my favorite cooked meal. I would have chosen to be like her, with her. I would have chosen love over life. What would my world have looked like as a werewolf? Well, for starters, my anger and violence toward her would have been incessant, every second of every day. I wouldn't have been able to look at her and see the woman I loved, merely an enemy of my race. For her, the same. My only love sprung from my only hate, like Romeo and Juliet.
I didn't blame her for turning me.
No, it was her lie after the fact, the perpetual lying and secrecy, that had pushed me over the edge. Our entire relationship had been built on a lie. We'd finally overcome that, only for her to shield me from another big secret. I couldn't trust her anymore. How easily the lies had spilled from her mouth, as though they were truths. Like the notion of being honest was an afterthought, a last resort once she had exhausted all her lies. How could anyone stay with a person like that? Someone who could watch me suffer and keep quiet, knowing the cause of my demons. It made me sick to the stomach to think about it. It made me question whether she had ever truly loved me.
Rosie embraced me when I entered the gallery a few evenings later. She smelled of jasmine, and her eyes were large and sympathetic.
"You poor thing. Sorry to hear about the breakup," she said.
The only reason I'd mentioned it to her was because, after not seeing or hearing from me in days, she called to see if everything was okay. Telling her I was taking "me time" after my breakup seemed only fair. After all, she had been running the gallery single-handedly for a while.
The first thing she did was offer me a cup of coffee, then hit herself on the forehead for being so absentminded. I took a glass of water instead.
"Why did you break up, if it's not too painful to talk about?" she asked.
I sipped my water wretchedly, saw my reflection in a piece of art that was made of broken mirrors stuck together in abstract ways. My hair was a mess, my white T-shirt wrinkled. Like I'd just crawled out of bed. No effort whatsoever; not the look of the owner of an upscale gallery.
"Honesty, or the lack thereof," I said. "Word of warning when you do meet the man of your dreams: don't keep secrets from him. No matter how painful the truth is, it's always better to tell it."
I didn't know how true that was, but it felt like the right thing to say. Being on the receiving end of someone's lie, naturally, gave me a bias.
Her expression of rapt curiosity didn't go unnoticed, but she didn't inquire further.
"Well, business is going great here. That might cheer you up. I got Louis St. Louis to agree to let us hold two of his pieces. He usually only deals with big galleries in Europe, but I worked my magic on him. He's game."
Her features moved animatedly as she spoke. This place meant more to her than it did to me. Maybe it always had. I just couldn't bring myself to share in her enthusiasm. The place reminded me too much of Jean, of a better time that I could never get back. Those four walls were torturous now.
"Rosie," I said, looking at her carefully, seriously. "You said you were in the process of getting the money together to buy this place before I got it. What happened? You never told me."
"I couldn't come up with the deposit at the time. Funny thing is, just a few weeks later, my great aunt passed and left me some money in her will, can you believe it." She shrugged. "Ah, well."
"How would you like to buy it now?"
Eyes wide, eyebrows raised, she said, "Really? You wanna sell it?"
"Let's face it, you're the one running it. This place is in your DNA. What do you think?"
"I think that would be amazing!" Ecstatically, she threw her arms around me. "Thank you."
"I'll have a lawyer draw up the paperwork, I guess." I had no idea how much it was worth, but I wouldn't overcharge her. The most important thing was to get rid of it, so there would be nothing connecting me to Jean.
With promiscuity, you either had it in you or you didn't. Availability of women played very little part in it. Meaningless sex with a different woman every night suited a certain type of person – someone I had decided to become. Not out of desire, but because I'd completely given up on life.
Besides sex, there was little else in the way of recreational and social activity to immerse myself in. I finally got it, what Oliver had been saying all along: life was long, too long to be in love, to confine myself to one person. Especially when that person had done nothing but hurt me every step of the way.
Dismissing the premise of monogamy, of love, I stuck my tongue down the throat of the blonde who was perched on my lap. She was the first of the night, but not of the week. And if she played her cards right, she would be the one I took home. Maybe this time I would go all the way.
The lights of No Man's Land flashed, and music videos played on the many plasma screens all across the room. In the seat opposite me sat Oliver with two women. Always wanting to outdo me, one woman never sufficed.
The Frenching and heavy petting had been going on for fifteen minutes or so, and I still didn't know the girl's name.
"Jean," she said, shouting over the music.
The name stopped me mid-bite, just as I was about to pierce her neck.
"What did you say?"
"My name's Jean," she said again.
I shoved her off me, eyes wide and wild. "Is this some kind of sick joke?"
Frightened, she slunk back, shook her head frantically. "What did I do?"
"Just get away from me," I said, waving her away, unable to look at her.
"What was that about?" Oliver said, plucking his mouth away from his meal for five seconds. "She was cute. Not as cute as these two, but a safe six."
"I didn't like her name."
I told myself that the next one would be different, would be the one I took to bed. I would find no fault with her like I had the three dozen women who had approached me over the last two weeks. She would have a suitable name, suitable hair, be the right height, size, have a non-annoying laugh, have the right color eyes... The next one. The next one.
When the next one approached – pretty, with a nice smile and a body to die for, I didn't even get to second base before I told her to find someone else.
Why was it so hard to get past that kissing stage? I was a free woman; my conscience was clear. Were the wounds of our breakup so new that this attempt to move on was premature?
"I'm heading home?" I said after a while.
"Already? You still don't know how to party, Lissa. You're never supposed to be the first one to leave."
"Yeah, whatever," I said, grabbed my purse and left.
How could one be surrounded by people, yet feel more lonely than ever? That bar could have been completely empty for all the comfort it brought. The women, the blood, everyone's constant self-indulgence, would there ever be a time when they meant as much to me as they did to Oliver?
The wolf in me, that savage, beastly creature who sat observing other savage, beastly creatures in their natural habitat, had no place there. Perhaps that was why I couldn't enjoy the place like the others. For a hybrid like me, the charm of the place was lost. Oliver would never understand, because I would never tell him. What I was, what went down at Jean's house that night. I knew him – he would throw me out. And although I was about to be one hundred and fifty thousand bucks richer, once the sale on the gallery was finalized, I didn't want to be out on the street.
"Did you have a nice night?" the cab driver asked on the journey home.
"I guess."
"You just came from that No Man's Land place, right?"
"Yeah. You know it?"
"Heard of it. What's it like?"
Why did they always insist on talking to me?
I shrugged. "It's just a bar. Not sure what the big fuss is about."
He started talking about some of the other vampire bars across the country that he'd heard of, and I feigned interest. I just wanted to get home.
I peered out the window into the dark, moonlit streets, and panicked.
"Why are we here? This isn't the way," I said, grabbing the back of his seat.
"Canterbury Manor, that's what you said when you got in," he said, pulling into the familiar street. Jean's street.
Dammit! I'd automatically given him my old address.
The mansion came into view. Home. Why did it still feel that way? Three weeks later, the final breakup later?
"Want me to turn the car around?" He watched me warily in the mirror.
"Yes. No, wait a second." I stepped out of the car, stood at the bottom of her drive, and stared at the house. The light in her bedroom was on. She was right there, so close yet a thousand miles away.
I imagined her changing into her nightgown, brushing her hair, and climbing into bed with a book, then touching the spot where I once lay. I wondered if she sensed me near.
My legs wanted to carry me to her, my heart gave me the reason to. But it was my head, my mind, that made the final call, that urged me back into that cab and ordered the driver to drive.
I'd come so close – too close. That was why I couldn't stay in this town.