That wife-stealing little prick came dressed as a vampire—amusing to all but me—and of the other forty-odd adults, his was without doubt the best costume here.
The kids, however, were an entirely different matter. It seemed that, while the neighbors weren’t willing to embrace our tradition, those invited to Mike’s annual Halloween party had bested each other in the costume department year after year. It made Harry’s day to see so many ghouls and zombies staggering through his home under webs and laughing skulls, but nothing excited him more than all the candy and festive treats Mike and Em had made. Until he charged up and pushed in between Cal and Eric to grab my elbow. “Mom’s coming down now!”
“Is she?” I said, distracted by the noise and the person at my right asking where the bathroom was. I directed them up the stairs and to the second last door on the left, and as they pushed past someone on the steps, my breath hitched in my throat.
The fabric of that dress was soft and seemed to walk itself down each step, the skirt long and full until it hugged the tiny waist of my beautiful Ara, making her look more delicate, if that was even possible. And as she stopped at the base and looked around the room, my heart softened toward her even more. Her dress, I realized, was a design from my era. It wasn’t a witch costume or a sexy clown, or worse, a vampire. She dressed from my time period and I had to wonder if it was to impress me. If it was, it worked.
Most of the dresses from those days had large puffy sleeves and way too much fabric, but this was a simpler design—a French design—with the sleeve sitting lower on the arm, the collar low and rounded out to reveal the collarbones and the tops of the shoulders. She’d even tied her hair into a pretty bonnet with a few ringlets coming down. She looked simply sweet and very elegant.
My legs felt like jelly as I approached her, but she spun around, looking a little disappointed to see me.
“What’s wrong?” I said, about to ask if she wanted Cal to see her first.
“I wanted to see your face before you saw me.” She pouted, and my heart leapt up in my chest.
“Really?”
“Yeah.” She clutched the fabric in her dainty hands, looking down.
I gently tilted her face upward as I tried to find the right words. But she was beyond them. There were not enough perfect words in any language to describe what she did to me in that dress—or how much it warmed my heart that she had wanted to impress me. She wasn’t my Ara right now, and might never feel safe to be her, but this Ara was clearly falling for me.
“If you had’ve seen his face, you’d have laughed at him,” Cal said, breaking the moment. He looked ridiculous with that fake blood around his mouth like some slob that couldn’t drink without wearing it. “He pretty much fainted,” he added. “Look at the trail of drool he left behind.”
Ara actually looked, shaking her head when she realized he was joking. And for once, I didn’t want to kill him.
“So you like it?” she asked, her face hopeful.
I touched my chest, trying hard not to get sentimental and overbearing, but that was impossible right now. Even my hands were shaking. She couldn’t know what this meant to me.
Then again, maybe she did. Clearly, she planned out every tiny element of her costume to have just this reaction from me.
Cal walked away then, giving us space, while I tried to think of something to say. There could be only one reason she would go to this kind of effort, but I was afraid to ask in case I was wrong. So I just nodded to say I liked it, but I don’t think it was the answer she was looking for.
“I never thought you’d look at me that way again,” she said timidly, brushing her hands down her dress.
“What way?”
“The way you are now.”
I closed my eyes for a second as if to rest them. I hated that she could see my heart laid bare on my face. “And is that… something you’ve been wanting?” I asked cautiously, preparing my heart for an answer that would hurt. “After everything I did to you?”
“It’s hard for me to explain it.” She pressed the front of her skirt down nervously. “I should hate you, David, but I don’t. I feel like there’s this other side to you that I understand on a totally different level. And I feel like… maybe it wasn’t you that day, when you hurt me,” she suggested, her tone rising in question. “Maybe there was more to the story,” she finished, leaving my hopes alive inside me.
“But you didn’t answer the question.” I took both of her hands and led her away from prying eyes to the dining room. The table was piled high with candy and popcorn and bat-themed cupcakes, and the fat guy inside me wanted to snatch one up and let the sugar ease my concerns. “You say you never thought I’d look at you like I love you again. Is that something you would want, or not?”
After all the hurt I caused her, I expected her to tell me yes, but that she would never want anything more than a look. She offered me no words, though, no elaboration. She simply nodded. I had no idea what to take from that. I wanted to rush into this, leap off the edge of the proverbial cliff with her and let things be like they used to.
I slowed down though before reaching that edge, and took a deep breath. Things would need to be taken a day at a time. We needed to build our friendship again first before we could commit to anything.
“A lot has been broken between us, Ara.”
She nodded, not meeting my eyes.
“But no matter what happens from here, I need you to know that I love you for you.” I clutched her face in both hands. “Not because you’re my wife. Not for who you were before, but for who you are now.”
Her blue eyes searched mine, looking deeply before she would believe it. I didn’t know how badly she’d needed to hear that until I saw her eyes change, as if maybe I could’ve said that to her a long time ago and things would have been different.
I pulled her close and hugged her; she felt so soft in these clothes, and the feel of her bare shoulders made my blood warm.
“Nothing has to happen,” I whispered in a deep voice, glancing back when someone walked into the room and then quickly back out again. “I can tell that you’re scared—”
“It’s just because I don’t want to get your hopes up, or the kids’, when we don’t know if things even can work between us now.”
I nodded, looking down into her innocent face, her big eyes so bright in that blue dress, her lashes framing them like the petals of a flower. “I want to rush into things, Ara. But not for the right reasons. There is still a big part of me that’s trying to get back what we had before, and I don’t think that’s right for our situation now.” I squeezed her just a little bit tighter, and she softened even more, like a baby as it falls asleep in your arms. “It’s okay for us to know where we stand with each other and still be happy to take a back seat to this thing until we’re certain—”
“Really?” She looked up at me again.
“Yes.” I kissed her brow, holding my breath as a painful flashback surfaced, and for a second, I saw my bleeding wife in my arms, her hair scraped violently off her scalp and every other inch of her body. “When we get to a place where you’re ready to give yourself to me out of love, then we’re ready to commit. But until then, let’s just stay friends—but maybe now with the knowledge that we’re both open to more,” I said, but it was more of a question than a statement. I was stepping out on a limb here. She hadn’t said as much to me yet, but I could read it. I hoped.
When she nodded, my soul soared. I’d won her over, finally, and I wasn’t even sure how.
“But,” I added, moving back from the embrace. “If we’re ever going to get back together, I can’t have you being with Cal, or—”
“I’m not with Cal,” she insisted.
“Not now. But he’ll be a vampire after tonight and—”
“And how will that change anything?”
I gave her a look that said it all.
“So you don’t want me if I’m, what? Tainted by another guy’s penis?”
It should not at all have been funny, but I had to laugh. “Something like that, yeah.”
“Wow.” She stepped back, her body language changing, closing her off. “I thought love was unconditional.”
“It is, but—”
“But not if I sleep with Cal?”
“Get out,” I told the person that walked in. I didn’t even see who it was, but they left immediately. “Ara. Look at me.”
She shook her head defiantly.
My teeth caged, blood surging through my body with an angry rush. “Look at me!”
“You don’t own me, David!” She looked right at me with fierce, controlled eyes. “I wouldn’t even think of sleeping with anyone if we were trying to work things out, so you didn’t even need to say it.”
“But I did, Ara, because you’re a child and you don’t understand how much that would hurt me—”
“Don’t I?” she said, lowering her voice a little when it got louder. “I’m not as dumb as you think I am—”
“I didn’t say you were dumb. I said you’re a child—”
“And you think I don’t understand anything about love, but I do. Probably better than you do, because I at least understand that you don’t hurt those you love. Not emotionally and certainly not physically—”
“So we’re going to bring that up—”
“I’m not bringing it up. I’m just trying to point out that my relationship with Cal does not affect my relationship with you. I know it would hurt you if I slept with him, so aside from the fact that I have no desire to sleep with him, I would just never do that to you.”
“You won’t be able to control it.”
“Why do you think that? Why do you not realize that I actually have a lot of self-control—”
“Sure you do.”
“I do!” She stomped her foot. “Because I’m using it right now to stop myself from kicking you in the shin.”
“What happened to not hurting those you love?” I muttered sarcastically.
“Argh!” She stomped her foot again and then kicked me in the shin.
“Ouch!” I folded in half, rubbing my leg. “Why did you do that?”
“Because you’re annoying and I hate you!” she said, but she didn’t mean it in the way it came out. She hated the way I was acting. She was frustrated because she didn’t have the vocabulary yet to argue with me, and I knew that. I knew I could win. But it was wrong of me. All she needed was to get a message across to me, and I knew then that I had to hear it. Or she’d kick me again.
“I’m not accusing you of lacking self-control, Ara.” I stood tall again, flexing my foot a few times because my leg still hurt. “I’m telling you that blood changes things; that with a close friendship and blood-sharing, things happen.”
“Then you can be there every time I feed from him,” she said, hands on her hips. “Agreed?”
I did not expect that. My shoulders rolled back and my brows pushed up with shock. I didn’t know what to say. “Really?”
“Yes!” She scrunched her face up, rolling her hands out. “Why are you so shocked by that?”
“I just… I guess you’re right,” I realized. “I guess I didn’t believe you about Cal—that you were just friends.”
“And you do now?”
“I think I’m starting to.”
“Good!” She snatched a cupcake off the table, clearly needing the sugar as badly as me. She bit into it and started speaking before she swallowed. “Because I’m not giving up my new source of blood. So if you don’t like Cal, then you just have to either get used to him or go away.”
“So it’s him over me?”
“No. Unless you make it that way.”
I looked at the orange frosting across her fingertips and on the corner of her mouth, wishing I could kiss it from her skin. She was just so adorable, even when she spoke with her mouth full. I had to admit then that I loved a lot more about this girl than I thought. There’s no way I could let Cal come between us. I’d have to make myself more important to her than him, and until then, I would have to sit back and allow him to exist in her life. Or pretend to.
“Fine,” I said with a sigh, as though I was letting her win. Little did she know I had big plans for Cal. “If Cal can respect your friendship and not try to steal you, he can have a damn sleepover for all I care.”
Ara laughed, putting the cupcake down. “Really?”
“Yes.” I touched her chin, smiling into her face. “Just don’t sleep with him, okay. Because if we’re…” I leaned right in and whispered the next words, “if we do end up getting back together, I have a zero-tolerance policy for those kinds of mistakes.”
“Me too,” she said, but I knew better. My Ara would never do such a thing—not after everything we’d been through. But this Ara never had to fight off the kind of desire she would feel when feeding from Cal. If I was there in the room while she fed, it wouldn’t stop her from getting carried away with him. It would only mean I’d be either forced to watch or even participate in a disgusting threesome. Neither of which would happen. I would snap her neck before I let that happen. And while I waited for her to wake up from the injury, Cal would probably snap mine. But so be it. I’d rather die than have her lay with another guy.