“You don’t want to watch him die, Alice!” Mae insisted with tears in her eyes. “I know that you don’t love him quite the same way that I love my daughter, but even knowing that Philip died was devastating. Leaving them behind is hard, it is so very hard, and you’ll question it forever. But there is no other option. Immortality requires you to leave everything behind.”
“So you expect me to turn my back on all of this, all that you have to offer, because Milo will die? He’s going to die anyway! Me staying human doesn’t make him live forever!” I countered. “But you and Jack and Peter won’t die. I am meant to be with your family. I don’t know how I could possibly go back to living my life knowing that you’re out there and I’m not with you. You said it yourself. It’s an impossible thing to return back to.”
“You just needed to know,” Mae looked at me earnestly. “You needed to know exactly what you’d be giving up. It’s not fair to ask you something that you don’t understand. I wanted to give you a chance, so you wouldn’t make the same mistake that I did.”
“Are you saying that you don’t want me to turn?” It was painful to think that Mae wouldn’t want me around.
“No, no, of course not, love.” She reached out and gently stroked me cheek. “I would want nothing more than to spend forever watching you turn into the amazing woman I know you’ll be. But I know the price of turning better than anyone, and if I can spare you from any pain, I will.”
“But as a human, people will still die around me,” I argued. She dropped her hand from my face, but kept her sad eyes on mine. “I’ll be touched by even more death as a human than I would be as a vampire. At least you guys won’t die.”
“That is true. But that doesn’t make leaving your brother any easier.” She forced a smile at me, then turned the car back on and drove away from her daughter’s house. “It’s just something that I thought you should think about it.”
“Thank you,” I murmured and sunk low into the seat. I stared out into the darkness, watching the houses and trees roll past us. Mae had started singing softly along with the stereo in attempt to alleviate her own sadness by the time we got back home. She had left me with an impossible choice. Leave behind my brother, or leave behind them.
The covers were pulled completely over my head in attempt to keep the daylight out, but when I finally poked my head up, there was no light spilling in.
Part of it was because of the insanely thick curtains that blanketed every window of the house, but the main reason, according to the clock on my nightstand, was probably because it was after six, and the sun had already set.
Last night, I had again stayed up all night with Jack, watching his DVDs of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and very deliberately not talking about the elephant in the room: whether or not I planned on ever becoming a vampire.
It still all seemed so completely surreal that my mind couldn’t even comprehend it. There was no way I could possibly understand all the ramifications of my decision when I couldn’t even fully believe it was true. I was staying in a house with a family of vampires. And yet, last night, I had spent the entire night watching an old TV show on DVD and trying not to entice one of them to bite me. How could I possibly reconcile those two ideas? The utterly mundane with the totally supernatural? One of those things just didn’t belong.
Instead of dwelling on it any longer, I rolled over and grabbed my cell phone off the nightstand. I vaguely remembered my sleep being interrupted by the jingle of my phone, but I had been too tired to answer it. When you’re still human, staying up all night can be incredibly exhausting.
So what? Are you like really sick or something? That was a text message from Jane. Along with, Hello? Are you ignoring me? At least she still cared, which I actually found to be kind of surprising.
There were three from Milo, and I was reluctant to read them. I didn’t want to think about him being alone in that apartment all the time. Lately, I’d been forcing him to be by himself a lot anyway, but this was different. I’d at least been there some of the time, and he had known that he wasn’t completely alone. Now it was just him and very rarely Mom. He didn’t really have any friends, and on top of that, he had his current issues with his sexuality. It was a very cruel time for me to leave him.
Are you done going to school now?
Mom asked about you. She’s worried. Maybe you should apologize to her now.
I’m worried too. When are you coming home?
I groaned and pulled the covers back up over my head. How would I answer that? I was probably never coming home, and I’d probably never talk to him again. But I couldn’t exactly say that. I didn’t want to. Just yesterday, I’d promised he’d be in my life forever, and apparently, that was a total lie.
“Are you up yet?” Jack asked sunnily, and I assumed he was standing in my doorway.
“Define ‘up.’” Even though it was the middle of the evening, it still felt way too early to be getting up and dealing with all of this. When Jack had saved me from being murdered in that parking garage, I had never banked on how stressful that would make my life, or maybe I would’ve let him leave me there with them, taking my chances.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” The bed heaved suddenly as Jack jumped into it, and I lowered the covers enough so I could peek out at him. My room was completely dark except for a light from the hall, and I could just barely make out the cocky grin on his face. “Morning, sunshine.”
“If you’re gonna be this cheery, you can just go away,” I grumbled, and he laughed warmly.
I hated how wonderful his laughter sounded and the way it filled me with pleasant tingles. I didn’t want to be pleasant. I wanted to be grumpy and stay in bed all day, avoiding the world until somebody else made a decision for me.
Having a choice in something as major as the rest of my life was far too much of a responsibility for me.
“Didn’t sleep well, I take it?” He propped himself up on his elbow so he could smirk down at me.
“I slept great, actually.” My phone was still in my hand, so I reached my arm out and extended it towards him. “Milo texted me.”
“I see.” He took the phone from me and scrolled through the messages.
“Jane still talks to you? I thought you were over her.”
“I was never under her. We just eat lunch together at school and stuff,” I brushed off his disapproving tone. “Never mind her. That’s not what has me all depressed.”
“You didn’t reply to him.” Still going through my phone, he looked puzzled.
“What could I possibly say to him?” The question sounded rhetorical, but I really wanted know.
“Whatever you want.” He shrugged and handed me back my phone. “He’s your brother.”
“Ugh, you’re no help!”
“Are you going back home?” Jack asked quietly.
“No. I don’t know.” I looked away from him. “I have no idea what I’m doing!”
“Why don’t you just get up and take a shower? You’ll probably feel better then. Besides, you don’t have to decide anything right now.” He rolled out of my bed and looked at me expectantly. “Come on. Get up.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I admitted and slowly pulled myself out from underneath the covers.
“You know, I really wish you’d catch onto the fact that I’m always right.”
To encourage me to move faster, he flicked on the lights, and I squinted at the sudden brightness.
“Get out of here so I can shower.”
My bedroom had an attached bathroom, so I shooed Jack out when I started getting my clothes together. Like the other rooms, I had a massive closet, and my paltry wardrobe looked pathetic in there. Mae had offered to take me shopping, but their generosity was overwhelming, so I declined.
They had the most amazing showers ever. There were all sorts of gizmos and gadgets and satellite radio. There was even a remote control to work all the shower heads. I couldn’t figure any of it out, so I just listened to Beethoven and had random spurts of hot water all over me. I’m sure I could ask Jack how it worked and he’d explain it to me, but it sounded really silly to tell someone that their shower was way too advanced for me, even if it was true.
After I finished getting ready, I laid down on the bed and tried to think of a way to respond to Milo. Even if someday I would have to phase him out of my life, I wasn’t quite ready for that day to be today. But that didn’t mean I was ready to move back home and pretend like nothing was happening. Life as I knew it had changed, and I couldn’t go back and act like things mattered when they didn’t. Milo still mattered, but school didn’t, curfews didn’t, rules didn’t.
“Are you done?” Jack knocked on the door, then pushed it open without waiting for an answer. He leaned on the open door and grinned at me. “You’re already back in bed? You just woke up.”
“I’m not sleeping. I’m just thinking.” I had my phone in my hands, and I was just staring at it, as if it could magically come up with an answer to all my life’s problems.
“Well, I hope you don’t mind, but I’m here to interrupt your thoughts.” He opened the door wider and stepped inside a little bit, so I could see past him.
Looking rather sheepish, Milo stood in the doorway and gave me a half-wave. “I thought you could use the company.”
“Milo!” I sat up and smiled at him. “What are you doing here?”