“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, a hole opening up in my stomach.
“The night of the full moon, when you risked being killed. Well, I couldn’t have lived without you.” Aaron’s words, spoken in the library, race around my mind.
He pauses, takes a deep breath, and continues once he has reached apparent calm.
“Of course, I was concentrating on trying to make sure you stayed alive. I didn’t want to speak to anyone but you. But a part of me was weighing up all the alternatives.” His sapphire eyes turn pensive, he looks just like he did on that brightly lit night. A small smile spreads across his lips, perhaps thinking back to how he hid his identity to me, pretending to be ‘J.’
Then his expression darkens. The events of the last full moon flash in my mind, like a sped-up movie, dazing me.
I can see and feel everything, as if it were happening right now; those furious yellow eyes, like in my recurrent nightmare; the cold rising from the sidewalk as I desperately tried to put some distance between Vuk and myself. Vuk, my best friend, who wanted to tear me to shreds that night. Far from the factory, he lay in wait at the service station. Out of his mind, he was not to know that what he was doing was wrong, dangerous. Just like he didn’t know that Jason was coming to save me. And he managed to, just in time.
Involuntarily, I trace the outline of my finger, the one that still bears the trace of where he bit me.
I look lost, enveloped in the memories of that night. But his last words go around and around in my mind. I shake my head as if to shake away the past and return to the present, trying to understand just what Jason meant.
“What alternatives do you mean?”
“Stella, if I had lost you forever, I would not have been able to go on. I was racked with guilt. But I didn’t know what I would do. I was sure I couldn’t count on Aaron and Preston.”
“Who is Preston?”
“Preston is my brother. You’ll meet him soon.”
“I thought you were an only child!”
“Not in my adoptive family.”
“Do his eyes go red too?” I recall the flash of fire I saw in Jason’s eyes in the tower.
“No,” he laughs. “I have the exclusive on the red eyes in my family.”
“Why are Donn and Aaron’s eyes red, opaque, or shining like the other vampires in the Council?”
“Well, as you already know, Aaron and I never feed from the source, from humans. Only from animals or bags of plasma,” he explains. “Donn doesn’t exactly follow the diet of my new family. But he was once a part of it, so he maintains control when he has to feed. This doesn’t change the color of his irises,” he explains patiently. “It is only hunger that turns our eyes black. It is a sensation that cannot be hidden if when it becomes a necessity. Or the color can change in those who have an unpredictable nature, like mine, or when we are overcome by powerful emotions.”
I am almost sure that this is what causes Vuk’s eye color to change, but his eyes become jade yellow instead of flames of fire––perhaps because he is influence by the arrival of the full moon, not by the movements of the red moon.
“And what’s the situation with your birth family?” I ask, my curiosity piqued.
“I sometimes visit my parents. I never dared go near them without Aaron until recently. I thought I could harm them. My very existence is a risk, even now, for them.” His lips rigid, Jason is disgusted with himself. He looks at me, seeking understanding.
“I see.”
“Aaron told me that it won’t be a problem in a few decades,” he continues bitterly. “But everyone I know will be dead and the pain will be soothed with time. That’s easy for him to say, he couldn’t have gone to visit his father anyway.” His voice is so low, it seems like he is talking to himself.
“Why?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking aloud.” He confirms my suspicion.
“So,” Jason continues, “to justify the presence of Aaron to my parents, I told them he was my best friend, the brother I never had. I always used to go on at my parents, blaming them for not having given me a younger brother. But they knew I had left you before my sudden departure from Boston, and they began to think I was gay. So recently, I have been visiting them in the company of my sister. You’ll meet her too, very soon. You’ll be amazed at how much you’ll feel you already know her. Anyway, if I hadn’t managed to find you in time, my plan was to go into the underground tower today and unleash the wrath of the Council.”
His voice is so calm that it seems like he is mentioning a shopping trip, not the outbreak of war.
I can’t believe that he really would have gone through with it, but his blue eyes shine, staring off in the distance as he recalls the moment he decided to put an end to his life.
“So that was the plan,” he laughs dryly. “It’s all so easy for you humans! It’s wonderful to be human.” His words are enough to make me crumble inside and for the abyss to open up threateningly. I think about Donn’s words this afternoon. And I hear his voice, but it is not the perfect imitation that it is in my dreams. It sounds weak and anonymous…
It’s not often a vampire has clashed with the Council. Facing death or whatever other punishment they have in mind…
I am suddenly overcome with rage, which quickly morphs into terror.
“How could you even think about doing something like that? As if it was your fault if you didn’t find me in time, on both occasions!”
“I was trying to save you, you know!” He still has that faraway look in his eyes. “What would you have done in my place?”
“There’s no point in even thinking about it.”
“What would I do without you?”
“The same thing you did before I came along to complicate your life,” I reply. I think I understand him now, I’m sure I would have done the same thing. But he can’t seem to see the difference, how things change from where I’m standing.
“It’s so easy for you, right?” He laughs.
“Yes, it is. All things considered, it’s not bad being a human, is it?”
“I’ll learn to keep my mouth shut next time.”
“Answer this. Would you rather I tried to take my own life if something were to happen to you?”
“It’s not the same thing. I’m already dead. A dumb question.”
“Yes, it is!” I retort. “But it’s not your fault if the Council decided to get me involved. You almost got yourself killed today! So quit trying to turn a drama into a tragedy. You must never, ever, consider doing something like that again!”
“I won’t.” he exclaims. “I’ll
never
put you in danger again.”
“Whatever goes on, it doesn’t matter what happens to me. I’ll never allow you to hurt yourself. I won’t!”
Jason’s cold hand suddenly reaches out to caress my cheek and my mussed up hair.
“As if anyone really could … except yourself.”
I jump with embarrassment as soon as he touches me. I place a hand on my heart. I can feel it thumping madly, I even hear the beat in my eardrums. I’m tortured by a sense of guilt.
I look up at the sky, as if searching for some kind of divine justice to take its course.
I really do. Perhaps, if someone up there was listening in, I could be struck by lightning, split in two equal parts, like a tree in a forest. Or washed away by a night storm, a far more likely natural phenomenon in these parts.
“Do you think I’ll ever get better?”
“Sorry?”
“That one day my heart will stop leaping from my chest every time you touch me?” I muse, more to myself than to him.
“I hope not,” he replies, pinching my arm playfully, obviously pleased.
I look at him for an eternal moment. I know that my eyes shine only sadness and melancholy.
I’d like to sink 10,000 feet underground. If only an earthquake would swallow me up in its cracks. I want to lie face down, on the ground, so I’ll never have to look in a mirror, never have to see myself again.
Almost a year had passed. But I would only have to wait for Jason to return a short while. It was a matter of weeks. I shared a love with Vuk. Donn, on the other hand… he seemed to test my emotions, and I was too much of a fool to realize in time.
I am infuriated with him, to say the least. But his vouching for me, with blood, in the library tower, cancelled out his deceit… Or almost. Let’s just say he found a way to make me virtually forgive him.
“Are you ok?” Jason asks anxiously.
“No. I want to die. I want a slow agonizing death. Maybe that’s why this situation doesn’t bother me as much as it should.”
“Well, I won’t allow that. You really are a kooky kid at times, Stella May Whitely.”
“Why don’t you say the exact opposite? Can’t you change your mind … ” That wasn’t a question, it is a request.
“No. Because I love you.” His soft fingertip gently traces the outline of my lips.
All I can do is stare at him, my eyes brimming with emotion. I take a deep breath. He keeps looking at me intensely.
“When we were both human, it was all so much simpler.”
“At least stop trying to console me,” I implore.
“Ok,” he answers, resigned. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to make me suffer. I deserve it.”
“No! Never.”
“But why?”
“Do you really think you deserve it?”
“Yes, yes, yes!”
“You seem to have masochistic tendencies lately,” he states rigidly. Maybe he’s referring to the relationship with Donn.
“Don’t try to change the subject again.”
“Ok, what do you want me to say? At least this way, I don’t feel like I’m talking to a broken record.”
“I want you to despise me. To insult me in every way possible. Even in those few words of Italian that you know!”
“Sorry,” he sighs. “I’m not gonna’ do that.” He closes his eyes. “I have to get back now. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
He pulls one of his arms free so that he can take my chin in his hand and lift my face towards him. His eyes glued to mine, he moves in and kisses me.
I look bewildered, like a perfect idiot. I must actually look quite comical because his eyes laugh. And he unfurls that crooked smile I love so much.
“I’ll be back soon, I promise,” he whispers in my ear as his hand runs ice down my cheek one more time.
“Soon.” I repeat, compellingly, hopefully.
He stands. I haven’t budged an inch since I sat. Stiff, with pins and needles from having been immobile for so long, I struggle to my feet. I look into his eyes and cling onto his arm.
It’s incredible that, despite all that has happened, he is still the same Jason. But is it just a foolish human instinct to expect major changes over a year? There is something, but I can’t put my finger on what it is. And in that instant, I realize why I find him different––yet the same––compared to a year ago.
Before Jason let his mask slip and came back as a half-werewolf vampire, I imagined him, in the moments I let my mind wander his way, with the same blue eyes framed by the rosy skin he always had. The rosy skin of humans.
Now his complexion is as pale as chalk and his skin as smooth and hard as marble. As cold as a block of ice. We stop at the doorway and the rain begins to fall, just a few light drops that barely make a sound as they fall. I long for the storm or the lightning, and look hopefully skyward. But Jason is leaving and I lower my eyes.
“Where are you going?”
“Where do you think?”
“You’ll freeze out there on foot and then on your motorbike in this rain!”
“Not me,” he replies cheerfully. “My average body temperature is 10 degrees above zero, just lately. I don’t feel the cold.”
“So you feel warm enough, despite that?”
“It’s a little cold out,” he agrees, laughing. “But I doubt if I’ll need thermal underwear. I’ll just wait for you to get inside.”
“I wish you could come in,” I say softly, sneaking a quick glance at the light from the television filtering through the drapes.
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I had planned.” He places my right palm on his heart. “You are all I really want, and I want to do things right.” He kisses the back of the other hand.
“According to which criteria?”
“Mine.”
“How would you do things right?”
“By being responsible,” he says, matter-of-factly, then smiles and nods toward the door.
“You wouldn’t do it if you had an ounce of good sense,” I mutter, as I imagine Jeff’s reaction, which sends a shiver down my spine.
As he looks at me self-righteously, Jason rings the doorbell.
I’m half a step behind him. My father hurries to open the door, and as he does so the sound from the TV blasts out.
For a second, I stand on tiptoe, readying myself to creep into my room, for fear of what might happen. I know how Jeff is pissed at him for making me suffer so. But I plant my feet firmly back on the wooden deck of the porch and wait.
“Good evening, sir,” says Jason politely.
Jeff’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Oh … Jason. Welcome back.”
Jason smiles; he really has decided to start again from scratch.
“Call me Jeff,” adds my father.
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’ve been away for a while.”
“More than a year.”
“Where have you been?”
“South America. Argentina, to be precise.”
We both raise our eyebrows and I shoot a quick glance at Jason.
“And will you be returning soon?” asks Jeff.
“No, I’m planning to stay in Boston.”
“Right. Just as long as you don’t put any funny ideas into Ella May’s head… hitchhiking around the country or other new-age absurdities.”
Jeff laughs to break the tension, and Jason joins in. I look at Jason and roll my eyes without my father noticing.
“No, no, sir… don’t worry.”
The conversation proceeds in this civil and diplomatic manner for a few more seconds until Jeff turns and goes back into the house to let me say goodbye to Jason in privacy.
His intense gaze meets mine, his icy hand slides down my face, caressing my cheek. He glances up and down the street, then moves in for a kiss. But he plants it just under my cheekbone. My heart leaps frantically, but then I feel him pull away. I scan the neighborhood to see if something, someone is making him hold back.