Tears of the Broken (47 page)

“
I’m not hurt, I—” I stood up to look at
him, but he materialised on my windowsill and sat perched in the
small space just above my desk. “Who
are
you?”

His
chest rose and fell with visible strain while he watched the day
outside become dark and grey, but he said nothing, just sat and
allowed a cool breeze to filter in through the window and carry the
sweet scent of citrus and sugar—
his
sweet scent. I folded over again. Oh, my God. Oh,
my God, he’s a vampire. A real frickin vampire. Holy
shi...

“
What is it, Ara? Share your thoughts,” he ordered in a very
polite but stern tone.

No,
he’s just David. He can’t be a—be a… Shaking my head, I walked over
and sunk down on my bed, carefully planning my next sentence. I
have no way of knowing if it will be my last—either because he
might kill me, or because I’ve hurt his feelings with my obvious
repulsion. I can see it in his eyes; he’s about to leave and I know
he won’t come back.

My
eyelids dropped and I took a deep breath to centre my thoughts.
“What the hell…does a vampire want with a seventeen-year-old girl?”
is all I came up with.

David snickered, insult spiking the sound. “I still have
feelings, Ara.”

“
Oh.” I looked down and my thumbnails made a dull clicking
sound as I scratched them over each other.

“
Ara, I’m sorry.” The vampire appeared beside me again. My
heart jumped into my throat, but my body stayed still. “That was
unfair of me. It isn’t your fault. You couldn’t know what my
intentions are.” He stroked my hair, gently taking a few strands
from beside my eye and tucking them behind my ear.

“
I—”
I don’t know what to say? I held my breath. How had I been so wrong
when I said he could never scare me?

“
You
see, Ara.” David dropped his hand from my face and rested it on his
knee, then looked ahead of him, lost in a million miles of thought.
“Vampires, we aren’t at all like the myths you grew up hearing.
Granted, there are some aspects of our lives that ring
true—”

“
Like eating humans.” I could barely contain the ferocity in
my tone.

He
paused and his eyes flooded with frustration. “We don’t eat people,
Ara. We drink their blood.”

“
Oh,
right, silly me.” I slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand.
“’Cause that makes it all okay. Well, I can sleep soundly now, so
thank you for clearing that up.”

“
Please don’t be difficult, Ara.”

“
Why? I have a right to be mad,
David.
You’re
a
lie. You’re not a boy who goes to my school, at all. You’re…you’re,
I mean, you drink blood—” I yelled. “You kill people with your
teeth.” And didn’t even tell me that before you kissed
me!

“
It
wasn’t my secret to tell, Ara,” he answered my thought.

I
gawked at him. “So you read minds, too?”

His
head moved, so slight it was hard to make out as a nod.

I
balked. “So, have you always been in my head, or is it just when
you really need to know something that you have
no
right to know?”

“
Pretty much always.” He flexed away from my side as if my
icy-glare implied he might get slapped.

Are
you doing it now?

“
Yes. But it’s only your immediate thoughts.”

I
gasped, touching my hand to my lips.

“
To
see anything past the present, I need your permission. I have to
touch you,” he assured me. Some assurance. “But most of the time I
don’t listen. Otherwise I would’ve known how miserable you’ve been
these past few days.” He softened a little then, studying my
angered scowl. “Ara, my love. Please, don’t be afraid of
me?”

But
I
am
afraid of
you, David—terrified.

He
cringed and looked away. “I’m still the same guy—nothing’s
changed.”

Except that you
kill
people
.

He
dropped his head into his hands, resting his elbows on his
knees.

My
heart sunk. What am I saying? This is the boy I love. The kind,
sweet and protective David. Not a monster. Not a vile and
disgusting, blood-drinking fiend.

That
was cold of me. I wish I hadn’t said that—no—thought
that.

The
image of him feeding from a helpless young girl disappeared and
gave way to the face, the smile of the boy by the lake. All I want
now is to wrap my arms around him and tell him I’m sorry for being
so afraid of him. But he’s not that boy. He’s a vampire—a
murderer.

The
cold silence lingered past comfortable. Neither David nor I have
anything to say, but I imagine there’s a one-sided conversation
going on while he pries through my head.

“
I’m
sorry,” he whispered after a while.

“
I
feel so violated, David.” My tone rose upward on the
end.

“
I know.” He nodded. “I know, and I hate
myself. I truly,
truly
do.” David dropped his head again and my heart
followed.

I
hate to see him in so much pain. My fists clenched themselves
against my will and I let out a loud, growling sigh. “God. I’m so
mad at you.” I have to stand up. I need some height to make me feel
like I have some power, some strength. He’s taken all of that away
from me.

“
Shall I leave?” he asked softly, with no resolution to his
tone.

I
looked at him looking at me, and my teeth grinded together in the
back of my mouth. No way is he getting out of here without giving
me some answers. He’s going to tell me everything I want to
know—for once! He owes me that much. I slumped onto the floor with
a huff and sat with my legs crossed. “Okay. I’m—” I took a deep
breath. “I’m listening now. So? You’re a—a vampire. And you like to
be with humans. Why?” It’s a reasonable question. I mean, there’s
no way I could live in a chocolate factory.

He
leaned forward on the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and drew
a short breath through his closed teeth—leaving my question
unanswered, again.

Okay, this is the uneasy kind of silence. Is he carefully
considering his words, or pulling out a script from a previous
occasion? Whatever the reason for his sudden reluctance to speak,
the tension in his shoulders tells me he’s really uncomfortable
with all of this.

“
Despite what you believe, we’re not monsters, Ara.” Each word
came with a careful amount of warning and persuasion. “I know you
think my lifestyle is—” he paused, probably choosing his words
carefully, “—distasteful.”

Ha!
I would’ve said horrendous, repulsive. Unforgivable. But that’s
just the human in me.

“
Anyway.” He shook his head, almost certainly dislodging my
thoughts from his unwelcome ears, again. “The reason we live among
you is because the human lifestyle is vital to our survival.
Without it, we do become monsters, of a sort. We get kind of—lost
in ourselves. We would hunt only at night, live in darkness and
soon, the daylight would become unbearable to our
senses.

“
We
would have no respect for human life, and we would kill purely for
the fun of it. So, existing within the limits of the human
lifestyle is what keeps us—human.”

“
There is
nothing
human about what
you
are,” I said with a
mouthful of spite.

“
We
fall in love,” he offered, “and we can eat and sleep and walk in
the day, as if we were still human. But—”

“
But
you’re not.”

“
Actually, I was going to say but—” he tried to keep a light
grin on his lips, but the hurt of my repulsion revealed itself
within his eyes, “everything is stronger. Our bodies, our minds,
all of our senses. We feel everything with an intensity I cannot
describe; happiness, pain, heartache,” he cringed on the word, “and
love—are so much stronger than you can possibly
imagine.”

I
softened a little—about five-percent. It’s the way he says
love
. There’s something
about it that’s so…vulnerable. “I don’t know.” I shrugged one
shoulder. “I think I might be able to empathise with you on the
feeling-things-more-strongly aspect.”

The
sharp, crescent-moon dimple returned as he nodded. “You have a lot
of heart, Ara. Perhaps that’s why I’m so drawn to you. You’re not
like other humans.” His smile dropped away and he looked down at
his hands. “I am sorry that I’ve hurt you with my secrecy. More
than you know.”

Apology
not
accepted…yet. I squared my shoulders. “Okay. You need to be
with humans to act human. So why do you need to
eat
them? You said you eat and sleep
and everything else? Why be a vampire at all?”

“
It’s not by choice,” he went to yell, but restrained himself.
“You see, it’s like an alien, I guess. I thought about it once—how
I could describe it to a human.” He pointed at me as he spoke, then
touched his chin. “It’s like an alien comes down and plants itself
in you. You’re everything you were before, except that now, you
have these incredible abilities, and your human side is driven by
the desires of the alien’s first nature—blood.

“
I’m
still David, but I’m also this alien. I drink because I have to.
I’m compelled to. If I don’t drink, I become weak and desperate,
and then I’d eventually turn into a monster.” He laughed lightly
and added, “Much like you if you don’t have breakfast. Only, there
would be no stopping me. I would kill…uncontrollably.”

Great, so, I’m in love with an alien-operated
vampire.

We
sat in silence again for a minute.

“
So,
why humans? Why not squirrels? Or cats?” I subconsciously nodded
toward my window.

David laughed. He must’ve seen the image in my mind of
Skittles on a plate, with potatoes. “It is vital to consume the
blood of your own kind. I am human, in part. Without human blood,
human energy and human life force, I’m nothing. If I drank animal
blood, aside from the fact that it isn’t fulfilling, not to mention
it tastes awful, I would start to
become
an
animal—figuratively.

“
I
can’t pretend to be a normal human unless I have control, and I
cannot have control if I’m hungry or undernourished. So—” he looked
up at me, resting his hands on the bed under his knees,
“eventually, you end up back at square one—killing
remorselessly.”

“
Remorse? You feel
remorse
for them?” I thought it was
a compulsion, not a choice.

“
It’s not a choice.” Agitation stole his composure. “You don’t
understand. I suffer for every single one of my—” he paused and I
could see him biting his teeth together inside his
mouth.

What? Victims? Meals?

“
You
know me, Ara. Do you think I don’t feel for them?”

My
nose crinkled with a twisted scowl and I rubbed my forehead. “How
would
I
know what
you feel?”

“
Vampirism is a
curse
,” David demanded. “I
have
to kill. I
have
to eat, but I do
feel for them after. It’s the greatest punishment, for the greatest
gift—for all eternity.” His words fell softly away and his head
dropped into his hands—revealing the shadow over his
life.

“
Eternity? So, you’re immortal?”

“
Yes.”

“
Then, is that what you meant—that day by the lake? That
eternity didn’t have to seem so long if we were
together?”

David nodded.

I
ran my hands through my hair. “Boy, I never thought you meant it
literally.”

“
I
know. You weren’t meant to.” He lifted his head off his hands a
little and smiled at me.

“
So,
you can’t die?”

He
shook his head.

“
At
all?” I double-checked.

He
shook his head again and sat tall. “No. We’re virtually
indestructible.”

“
Virtually? What does that mean?”

“
It means we can’t die, but we can still get
hurt. Our bones are like cement—iron coated cement. They do
not
break. Ever. And our
flesh is extremely difficult to penetrate—not that it would do any
good to cut a vampire, because we heal incredibly
fast.”

“
Well—so, like, there’re no stakes or holy water or silver or
decapitation?”

“
No.
Immortal means immortal, Ara. There is no death. There is no peace.
Only an endless eternity of mourning and solitude—watching everyone
you love grow old and wither away—forever just a memory, and only a
fruitless hope of finding happiness again.”

“
Sounds—” I studied his face, “unbearable.”