by Rae, Nikki
He’s in front of me, grabbing my waist and kissing me hard on the mouth like he can consume me. I drop my suitcase and it makes a loud thud.
When he finally pulls away from me, he says, “I missed you. Happy birthday.”
“I missed you too,” I say, “Thanks.” I pick up my suitcase again and move it a few feet away.
I sit down on my piano bench in front of my piano, the same one that I’ve had since I started.
“How was tour?” he asks like I didn’t call or text him every day we were apart to tell him how amazing it was.
I smile. “Pretty awesome,” I say. “The fans seem to like the new addition.”
“So Jade liked his first tour as a musician, I guess.”
“Yeah.” I smile at the not so distant memory of my brother playing with us, put back together and alive.
Myles grabs my hand and squeezes.
“I um...” I start, suddenly nervous about what I’m about to say. “I kind of have a present for you. But you probably won’t want it.”
His eyebrows knit together and I can feel him trying to push against my walls so he can see what I mean, but I strengthen them. If he could see what I’m thinking, he definitely wouldn’t let me continue. “But it’s your birthday,” he says. “You get presents, not me.”
I shrug, staring down at a fleck of dried yellow paint on his thumb. “I wanted to give it to you anyway.” I clear my throat. “I really hope you take it. I went through a lot to get it.”
Confusion crosses his expression and lingers there a moment before he kisses me on the forehead. “Whatever it is,” he says. “I’m sure I’ll love it if you’re the one who got it for me.”
I hesitate for a few more silent seconds before standing up and lugging my suitcase back to him. “It’s in here,” I say. “It’s wrapped, but you’ll probably know what it is as soon as you see it.”
Myles comes over to the suitcase, kneeling down next to it.
When he unzips it, he finds the neatly wrapped present in bright green paper on top of all of my unfolded, packed up clothes. I did it that way so it would be harder for him to tell what it is. Dirty clothes mask the scent.
Myles picks up the medium sized object and it crinkles in his hands. My heart thuds loudly in my ears. Despite all of the horrible and scary things we’ve been through, I don’t think I’ve ever been so afraid in my life.
“You’re really nervous about giving me this,” Myles notices, but he makes a joke out of it.
I laugh awkwardly because I can’t speak.
He doesn’t say anything as he realizes what it is he’s been holding.
“Sophie,” he says, his voice uneasy.
“Just open it,” I cut off whatever he was going to say next. I wrap my arms around myself and try to remain calm. “Please.” My heart pounds.
Myles runs a hand through his hair, pausing longer than necessary.
He looks up at me again. His mouth opens like he’s about to say something else. Something that will prolong the entire thing. Something that will stop it.
“Shut up,” I try to joke, and it thankfully comes out light enough. “Just open it.”
Finally, the paper comes away, and the ripping sounds fill the silence of the room. I press my back into the piano, asking it for support.
The plastic makes it hard for him to tell who it belonged to before it was in the bag, but before he can ask, I take it upon myself to explain.
“Evan,” I say to him. “I stopped by the club before I came home and he gave it to me.”
“What’s this for?” he asks.
“You.”
He studies it for a second longer. “I figured,” he says, looking up at me. “Why is it for me?”
I gulp, deciding the best way to get him on my side of things is to get it all out as fast as possible. “He said that he was probably one of the oldest vampires I’d be able to find.” I take a breath and quickly continue. “He said that it should be enough.”
“‘He’?” Myles asks. “‘He’ who?”
“Evan,” I whisper. “And...Michael.”
His expression doesn’t change, but something in the air shifts, becomes heavier with his realization of what I’m trying to explain.
“I thought Michael left,” he says, unable to look at me now.
“He did,” I say. “But he came back.”
I watch as Myles swallows. “Show me what happened.
I hesitate for a second before I close the small space between us. I place my hand on the side of his face and it takes a long time for his eyes to reach mine. “I don’t know how,” I admit.
His smile isn’t exactly happy, but the little carved out moon shape appears just long enough to put me at ease. He kneels down on the floor and I follow him so we’re both sitting on the cool cement. “Just remember,” he says. “Remember what happened and give the memory to me.”
“It sounds so simple when you put it like that,” I joke, but then I concentrate.
I funnel every thought and everything I had to do in order to get to this point, with Myles holding a bag of Michael's blood and both of us discussing what I intend to do with it.
Evan called me a few weeks after I came back from death for the second time. I was at Jade’s house with Boo and Trei, recording some songs in the studio Jade and Stevie had built for me.
“I thought we agreed to turn our phones off,” Boo complained from his drums as I removed my headphones, but he wasn’t really mad; he took out his own phone to text.
My phone stopped ringing and when I checked the number, I didn’t recognize it.
Trei slapped him on the arm. “Hypocrite.”
Boo stuck out his tongue at her as she stood from her stool to stretch.
Jade came in next, his guitar slung over his back. “Sorry it took so long,” he said. “I had to get it out of the attic.”
They all began talking so I checked my voicemail, pressing the phone to my ear.
“Sophie,” Evan’s accented voice came through the other end.
I honestly can’t remember all of the details of our conversation because my heart was beating so fast and my mind was racing but he told me that Michael was at his house. That I should come right away and to not tell Myles. Most importantly, he told me there was a way to cure him. All of them.
I went through the rest of recording not remembering most of it. As soon as we were done, I got in my car and drove all the way to New York, to Evan’s house. I didn’t bother calling back.
I remember sitting in the car, staring up at the door. I didn’t want to think about what I was doing there or who was inside. All I thought about was when I was brought back. How I knew Myles, Evan, and Ava would be okay--that I would be the one to help them--but I didn’t know how.
Now here was the answer and I didn’t want to believe it.
I pause, my hand slipping from Myles’ face. I hadn’t realized I closed my eyes until I actually open them and his are closed too. He blinks slowly, never fully focusing his gaze on me. He lifts my hand from the floor and places it on the side of his head once more. The bag of blood is in his other hand. “Please,” he says. “Show me the rest.”
Myles closes his eyes again and I concentrate even harder, trying to make the memories real for him.
I went inside eventually, because the memory picks up there, inside a part of Evan’s house I hadn’t been before, which was kind of like his office at the club, only bare. There were plain white walls, a few books on an otherwise empty shelf, and an ancient looking laptop on a clean brown desk. Michael was sitting in a chair pushed up against a wall, and when Evan motioned me inside, he stood up, looking almost nervous.
“It is alright,” Evan said from behind me, shutting the door.
Between the tense expression on Michael’s face and my heart hammering in my chest, I didn’t know who he was talking to.
“Please sit down,” Evan told us both.
Michael sat back down and I took a chair at the desk, which
was a comfortable distance away from him. Evan sat behind the desk, folding his hands on top.
“So what is it?” I finally asked.
Michael looked from me to Evan. Evan was the one who spoke. “Michael’s blood is no longer poisonous,” he said. “He brought you back with it.”
I nod. “I remember.” I absently rubbed my neck, the mark long gone.
I didn’t know how I should have felt with this man who made my life a living hell sitting in the same room as me, wanting to help me, as well as all of the other people he had hurt.
“And your blood will cure what is left of the poison,” Evan said after a long pause. “If one of us were to take all of it.”
“Kill me,” I corrected. I wasn’t scared for some odd reason. I was just talking, spouting out facts.
Evan cleared his throat. “Yes.”
I looked to Michael then, the pieces clicking together. “And Michael’s blood would bring me back,” I said.
Michael nodded.
I shifted my gaze to Evan again. “So you brought me here for Ava, right?”
He stared at his hands before looking at me. “I don’t expect you to help us,” he said. “At least, not before Myles. I want you to help him first too.”
“How do you know it will work?” I asked.
Evan opened his mouth but Michael spoke for him. “I want to help all of you.” His voice was stretched thin, like he had been holding onto that sentence for a long time. “When my blood was black it killed, and now it is not.” He blinked a few times. “Because of you and your light. It will bring you back.”
Now I stared down at my hands. I still didn’t believe that it had all happened. That something so pure could come out of something that I had once used to hurt myself and cause scars. But then again, I also used the same hands to heal. I used them to create songs that pushed the bad things out of me when I couldn’t do it on my own.
I looked back to them. “What do we need to do?”
Myles shifts, breaking my concentration. My eyes open again and he’s staring right into me, the blue of his irises reflecting every bit of light in the room. “You don’t have to show me what they did,” he says, his voice hoarse. “Just tell me.”
I take my hand from his face and he holds it in his lap.
“Evan had some blood bags in the drawer,” I say, but I have to pause before continuing. “He filled one with Michael’s blood for you--which he kept safe until I came back--and one with my blood for Ava, so she’d be okay until after--”
“After you’re done with me?” Myles cuts me off. “For when I’ve killed you once again and you’ve come back from the dead so each of them can kill you as well.” It’s not a question.
“You’re mad.”
He squeezes his eyes shut. “You don’t need to cure me,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Not right now,” I whisper. “But you’re infected, Myles. I know how it feels.”
He opens his eyes again, nodding to himself. “You’re okay with this?” His voice is just above a whisper, but it’s strained. “Being passed around and killed like it’s nothing?”
“Don’t get upset,” I say, not knowing what else to do.
Myles stares at the bag of Michael’s blood. “Why?” he asks. “Why now, when everything is okay?”
I didn’t want to wait this long. I wanted time to have a semi-normal life with Myles. Buy a house, live together, have my career. That’s one of the reasons I told him to stay home when we left for tour. I wanted to be distracted from what I had to do. I wanted to forget that I was meant to save everyone.
Then I realized that I was doing what I had always done when things scared me: running away. I couldn’t run forever. I would never get back to normal if I didn’t deal with the aspects of my life that made it abnormal.
“Because one day it won’t be,” I say. “One day...you’ll be in the same position I was in and I don’t want it to happen to you.”
“That’s a long time from now,” he says. “Years and years.”
“But it’s going to happen.” I squeeze his hand. “Why won’t you let me prevent it?”
We stare at each other for a long time. The answer to our problems is now sitting between us on the floor. “If we do this,” he whispers, his cool breath tickling my nose. “If we do this and it works,” he corrects. “You’ll still be a vampire, but I’ll be…”
“Human.”
He nods.
“That’s okay,” I tell him. “You can always be turned again, right?”
He lets out a tiny laugh and the way it leaves him tells me that he doesn’t find anything funny. “If I’m ever human again, I don’t think I’ll be able to...go back to this.”
I smile because I know. He’ll better at being human than I ever was. He would never turn again, even if it meant being with me forever. “That’s okay too.”
Myles shakes his head. “If I’m human, I’ll die,” he says. “The same as if I didn’t kill you. Either way, I’ll die.”
I bring his face closer to mine. “I know.” The thought of losing him chokes off my voice, but the thought of saving him brings it back. “We’ll have a long time together, though. And you’ll be happy and healthy and we’ll be okay.”
He laughs again and this time, there’s a little humor behind it. “How can you be so sure about all of this?”
“When people die, they don’t really go away,” I tell him. “I’ll still be able to see you.”
“It’s not the same.”
“No,” I agree. “But it’s worth it.” I glance down at the bag. “I want you to have a normal life. Everyone deserves that.”
There is the longest time that passes between us.
“I’m scared,” he says softly, as if just realizing it himself.
I wrap an arm around his back, pushing the blood bag aside and bringing his body closer. Now there’s nothing between us. “What are you afraid of?” I whisper into his ear, too scared that if I ask the question out loud, he’ll retreat and keep it a secret.
His head rests against my collarbone. Our mark. “What if I’m not good at it?”
I can’t help laughing softly. He may be scared of killing me or that this may not work, but what he’s most afraid of is being normal. Go figure. “Are you a perfect vampire?” I ask. “Do you do everything right no matter what, never making any mistakes?”
He laughs too. “No, of course not,” he says. “I just try the best I can.”
“That’s all you have to do,” I say, suddenly aware that I am the one leading Myles back to the shore. I am the one who will bring him back. “No one’s good at being human,” I say, shrugging. “But you still try because that’s what you have to do.”
He seems to take that in and he doesn’t say anything else for a little while. I let him have his contemplation. This is probably the biggest decision he’s ever had to make in his life–making it shorter, becoming human, getting what he’s always wanted.
“No one’s ever done this before,” he finally decides on saying. “What if something goes wrong?” The grip he has around my waist tightens slightly.
“We’ll be okay.” I smile. “Every question you have, I’ve thought about a million times.” I kiss his forehead. “And I still want to do it.”
I smile, knowing that he’ll be happier as a human. Once his lungs start contracting and expanding with oxygen, once his heart begins beating in steady, rhythmic patterns, he’ll be who he’s always wanted to be.
I catch myself thinking for about the millionth time how I love him. That I can barely remember what it was like before him, and I can’t see a future without him fitting into it somewhere. Of course now our future together will now be cut short, but this is a gift only I’m capable of giving. A sacrifice only I can make. Small, considering what we both had to go through in order to reach this point.
Myles straightens himself out. “You’ll help me?” he asks. “You’ll show me how?”
&nb
sp; I hug him now, wrapping myself around him, wanting to be closer. So much closer. “I’ll show you how to be human,” I say. “The best that I know how, which isn’t that good.” I laugh. “I honestly think I make a better vampire.”
He strokes the back of my head with his hand. “Vampire or human, it doesn’t matter what you are to me,” he says, giving voice to my exact thoughts. “As long as you’re still you.”
“Exactly,” I tell him. I gesture to the bag. “So are you going to take the damn thing or not?”
He laughs the littlest bit, curling his fingers gently around the plastic. “Are you sure you’ll still want me?” he asks, half-joking.
I wrap my arms around him again. “Forever,” I tell him. “Forever and ever.”
When we separate, he takes my hand until we’re both standing.
“I want to show you something first,” he says, leading me toward the painting, still holding onto the blood bag, but he places it gently on his work table.
“Close your eyes,” he says before we’re in front of the other side of the canvas.
I listen to him with my eyes shut as he moves the easel closer to me and I also hear the way his heart is jumping excitedly in his chest. I start to think about all of the sounds I’ll hear from him when he’s human again. His heart and breath. How both of them will speed up when he’s scared or excited. How both of them will slow down when I’m there to hold him.
“Okay,” he says, right next to me. “You can open them now.”
The figure I once saw by herself is now in an illuminated space, light still emanating from her chest, pushing all of the other colors outward until they fade into a dark night. Behind me is my piano, lit up the same as my painted face.
“I see you like this all the time now,” he says. “Not just when you play.”
My fingers trace the edge of the frame, just in case the paint is still wet. “Happy birthday,” he says into my ear, hugging me from behind. “Do you like it?”
“I love it,” I say. “Thank you.”
We stare at it together for a long time, picking out each detail of every color.
