So, I'm fourteen now. Been fourteen for a while. She remembered my birthday, but I'll be damned if I can see how, what with all this running and hiding we've been doing. Gave me a kiss and a card, sang "happy birthday to me" and said she was sorry she wasn't able to make better plans. Honestly, if she hadn't remembered, I'd have forgotten all about it, and I told her that.
It's been hell. There's just no nicer way to put it. We can never stay in one place more than a little while, and she's been pestering me to cut my hair, comb it a different way, dye it different colours, keep it hidden under a cap. She's been telling me to stay out of sight whenever possible, not to let myself be seen. Mostly, she's doing this just to keep me mindful, but I think I'd be mindful enough if she didn't; we've been in the papers and on TV forever and a day, it seems. Posters everywhere asking "Have you seen this child?" Sometimes we can stay someplace nice, most of the time we wind up hiding in houses nobody lives in anymore, the backs of trucks that haven't moved in forever, railroad cars, caves, anything that looks like it'll keep her from being hit by sunlight.
Food's not been a problem for either one of us. Two guesses where she gets her food, and the first one doesn't count, and I'm not sure I want to know where or how she gets mine, but she nearly always manages to get food I actually like. Our one summer together hasn't been too bad, actually, but the two winters we've been together have been a lot rougher on me than on her - she can't feel the cold, but I sure can!
What the hell happened? I barely even remember the night at the pool, even though I can't forget it, either. All I know is, I was being held underwater, and then I don't remember anything, and then I was looking at her looking at me really intensely. I remember being really glad to see her, and I remember looking around and seeing lots of blood and some bodies that looked somehow wrong, but I couldn't figure out what was wrong for quite a while. She got me out of the water, put some clothes on me that I still have no idea how she found, and suddenly we were running pell-mell in the dark looking for a taxi.
She still won't tell me what she did, exactly, but I know two things: the kids who held my head underwater were trying to kill me, and now they're dead, and she had planned on asking me to go away with her because she had stuff for me all ready when the taxi got us where we were going.
She did tell me she'd take me back home if I wanted, and told me it'd probably be a really good idea, but there were a few things going through my mind at the time, like, those kids were dead and if I went back home, I was going to have to try to either lie to the police about what happened by saying I had no idea what went on, or I was going to have to try to convince them a vampire did it. Either way, looked to me like I'd be spending lots and lots of time away from home in places I'd heard not such good things about. Even if they let me go home, which I seriously doubted, what would I be going back to? Even if Mom left me alone about it, which she wouldn't, the other kids would have known I'd had something to do with the dead kids, and their friends or cousins or something would come after me. My life was over, doesn't matter how you slice that pie.
And, I'd be away from Eli, maybe forever.
I didn't take much time thinking about it. Besides, she wanted me to be with her. What was I supposed to do?
Tell you what, though, I thought I knew about her. I thought I knew she was a vampire, that she killed people because she needed their blood to live. I thought I was OK with that. More or less, anyway. I guess I am, though, because here I am, still hanging out with her, still not wanting to be with anybody else. But... cheese and rice...
Running all the time and not being able to be me in public is a real drag, but that's not the worst. It's lonely, and it's boring. If I'm going to spend most of my time with her, I'm going to have to learn to love sleeping in the daytime, but if I do that, she's just about the only company I can have. That's not anything new, I spent most of my time alone anyway, but it was nice being able to drop into a store and wave "hello" to a nice clerk or talk about weather or some dumb stuff with random people, but you can't do that at night, and not just because people ask why I'm not home with my folks. I guess people who hang out at night are just strange, and they figure I'm strange, too, and maybe dangerous.
Maybe I am.
So, I spend most of my time when she's not around reading or drawing or doing other stuff alone, when I can. Kinda tough to do when there isn't always a lamp to turn on, or even a candle to light. Sorta wonder how folks did it before the electric light bulb was invented. She isn't always around, either, and that, I think, is the worst thing. Partly, it's being totally alone, and I mean alone in a way people just wouldn't understand, but mostly it's not knowing if she's OK. Usually, she's only gone a couple of hours, sometimes only like twenty minutes or something, but more than once she was gone all night and all day, coming back next night mumbling something about the nights being too goddamn short.
THAT is the worst thing, not knowing she's OK. I can't tell if I'm more afraid that she's died or left me to fend for myself, or if I'm actually afraid for her for her own self. Is it selfish to worry about her leaving me because I don't think I can cut it on my own?
Most of the time, it's like we'd ridden off into the sunset to live happily ever after. We laugh, we make jokes and play games and stuff, and sometimes when I can't stay up the whole night, she'll have me sleep with my head in her lap. She says she can't sleep unless the sun is up, but she really doesn't mind staying still enough for me to sleep like that for hours and hours. Maybe being a vampire makes it easy for her to do that. Doesn't matter. I can't ever remember feeling safer or more wanted than when we're holding eachother.
Doesn't mean we don't fight sometimes. Sometimes, she's all about stuff we gotta do right away, and it's like Mom telling me to clean up my room "or else!", and I don’t want to hear it. I know better, and she doesn't push me around for no reason. I mean, everything she says makes sense when she explains it, but she doesn't always explain when she gets bossy or when she's in a hurry, and I get all "leave me alone!" or "settle down, the world isn't going to end in five minutes!" or some dumb stuff. Sometimes I forget I'm not really a kid anymore, and it's really easy for me to forget that she's not really been a kid since long before my great great grandparents were even born. Sometimes, she shouts, and sometimes I shout back, and we can get into some really stupid arguments and be all mad at eachother and everything.
Yea, I thought I knew about her. I know she killed those kids, and I know she did it fast enough to get me out of the water soon enough after I'd drowned to bring me back. She can't feel the cold, she's stronger than steel and sometimes faster than my eyes can even see, but she can be hurt, and it means I have to learn to be careful when we fight. She can be hurt a lot more easily than you'd think. I didn't know that, but she can be hurt real bad.
Like, this one time, she said something that made me mad. I don't remember what it was, but I do remember saying something like "Yea, well, I ain't the bloodsucking monster that runs around murdering random people!" That's not what we'd been fighting about, wasn't even on my mind at all, I think, until it just blurted out. She just looked at me, and looked at me, and then looked at the floor. And then she said, really really quiet, "You can always open the bathroom blinds while I'm sleeping." She could have been a statue, she was so still.
I'd never heard her use that tone of voice before, and I'm not sure if it was that or what she said that bothered me most. All of a sudden, I felt like I was going to puke, and if I'd had any pee in me, I'd have had wet pants. I lost that fight because I did the only thing I knew how to do right then: I cried. I bawled and blubbered and screamed, and it just went on and on and on. I did it with my face on the cold ground because my legs just wouldn't hold me up, couldn't even keep myself up on all fours. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me down and make me disappear forever.
I don't even know what made me do that. Not really. I had this picture in my head of the sunlight coming in and her burning up in her tub, and I just couldn't handle it. Maybe what made me cry was thinking that she could think I'd ever do such a thing, or maybe I was scared that I could think about doing such a thing, even though I never had. Maybe it was just the stupid fight we'd been having anyway, or maybe I was just missing my parents and my safe, clean bedroom and three hot meals a day. Maybe anything, but mostly, I think what made me hurt most was the hurt I heard in her tone of voice. I think she meant it.
As tough as life has gotten for me, what must it be like for her? How did she get through it for so long if I'm having so much trouble handling a single year of it?
And how is it she's never as mean to me as I sometimes am to her?
We're not always real comfortable with eachother. Sometimes, not very often, but sometimes, I can't forget what she is, and I'm not real cool with being right next to her. Other times, I think she can't forget what she is, and isn't real cool with being right next to me, and I think it's worst when she hasn't had any food for a while. Other times, though...
Well, lately, things have been getting kinda strange. She might be a couple hundred years old, and really scary smart sometimes, but she's also just a kid, she's only twelve. I'm not, and it's not just that she's smaller than me now. It's that she really is just a little girl in a lot of ways, and I'm not a little boy anymore. Maybe I'll get used to it, guess I'll have to, but sometimes it puts me off just a little when we're hugging.
See, for the longest time, we'd cuddle up and just hold eachother. Sometimes we'd be wearing clothes, and sometimes not. It was just... nice. Well, in the summer, anyway. Lately, though, when we do that, I get all these funny feelings that I don't really understand. She does, and told me what those feelings were, and what they meant. I mean, I'd known for a long time that babies grow in their mothers' bellies, but I didn't know what made them decide to start growing.
Yuck!
And... yum.
She said she knew these things because she's seen it many times, but she also said she can't have those feelings herself. It has something to do with not being a boy anymore, and with not ever being able to grow up. That means she understands my feelings the way I understand that two plus two equals four, but she doesn't "understand" them. I don't think I know what that means yet, but she says someday I will.
Sometimes, though, when we hug, and I get those feelings, she knows. We don't even have to be hugging close enough for "me" to hit her, she says she can smell it, and once in a while, she pulls away.
She used that tone of voice, again, the really quiet one I'm really learning to hate. She said "There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you. Anything." I think I know what she means, sorta, but why does it sound like it'd hurt?
I guess I have a lot to learn.
The only other time she used that tone of voice was when I tried to ask her about the old guy she used to live with. The newspapers and radio say his name was Hoakan Bengtsson, I think, and they called him a really terrible monster. First time I asked, she just said "it doesn't matter", and we got to talking about something else, but second time I asked, and I mean really asked, she got that really quiet voice again, looked at the ground and said "He helped me". That's all she'd say for the rest of the night.
So, but, I mean, what's all these things go to do with eachother? Her being a bloodsucking monster can make her really quiet, and the really old guy who helped her (but how?) and me growing up into a man? She won't say, but later on she told me he wasn't half the monster the papers made him out to be, that he wouldn't have been doing anything at all if she hadn't made him. She said she'd lived with worse monsters. MUCH worse.
Does this mean I'm going to be helping her, too? I'm going to turn into a monster? Does getting to be a man have something to do with it?
I don't know, and she isn't always really good at explaining things. Sometimes, she's just all "That's just the way things are", and it doesn't help.
She also said that she thought that getting to be a grownup must be a lot like being like what she is. She has something around her heart that isn't human, and it makes her do things when she gets hungry enough. Grownups have something living in their bodies, too, and it makes them do things they wouldn't do if they could think about what they're doing. They crack up and go nuts and do things, and then they're sorry afterwards.
What I do know is this: sometimes, when we hug and I get those feelings and she can feel or smell it and pulls away, I end up missing the times before, when it wouldn't pull us apart. She says I can't help wanting the things I want, even if I don't really know yet what that is, any more than she can help needing the things she needs (even if she doesn't really know why she has to need them). She's right, I can't help it, but sometimes I'm lonely or scared and need her to hold me, and she doesn't always, or when she does and I get those feelings, you can tell she's not as comfortable as she used to be because she's shaking just a little or maybe not holding as tightly, well... it hurts. It makes me feel like she doesn't want me around as much as she used to.
Am I ever like that with her? Do I ever not hold her when she's lonely or scared because I'm afraid she might eat me? Maybe sometimes I hold her, but not really hold her because I'd really like to run away? Does it her her as much as it does me? I hope not!
She says there isn't anything she wouldn't do for me. I think she means it because of the way she says it, but I know this: if turning into a man means turning into a monster that she doesn't want to be around, then sometimes I think I'd like for somebody to do to me what was done to her. I don't want to be a man. I don't want to be something that has feelings that make her want to go away. I don't mean I want to be a vampire, not if just living with one can be so tough, but who wants to live with feelings you don't want if you can't help them?
I know this, too: she was there for me. When the kids in the pool were killing me, my parents weren't there. The teachers weren't there, not even the really nice Mr. Avila. The police weren't there. God wasn't there. She was, and I think it's the first time in my whole life anybody really ever was. She jokes that she'll never tell me to hit anybody again, when she isn't busy being sorry it screwed up my life so much, but she cared enough before I really even started knowing her to tell me something that might help. She listened to me, and cared about what happened to me, and she kept her promises.
The night I cried when she said I could always open the bathroom windows while she was sleeping, I had my face on the cold ground, but I don't think it was for very long. She sat down next to me, put my head in her lap, played with my hair and made little shushing noises about how it'll be OK, things will work out, don't cry. I think she did that for a really long time, never scolded or made fun of me, never told me to grow up, never said to stop being such a big baby.
And I remember thinking I'll never open a bathroom window up while she's sleeping in the tub.
I'd kill anybody - anybody, I think even my own mother or father - just for thinking about it.