Vampires Never Get Old - Zoraida Cordova Page 0,45

is human and what is not. I enjoyed the freedom I found in constructing a reflection of myself in images of what I saw in the world around me, but looking back now, I can see that I made a fatal error in judgment.

Her name is Theolinda, or @YoSoyTheolinda, to most.

I unlock my phone and thumb over the screen until I’m staring at my Instagram direct messages. Only three people contact me this way. The first is Imogen. I still don’t know how she found my account, but she is the youngest of my petits crocs and usually the first to adapt to changing technologies and social patterns. The second, a man who goes by Brad, tosses out generic messages like fishing lures that I never answer because I do not care that he’s single and thinks we’re soul mates. We are not.

The third is Theo. Her user icon is an image of a crescent moon morphing into a brilliant scarlet flower. I select her name and our conversation spills down the little screen. We’ve been talking this way since she was barely fifteen and took notice of the one and only selfie I’ve ever posted. We didn’t always talk for long, but after an initial period of pleasantries and the kinds of social exchanges one might expect of a child and an immortal elder, our conversations took a surprising turn.

They mattered.

We discussed life and loss and change. We discussed what it meant to have influence and be influenced. We discussed power and bodies and death.

And then, suddenly, out of the galactic blue, this.

Theo’s last message to me perches at the top of the screen. It’s an image of a girl in a white dress standing in a dark tunnel. It’s blurred, as though the camera gasped at a beam of light, but I can see her light brown skin, her long, black curls tipped over one shoulder, her lips painted in the deepest red.

Across the bottom of the image a message is written in curling silver script:

Who’s that girl? Find out tomorrow.

The Root & Ruin (basement lounge) @ 10 p.m.

I hadn’t responded at the time. For an indulgent moment, I convinced myself that meeting Theo in real life would be quite beautiful. Despite the vast and considerable difference in our ages, to say nothing of our circumstances, I thought meeting her would be like seeing the sun. And I very much wanted to see the sun once more.

But as I dress in layers of silver and black and pink and draw heavy black lines around my green eyes, as I paint my lips in the perfect shade of winter blackberries, I return to my senses. Theolinda is a girl and a child. She only knows me through a series of desolate cityscapes I’ve ironically tagged #selfie and through the few words we’ve shared. She has no idea who I truly am, and learning will only horrify her.

The friendship we’ve built together is gossamer in the wind, a lovely dream I have enjoyed for too long already. Any longer and it will become a danger to both of us.

With a distant squeeze of regret, I open a new message and type:

Stuck in traffic. Might not make it. Sorry.

* * *

THEO: omg love this filter! where’d you find it?

BRITTANY: it’s my vampire filter lol

THEO: i know you’re joking but do you ever think about what it would be like to live forever?

BRITTANY: sounds lonely

* * *

THEOLINDA

“I honestly don’t know how I’m going to outdo myself,” I say to the empty room.

The Root & Ruin basement lounge is my masterpiece. Truly. Black velvet curtains hang from the wall. The mahogany bar, which was previously covered in cobwebs that rivaled those in my attic, gleams with polish and lavender-scented Mistolin. Although, maybe cobwebs would have worked thematically.

Oh well, there’s always next year.

A guy in a black-leather cowboy hat, a velvet vest, and jeans so ripped they don’t even count as pants walks in. “Hey, I’m DJ Hex Marks the Spot.”

I bite my lower lip to stop from laughing. My eyes must be bugging out and I can’t afford to mess up the eyeliner that took me three tries to apply evenly. Old guys are so gross. “Mm-hmm. So that’s not just your handle. Okay okay okay. I’m Theo. You can set up near the bar. Remember. No pop. No ’70s or ’80s. Unless it’s exclusively Led Zeppelin.” I bite the tip of my pointed nails. My gel manicure is white, but the end