the phone. I adored Nina and knew her since freshman orientation. Now that we were in our junior year it felt like we were pulling apart with each class we took separately and each break we spent apart. Soon we would have internships, and if she kept a steady boyfriend, she might even move out before our senior year. I was sad to think of our lives diverging onto new paths despite knowing change was inevitable. I was afraid I’d be here a year from now alone and even more unsure of my hopes and dreams than before. I’d still be the girl from Buffalo with well-off, but distant parents and no idea what I wanted to do. If anything, Nina was good at taking the risks I was afraid to take.
My hunger pang had become more of a sore spot centered over my chest, and I rubbed out the ache over my heart.
Food.
I definitely needed food as all thoughts of boys, friends, and my parents vanished in place of the dark presence that lingered in my mind.
2
It’s funny how nothing ever changes
BASH
There wasn’t a day that hadn’t passed in which I did not give my New Year’s Eve quarry a thought. She consumed me in a way that made life difficult. I couldn’t look at Empire apples and caramel without thinking it might taste like her. I should have killed her while I had the chance. Now I was bound to live with this regret and a desire to seek out something that did not belong in my world. There wasn’t enough whiskey to drink, or women to fuck her out of my mind. Five hundred years, and now I was doomed to give up my existence for a mortal girl too foolish to stay inside after dark.
I glanced up to the mantel focused on the gilded box I kept in my study. I hadn’t looked inside that box for almost two hundred years. I didn’t want to see if the lock of hair had lost its luster yet. I didn’t want to know if the smell of Highland heather had finally dissipated. I closed my eyes and imagined the red-haired lass that sang pretty songs and had skin softer than silk running across the fields. She’d been mine for three summers but I’d live with her betrayal forever.
Both of them.
“I don’t think you’ve moved from the last time I saw you brother.”
I glanced up from my seat to see my younger brother, a more cavalier version of myself saunter into my study. He lounged on the sofa I placed Jane and my hand strained around the crystal highball glass. I put down my drink fearful I might break it now that he’d interrupted my peace.
“Get off my sofa.” I kicked his leg growling and impatient for him to leave. He returned last summer enrolling in the University’s creative writing program for…fun. He’d been using a few of Lord Bryon’s old journals he stole to fake his way through poetry and I was positive I read a few iambic pentameters with Shakespeare’s handiwork. He never could do anything on his own, I even felt bad for the Soho couple he compelled to let him live with them. However, I didn’t feel bad enough to invite him into my house.
He cocked his head and sniffed the air.
“Human. Young. What were you up to last night, you sly devil?” Dorian had a way of taunting me past my limits. He wanted to weasel his way into my business and then shit all over it. It was one reason why I forbad him from having anything to do with my club. It was my own guilty pleasure, but since my ennui had settled in a century earlier, I wasn’t even attending regularly. He was reckless and destructive. I had to hide far too many bodies whenever he came out to play. Dorian was an ill-trained puppy, too eager and uncontrolled with his blood lust. I hated that he smelled out Jane. His curiosity would only be more trouble than it was worth.
“I wasn’t up to anything. You, however, I’m sure reveled long into the night.” I pretended to scan documents for the transfer of an art piece I was loaning to the Guggenheim.
Dorian ignored me and lounged on my sofa.
“I was tame compared to years past. I did however find a party next door that was interesting.”
“Invite yourself in did you?” That old wives’ tale was true. Vampires had to be invited