by April Smyth
At first I feel irked. I have been gone for less than a month and I have been replaced. Lost one daughter, they conjured up another baby to fill the void. Then I let the self-centred anger fizzle out and feel the euphoria, I’m going to be a big sister again. I was only seven when Shannon fell pregnant with Bruce but I have such fond memories, watching her grow bigger and dad get happier. A new baby in the household always brought a bundle of laughter and a mountain of happiness. This is exactly what we need.
“Congratulations,” I yelp and throw my arms around Shannon.
“You’re not mad?” she whispers.
“Why would I be?”
“I just don’t want you to feel like we were trying to replace you, Cass,” Shannon says. “It wasn’t planned and then you were taken and it was all a mess. We didn’t know how we’d cope without you here.”
“Yeah, I’m a lot older now. We’ll need your help this time around,” dad says.
“Of course,” I gush. “And I’m not mad at all. I’m so happy.” My poor dad. Discovering he has a new mouth to feed then his eldest daughter was kidnapped. That was just what he needed. I wish I’d known Shannon was expecting before I volunteered to go with Gabe. Not that my willingness was of particular concern to Gabe or Maurice. “Do Bruce and Jana know?”
Shannon nods, “Bruce hopes it’s a little boy and Jana doesn’t really understand but they’re both really excited.”
“We all are,” dad emphasises, giving her a strange look. Had Shannon been concerned that this baby would not be received in open arms? I can’t help but share her anxiety, dad is older now and less fit. He pushed the boat out with Jana but I still watch him get breathless from running around after two young kids. I hope he’s up to the task.
“Oh gosh,” Shannon says, taking a seat. “I’m so happy. Cassie is home, baby number three is on its way. This is a great day.”
I feel guilty. If only dad and Shannon knew what part I played in my ‘kidnapping’, under no circumstance was I whisked away against my will. I opted to leave that bar with Gabe and delve into the frightening world of vampires. I was excited. I longed for the peril. In doing so, I broke my family’s hearts. I’ll never tell them I voluntarily caused this hurt. They’d never look at me in the same way.
TWENTY-THREE
After the giddiness from the big revelation dies down, dad talks more about my disappearance. He explains that he told the school and our neighbours that I’d visited relatives of my mum abroad. They didn’t question it or worry about me because everyone knows I’m untouchable - I feel like the boy who cried wolf. He asks me if we should be worried and I lie. I tell him that my friends have taken care of Maurice. There’s a new baby on the way, I can’t tell him that there is an ancient and deadly vampire with a desire to brutally murder us. This is a worry that I’ll have to burden myself with. I deserve this heavy weight on my shoulders after all I’ve put my family through.
“Enough of this chat,” dad says. “I’m going to watch telly.”
Back to normality, where my dad is content to sit on the couch all day and watch the world spin on. I return to my bedroom. I can’t return to my bad habits. Spending hours on the computer, reading about all the things I want to do but will never have the chance. Now I’ve tasted the dark side of the world and it leaves a very sour after taste.
I pull the box underneath my bed with old extreme sports magazines and newspaper and magazine clippings about vampires and I throw them in the bin. I am saying goodbye to this ridiculous need for more and appreciate now and here. No more lusting after the future. I want to make friends, spend time with my family and enjoy life in its entirety because I never know which day will be my last. Maurice will catch up with me eventually.
I finish deleting all of the vampire related files from my computer when the phone rings. “Hello?”
“Cassie, it’s me,” croaks a familiar voice which sends my heart on a frenzy. I’ve missed this sound but I ache at how low he sounds.
“Gabe, are you okay?”
“No,” he is laugh cynically under his breath, he always has to be difficult. Self-pitying bastard. “I feel terrible in fact.”
“It’ll be okay. Arrow will take it all away, right?”
His breathing is painfully dragged out. Maurice’s blood is destroying him. He is, effectively, dying. “Well, she says she can.”
“She can,” I say firmly. “She will.” Even if I have to lose him I have faith that she will make you better.
“But you understand what this means, Cassie?”
It’s my breathing that sounds harsh now. There is a shaky sigh - the kind that speaks a thousand words that won’t come out. “Rose explained.”
“I won’t even remember who you are,” he says. He sounds so angry. His life has been so difficult that it makes me glad that somebody can erase all that anguish. Arrow will give Gabe a clean slate. I should be happy. “I won’t remember any of this...”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.”
“How can you say that? I don’t want to lose you and Rose,” he says. I feel a pinch of hope that he says he is going to fight. I want him to tell me that he loves me so eternally that he can’t bear to lose me, that he would never wish away our memories for anything, that he will find another cure or a way to fight his animalistic vampire instincts when he turns but he states the obvious, “But I need to, don’t I? I can’t be like him.”
“Of course not,” I say. He doesn’t even want to try. I would never let him but when everything is gone, when the brooding Gabe I have come to care for deeply, it would be reassuring to know that he tried everything to keep me in his heart. Will he try to remember me?
“So this is goodbye I guess,” he says. I can’t believe how noncommittal he sounds about this. That is his way. Shutting down, turning off his feelings for me and being angry at life because it is easier that way. It’s the only way he knows how to survive life. That’s why he couldn’t bear to touch me, why he loathed being near me because I made him feel and Gabe can’t cope with the emotions loving somebody brings. Not after losing Claire and he certainly won’t want to start feeling those emotions now.
“I guess,” I say. How do I tell him that he has opened my eyes? He has changed me forever. I will never take my family for granted or let greed get the better of me. I’ll never trust another vampire. I am ameliorated because of him and all I can say is ‘I guess.’
He coughs awkwardly. This is it. This is the heartfelt speech. Gabe has probably only ever given one speech like this before in his life. To Claire, before her memories of him were erased and this will be his last before his life starts again. “It’s so weird to me how crazy I am about you, Cassie.”
I laugh and cry simultaneously then he continues, “I never thought I’d love anyone again after Claire. I thought she was the be all and end all in life. When I lost her I shut down and I never planned on waking up again. then you waltzed in with your perfect blonde hair and your ocean blue eyes and your sexy curves. I thought it’d be easy before I saw you. All I had to do was find another Healer then Maurice would released me and I could live my life as a sad, lonely drunk but you were so vibrant and so desperate to live that it made me want to live again and you wanted me to live too, you wanted to help me and it made me want to help myself. You made me want to be brave. And I was, wasn’t I? Saving you like that. I guess even if Arrow’s spell kills me or takes my memories from me, there will be a small part of me that knows I did the right thing eventually. It’s really sad, bittersweet, you know? That I finally feel like things could get better and it’s all going to waste.”
“Don’t say that,” I weep. “It’s not the end. You’ll start fresh. No vampires, no heartbreak or alcohol fuelled nights on a hotel room floor. You can start again, Gabe.”
“What if I don’t want to? What if I like the person I can be with you?”
“Then you become a vampire,” I say.
“Fuck,” his voice is becoming teary now. “Wh
y’d life have to get so complicated? Somebody must hate me somewhere.”
“You will always be with me, Gabe,” this is my chance to say how I feel but the words feel static in my mouth. Spit it out. I take a deep breath and try to stifle the tears, “You think I’ve made you a better person? You have no idea what you’ve done to me. Before all of this I felt like a robot. I was just living life for the sake of it, going through the motions, but now I’m a human. I would never have felt so alive without you.”
“Someone else will make you feel alive,” he says.
“Don’t ruin it,” I say.
“I’m sorry. I have a habit of doing that.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” I laugh. We can turn the sweetest moments into an argument, playful or not.
“Ever get the feeling that we should have been given the chance to really love each other?” At least he doesn’t have to endure the ‘what if’s which will plague my mind for the rest of my life. No matter who I meet, even if I marry and have a family of my own, I will always wonder how my life would have been had Gabe and I been given the lifetime we deserved to make each other better, to make each other good.
“This is getting too soppy for me, Cassie,” he says softly.
“Yeah, well...”
“I’m going to go, Cassie, before I change my mind and decide to become a bloodsucker. Take care of yourself.” Then he is gone. I am overwhelmed with the knowledge that that was the last time I’ll ever hear his voice. I break down. The tears flow faster and harder, I bury my face into the pillow and let myself go into the sadness.
The phone rings again, sending a jolt of electricity through my heart. Thinking that it is Gabe again, I answer it instantly. It is a familiar voice but not the one I really wanted to hear. It’s Rose and I know whatever she has to say is only going to make me sadder.
“I wanted to call to tell you Arrow is going to perform the extraction spell on Gabe tonight and because Gabe has Maurice’s blood in his system, Arrow can use it to create a tracking spell on Maurice so we can keep an eye on his location.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to hide the fact that I can’t stop crying. “That’s great news.”
“She’s working on a way to kill him, Cassie. I’m going to stay with her until we figure out a way. She’s calling in more favours, finding more witches that might know the right energy to tap into or something like that. It’s all very complicated but she knows what she’s talking about.”
“That’s really good, Rose,” I say. It is great to hear that there might be a way of disabling Maurice and the path of destruction he creates but I can’t feel happy. Not now.
“Meanwhile, we’ll just keep tabs on him. See what move he makes. Arrow reckons that your blood will only suffice for a week or so then he’ll be slightly more vulnerable,” Rose is speaking so calmly, it disturbs me. Gabe is dying. He’s floating away from me before I even held him in my arms. I can’t think about Maurice right now. “And I’ll keep in touch, Cass.”
“Good,” is all I say. I know I’m being rude. Rose is trying her best. She is exceeding what I could ever expected from her. She should run. Find her true love and live a long, happy life but I know I have found a loyal friend in Rose. She will never abandon me now. She’ll always look out for me. “Thanks Rose.”
“It’s my pleasure, Cassie. Anyway I need to do something to keep my mind off Gabe,” she sighs.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snap.
“Not now you don’t but I’ll call you in a few days, a week maybe and we’ll talk it out,” she says meekly. A few days, a week, not enough time. My heart will still be aching in years over losing the love I never had and Rose knows that. “Talk soon, Cassie.” Then she’s gone. She’s probably about to say her last goodbye to Gabe. She’s fortunate she has the chance to hold his hand, kiss his skin, look into his endless eyes. She is lucky to bid him farewell in person where she can feel him, be with him. A phone call seems so cold, allowing no room for closure.
I feel lonely and empty now. Gabe is gone. I won’t see Rose for months, if I ever see her again. Dad and Shannon are preoccupied with baby talk. I have gone round in circles, looking for the meaning in life and returning to the same dismal existence that I had before.
I empty my bags which have a slapdash collection of my belongings from my time in Toulouse, mostly the clothes Rose bought me in Manchester. Expensive jeans and blouses that I will never wear again. There’s the necklace that Maurice bought me stuffed between a pair of socks and it turns my stomach. Luckily, whoever packed my bag left out most of his gifts. A laptop and phone would be difficult to throw out the window, watching it shatter on the ground but I have no problem getting rid of this distasteful necklace. I hurl it out of my window and watch the jewels dismantle as it hits the concrete. A waste but I couldn’t bear to look at it. I imagine it wrapped around my neck, tightening until it suffocates me and I choke. It was just another piece in Maurice’s game, a pawn he had to move in order to capture the king.
I’m almost finished when I come across a leathery wallet that certainly doesn’t belong to me. I should toss it in the trash. It’s probably Justin or Channing’s, and I’ll never see them again. I’m sure they won’t miss it but something makes my fingers twitch and I open it up. It’s not Channing or Justin’s. This lost wallet belongs to Gabe.
There’s a five pound note tucked behind the flight ticket from Manchester to Paris. And there’s a photograph. I start to cry again. He’s smiling. His smile was such a rare occurrence, I’m so glad I have the moment captured forever. His hair is shorter, scruffy and soft looking. It is from a younger, happier time and he’s with a skinny, tall blonde girl. It must be Claire. She’s not what I expected. She’s gangly and goofy looking, her eyes half-shut in the photograph and her arms positioned awkwardly. She is pretty though and Gabe looks like he loves her a lot.
I hold the photo close to my chest, clutching the wallet in a fist and I pretend Gabe is with me and I know that, now, he really is always with me. I fold the photograph to hide Claire and place it neatly in my photo album - filled with scraps from Summers with dad, Shannon, Bruce and Jana in the garden. Whenever I miss him or the sadness is too much to endure, I will look at this photo and be reminded of the light inside of me. Sadness and loss are just a part of being human and humanity is the most beautiful thing on the planet.
I spend the rest of the afternoon with dad on the couch watching reruns of films from the nineteen eighties and I’m content. Of course, the future is worrying. I have to think about Maurice’s intentions and wondering where Gabe is in the world and the arrival of the new baby in a house that’s already bursting at the seams. The past haunts me too. What happened to my mother? What could I have done to change my fate? But I can’t think like that, I have my whole life ahead of me and I’m finally going to start living it.
After all I am bulletproof.