by Rae, Nikki
“How?” I whisper without even thinking about the question before it leaves my mouth.
I clear my throat, sniff again, and wipe away tears with the soft fabric of the handkerchief, but I'm really just trying to avoid his unwavering gaze.
“How can you make it stop?” I finally ask when he doesn't say anything else. “Myles already tried, and I felt . . . worse.”
“I know,” he says quietly, and I don't know how, or if Myles told him anything about it.
He's probably suffering too, watching me go through this, and he needs someone to talk to now that his girlfriend is incapacitated.
“What you are feeling,” he says, “runs too deep for that.”
I wrap my arms around myself, both fearing that I'll start breaking down again and knowing almost for sure that I wouldn't be able to if I tried. My eyes are so dry and my throat is so sore that I doubt another fit of sadness would be possible, but that’s the thing about grief, I guess. It doesn’t listen when you say stop.
“What. . .” I say it too quietly. “What can you do that Myles can't?”
“He has the ability,” Evan says, correcting me. “He just does not want to put you through anything more.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but he leans in even closer. I don’t feel uneasy this time. The more Evan looks at me and tells me that he has something that will make it all stop so I can be a normal, functioning human being, the calmer I become.
“Myles fears that he will only make things worse,” Evan says.
“How do you know you won't?” leaves my mouth before it's fully processed by my brain.
His mouth presses into a line, and I'm momentarily worried that he may be angry, but his words reassure me.
“I am not . . . connected to you as Myles is,” he speaks slowly so I can understand him. “Sometimes, distance helps with these things.”
I nod like he's making all the sense in the world, but I'm not sure if anything makes sense anymore.
“Would you like to try?” Evan asks. For some reason, when his voice is quiet like that, his accent is more pronounced.
“I. . .”
“You have the power to stop me at any time,” he adds on quickly.
Evan isn’t making me uncomfortable. He's being really nice and trying to help me out. He isn't forcing me to do anything I don’t want to do.
Then why do I feel so wrong about all of this?
Still, I ask, “What do you mean, it runs too deep?” I begin to fold the handkerchief between my hands. “What you're going to do. . .” I stop myself. “What you want to do. . .” sounds better. “How is it any different than what Myles did?”
“It is completely different,” he says, almost looking puzzled. “What Myles tried was only scratching the surface of your sorrow, your loss.” The leather doesn’t even make a sound when he shifts in his chair. “It runs through every thought and moment,” he says, “Your bones,” he pauses. “Your blood.”
With that one word I know what he means to do.
I should be scared and uneasy, or at the very least, trying to leave.
But then again, this is a way out. This is a way to feel better.
I'm terrified of what I don't feel. I'm even more horrified that I'm willing to do this, here, with this person—vampire.
I swallow, turning different combinations of mostly the same words over and over in my skull until they sound right. When that doesn't happen, I settle for the one that sounds the most coherent. “Myles told me that . . . blood is personal.”
Something crosses over Evan's pale face. I'm not sure where it starts. Maybe it’s his jaw setting, his lips twitching, his eyes shifting, but it's like a shadow passing over him. It's quick, and as soon as I'm sure that I've seen it, it’s gone.
Maybe I wasn’t supposed to know that.
Evan moves an inch closer now, and instead of having a wave of nausea, my body sinks further into the chair. His hand hovers over me for a second, then finally lands gently, only the fingertips grazing the mark that is no longer a mark on my collar bone.
“It is,” he says. “That is why he cannot know about what we are about to do.”
Immediately the nagging feeling that this is wrong intensifies.
“That sounds. . .” But I don't have a word for what this scenario sounds like. There aren’t any that I could string together in order to convey what is going on inside of me.
“I am aware of how it must sound,” Evan's voice is too quiet to be an actual cut off, but I wait for him to finish because I have nothing. “Myles is suffering,” he says. “I can feel what he is enduring more than you can imagine. I want to help him.”
So this isn't about me at all. This is about Myles and his vampire, Evan.
“If he knew,” Evan continues, “he would be upset at first, yes.” He takes a pause like he's running through the different ways that Myles would react.
“But trust me, Sophie.” His hand finally leaves my chest and I wasn’t even thinking about how it was there before now. “If you are alright, even just slightly better than you are now, Myles will suffer less. He will have hope that you will be better. It will help all three of us.”
I find it hard to blink, breathe evenly, or swallow the lump forming in my throat.
“I don't know,” I choke out.
“Are you scared?” he asks. His voice sounds practically surprised.
I nod once.
Suddenly, Evan stands. He holds his hand out in front of me, and when I glance up at his face he is patiently waiting for me to take it.
He says nothing. His face gives away nothing. He blinks once, twice, three times.
Then my hand is in his, and he's gently tugging on my arm so I'll stand up too.
Slowly, I will my knees to lock, my muscles to work with me. My feet are planted on the carpet. My body is no longer supported by the leather armchair. My arms almost immediately start shaking as he leads me to the brown leather, therapist office-looking sofa.
I expect my legs to stop moving, my brain to be screaming for me to stop, but none of those things happen.
What happens is this: I let Evan lead me to the couch. I let him help me sit down. When he suggests that I should lie down, I lie down. When he says that it might be easier if I close my eyes, I close them.
I hear him wheel is desk chair next to me. I hear the fabric of his shirt as he sits to my left. I'm shaking, but if I wrap my arms around my stomach I can settle the tremors that run through me.
“I'm going to place a hand on your head,” Evan says quietly. “Would that be alright, Sophie?”
I have to take a breath before I answer, but the words get caught somewhere at the back of my throat. I nod once because that is all my body will allow.
At first, I feel nothing. Then I feel gentle fingertips, the palm of his cool hand at the crown of my skull.
A chill runs through me, and I'm not sure if it's from being cold or afraid.
I want to feel better. I want to help Myles. And myself. But I don't know if I want this.
“Do not think,” Evan instructs.
I swallow so hard that I can hear it. How is even possible to not think at a time like this? About how selfish I am, about how this feels wrong, about Jade, and Myles, the show that’s no less than an hour away, and whatever else I’ve had thrown into my life in the past few days.
“I will help you,” Evan answers my unspoken question.
With that, the familiar tingly, warm feeling that I've experienced with Myles comes forward. It starts out as just a hint of fuzziness, but it grows stronger, more intense. Until my brain begins humming and my head starts swimming.
I crack my eyes open, and all I see are my arms crossed in front of me. I try to move but find it impossible. Momentarily, my heart begins pounding in my ears and my breath quickens in a sort of panic.
“Shhh,” comes from above me. “Close your eyes,” he instructs quietly. “You have fought enough these past few days.”
What I care about is chasing this feeling, following it to wherever it leads me because I know that at the end I will be somehow better. Despite what may come because of this decision, I'll be okay at least for a few minutes. A few long minutes where I will not feel like a hole has been punched through my core and I can just breathe.
My eyes open again when I hear Evan move, but this time I'm at ease. I feel like I'm floating or drugged.
He glances at me for a brief moment, making sure this is still what I want, maybe. I blink. I nod. Evan takes my stiff arms carefully in his hands and gently places them at my sides. Then slowly, cautiously, he begins to roll up my shirt.
Of course I get uncomfortable at this. This is normal for me. But somehow, being like this for this purpose, the fear and anxiety move from the focus of all of my thoughts to the back of my mind where I can barely feel them.
Evan moves from the chair and kneels on the carpet near me. His one hand stays on my head, but the other is laid gently on my waist, just next to the pink vertical scar. Evan glances at me once more as the tingling and heat center where his hand is.
“No more fighting?” he asks to make sure, one last time before it happens, that I'm not backing out.
I may regret it. I may feel bad later. But I don't stop him. I don't want to.
I shake my head. I close my eyes.
And Myles' vampire sinks his fangs into my stomach.
It doesn't hurt, but I wasn't really expecting it to. However, it’s not the same as when Myles had done it either. Instead of feeling connected, pulled under, lost, I feel utterly aware of everything. I can hear Evan breathing through his nose against my skin, a slight wet sound of my blood against his mouth. I can feel the weight of his torso against my legs when I hadn't even noticed that he moved from his spot on the floor.
This is wrong.
Just when I'm about to ask, maybe even beg him to stop, the pressure against my ribs lets up, and his arms release themselves from around my legs. His fangs are pulled out of the wound he's made, which stings a little but isn't unbearable. Not the way this guilt feels.
I stare at the white tiles on the ceiling; I don't look down as this all happens. I'm too afraid of what seeing my blood against his skin might do to me.
Evan is completely silent as he sits upright, stands, and sits back in the office chair he wheeled over in the beginning. He doesn't utter a word when he unfolds my fist, which I had completely forgotten was still clutched around the handkerchief he handed to me earlier.
He takes the cloth from my hand, folds it, and presses it to the spot on my waist.
It is so painfully quiet. I hear nothing but my breathing, my pulse slowing. My vision blurs and then becomes vivid. There is no euphoria this time.
Then Evan's voice breaks through all of the silence. “Do not let him see this part of your body until it is completely gone.”
A thought suddenly dawns on me. “Won’t it leave a mark?” comes out in a whisper, so I try to steady my voice more when I continue. “I mean . . . a mark that he'll be able to see?”
Evan sighs quietly, not taking his eyes from the handkerchief under his cold palm. “A vampire can only mark you if it was his intent to mark you.”
I blink until the room stops spinning. Evan’s free hand gently grazes my collarbone. “Like Myles has done to you.”
My left hand flies up, pushing him away. There's nothing there anymore, but somehow Evan knew exactly where Myles had bitten me. He knew exactly where to place his hand.
Evan cocks his head slightly to the side like he’s thinking about something, but he tries to mask it by making it look like he's inspecting the wound on my stomach.
“He did not ask you beforehand?” Evan asks.
I don't respond or move my head. I don't even twitch a muscle in my face that could be construed as some kind of a silent answer.
Evan stands and walks behind his desk and opens one of the drawers. After I hear the soft thump of wood against wood, indicating that the drawer is shut, Evan returns with a square of paper. He rips it open and I realize it's some kind of bandage. I wonder vaguely if he keeps them in stock just in case someone gets hurt or if he gets hungry. Or maybe, just maybe, he had planned all of this before I even came back to New York. Maybe he thought—knew—I would give in to whatever he asked as long as he brought Myles and the pain he was feeling into this.
I honestly don't know which is worse.
They're both horrible. I feel horrible.
Except. . .
I roll my shirt back down and slowly sit up, my head spinning, nausea hovering over me. I take a second to evaluate that question and find that besides the ache for Myles, I feel okay.
Not one hundred percent better, but okay.
“I did not take it all purposely,” Evan says, folding the handkerchief in his hands carefully so he doesn’t get blood on him.
I look at his face for the first time since the whole thing happened and there’s nothing there, not even a speck of evidence of what went on in this room.
“Myles tells me that he cannot feel your pain anymore, but someone else could have noticed,” he explains.
Though the guilt is overwhelming, I don’t feel like I’ll ever have to cry again. And I don’t feel guilty about that, the way I had when Myles tried to take the pain away. I don’t want Evan to give me back everything I was holding on to before. As a matter of fact, I want to be like this, the way I am now, forever. Minus the slight splinter of guilt for doing this behind Myles’ back and being a horrible person.
“It will not last forever, of course,” Evan says, interrupting my thoughts. “It will eventually wear off slowly.”
I give Evan a wary look.
“Grief tends to be intense and then recede, only to come back stronger at times,” he goes on to explain, like I haven’t ever experienced it myself. “So it should go undetected by Myles.”
“He can’t ever know?” I wasn’t aware I wanted to know the answer to it until the question has left my mouth.
Evan stands again, taking his desk chair back behind the desk and sitting in it. “It would not be wise,” he says. “But perhaps a while from now, when these events are more distant, you may tell him.”
“Okay,” I say, more to steady myself than anything else. “Is this like…cheating?”
He blinks. “Cheating?”
“Yeah,” I say, and part of my voice gets stuck in my throat. “Letting another vampire bite you when you’ve been ‘marked’ or whatever.” Now I’m unable to stop talking. “Is that equivalent to cheating in the human world?”
I stare at my hands, folding and unfolding them as the new mark on my body begins to throb half-heartedly, reminding me of what I’ve done.
Evan stands yet again. From the way he keeps standing and sitting, I’d say he was more than a little uneasy himself about what just happened, but I could be wrong. He sits again on the lounge chair, close to me, but a good enough distance away so our bodies aren’t touching. “No,” he says. “I would not say it is the same at all.”
“Then why do I feel like this?” I blurt out.
He shrugs. “Because you are under a lot of stress right now,” he starts. “Because you tell Myles everything, and keeping something like this from him is hard for you.”
That sounds about right. But I’m not sure if those are the only reasons.
“Do not think about it so much.” He stands again, and this time, I think it’s the last time, because he goes to the door, his hand on the knob. “That feeling will pass as soon as the mark is gone. I promise.” Now he cracks the closest thing to a smile I’ve eve
r seen on him.
I stand, wobbly at first, but then I regain my balance. When I’m able to take a few steps without falling flat on my face, I decide I’m as fine as I’m going to be in order to leave.
Evan opens the door for me, nodding his head once when I slip into the hall. “Uhm,” I struggle, feeling a tiny, short lived wave of dizziness come over me and then disappear.
“Thanks.”
“You are welcome, Sophie,” he says, shutting the door to his office behind me, closing me off from him and the room, but not what we just did.
***
When I get back to the stage, Myles, Jade, and Laura are sitting in the balcony section, waving at me as I go on and sound check myself. I purposely don’t look at Myles while I’m telling the sound guy to adjust my earplugs and piano so it sounds just right.
Then Boo and Trei are dragging me backstage. We change into the clothes we had decided on weeks ago, which have been hanging back here, waiting for tonight.
I’m aware of everything but it’s like I’m watching it in a movie. I feel what I’m supposed to when I think about Stevie or Jade, or what just happened between Evan and I, but it’s only because I’m a believable character, going through my lines, hitting my marks.
Boo, Trei, and I sit in the chairs in front of the mirror, and I’m conscious of Trei fixing her smudged makeup from earlier when she was crying and Boo combing his hair.
The front of my dress falls to the top of my knees and the back flows down to the floor. My hair hangs in straight pink rivers around my shoulders. The light pink sits against the red strands that have already faded into a rust color. I take the newer streaks and swipe them together with the original magenta, pinning it to one side.
The neckline shows the pink scar that runs vertically down the middle of my chest, meeting the smaller on in the hollow of my throat, the way it’s been for over six months.
Boo’s on my right, wearing his black and white striped pants, to my left, Trei’s in her tutu. I open my cosmetic bag and set the two tins Manny let me keep between the three of us. It’s just understood what we’re meant to do with it.