Sinning Again

by Heidi Lowe

  So many kids, so many happy families. Happiness surrounded me everywhere I looked. Even if it was just for this one night, and their lives would return to the usual and mundane the following day, it was enough to convince me. Mostly when I saw happy couples, a nauseous feeling swelled in my stomach, and it made me think of Jean. But that evening, I decided to think positively. I wasn't alone. And Jean could go to hell for all I cared.

  "An indie flick. It won't be very busy. Not many people have heard of it."

  "I never went to the movies with Jean," I said to no one in particular.

  Dallas laughed. "Why would you have? That dead bloodsucker's only real entertainment comes in stealing blood from innocent people."

  I opened my mouth to correct her, to tell her that Jean only took from willing givers. But then I closed it again. It wasn't my duty to come to her defense. I didn't owe her anything.

  "It kinda makes me wonder how you survived so long with her sucking you dry."

  I said nothing, looked away and tried to focus on the happy couples, hoping that the current topic of conversation would change.

  "Fangers don't have any self-control, you know," she continued. "Those freaks don't care about human lives, no matter how much they try to convince people that they do. You're all just food to them."

  I noticed that she was watching me, I saw her through the corner of my eye.

  She laughed. "She's probably got several more young girls like you on her feed-roll as we speak. That's how fangers operate. Sex and food – their whole existence is based on those two things."

  "Can we not talk about this anymore?" My words came out much more forceful than I wanted. And that nauseous feeling returned to my stomach.

  She'd done it on purpose, I knew that. She wanted me to conjure up the image of Jean with other women, doing all the things she'd once done to me. The worst image imaginable. I felt like jumping in a taxi, going to Jean's house and barging in just to make sure it wasn't real.

  My frequent visits to her house had been about me checking to see if I'd been replaced. To check for traces of a new lover, a new willing giver. So far, I'd seen nothing suspicious. But that didn't mean there wasn't anyone else, just that she was hiding them well.

  "What? You're over now, right? You've moved on, and it would be crazy to think she hasn't. A fanger has to eat, after all." She chortled at her own joke, and did so alone. I didn't find her amusing in the slightest.

  We got our tickets, spent a small fortune on snacks, then went into screening room 8, which was the smallest of them all.

  Judging by the roaring laughter coming from the half-empty room, and from Dallas too, the film was hilarious. But I couldn't tell – my mind had wandered right at the start, and I wasn't paying any attention. I slunk into my chair and tortured myself with the mental images of Jean making love to other women. The way I had in the beginning, before we got together. Before I was her one and only.

  So much for my positive outlook.

  "So, what did you think?"

  We were in the lobby, having just left the screening room. Dallas brushed off a piece of popcorn that was stuck to my chin. In a romantic comedy, that would have been "a moment", and the couple would have kissed. But I was too distracted for that. And the last thing I wanted was to kiss anyone...anyone who wasn't Jean.

  "It was fine," I mumbled.

  "I didn't hear you laugh once. What was that about?"

  I shrugged. "We have a different sense of humor, I guess."

  She stared at me curiously. "Are you feeling all right? Do you want me to take you home now? Because I thought we could grab a bite to eat first."

  "Sounds good. I'm not in the mood to go home just yet." What I really meant was I didn't want to go to my own place. There I would only drive myself nuts wondering what Jean was doing, and with whom. If I stayed out, it would keep me from turning up at the manor and acting like the obsessed ex that couldn't let go.

  I ordered something light – a Caesar salad. After absently stuffing my face with popcorn, candy and soda during the movie, there wasn't much space left for anything else.

  "What's wrong with you?" Dallas asked, somewhat impatiently, tucking in to what had to have been the largest, most fattening burger I'd ever seen. A heart attack in a bun. Something that would have posed serious health risks to any human brave enough to try it. The Were digestive system clearly operated differently.

  "Nothing. I'm fine," I said, picking at my salad.

  "Yeah." She rolled her eyes. "If you don't want to be here, you should just say."

  Her cell buzzed and beeped for something like the dozenth time since our evening started, and she slipped it out of her pocket, just as she had done each and every time. She read the message, tapped out a reply, then set it on the restaurant table.

  "You're the one who seems like she wants to be someplace else. Does that thing ever stop going?" It had gone off several times during the movie, too. I'd been too preoccupied with my own worries to try and risk a glance over her shoulder at what the messages said, and who they were from.

  "That's nothing." She waved at the phone dismissively, carried on chomping away at her burger. It wasn't long before the whole thing vanished. The term "wolfed down" had never seemed so fitting. "You're still thinking about that fanger, aren't you? You get that silly look on your face when you're thinking about her." Her tone was acerbic and unfriendly, the bitterness apparent.

  "I'm not thinking about anything," I insisted.

  "Just in case you are, you shouldn't bother. Because she's not thinking about you. All that wasted effort for a monster whose only concern is where her next blood source will come from. Tut, tut."

  Her phone buzzed again, but this time with the fluttering sounds of her ring tone. She shot me a look, as if deciding whether or not to answer it, then snatched it up.

  The conversation didn't last longer than a minute, and I couldn't garner much from it besides Dallas's reticence to talk while she was in front of me. This I concluded after a series of shifty looks my way, followed by the change in direction of her gaze.

  "I can't right now. I'm out... It doesn't matter... You said you would go later... Of course I'm still in... Just don't start without me... I said I'm still in."

  The atmosphere around us was so lively and noisy that I couldn't catch even a snippet of the speaker's voice. This whole display piqued my interest.

  "Who was that?" I asked once she'd hung up.

  "Uh, that was no one. I mean, just Cory. There's this, uh, party that I kinda said I would go to with him." She gulped down her soda in one go.

  "A party? Great. Let's go."

  "Yeah... It's not that kind of party, Liz. Invitation only. And you don't have the right anatomy, if you know what I mean."

  "So it's Were-only?" I said in a humorless voice.

  She got up, wiped her mouth with her napkin, then threw the soiled paper on to her empty plate. "I can drop you about halfway home, but that's as far as I can go. Sorry."

  "Are you kidding me? That's it? Goodnight, see ya, go catch a bus?"

  "Take a cab, whatever. But I gotta go now." She threw down some money on the counter, enough to cover both meals, and waited for me to get up.

  "You know what, just go. I'll take a cab from here. Wouldn't want to put you out." I rolled my eyes, folded my arms, and anticipated her apology.

  "I'll see you whenever," was what came out of her mouth instead, before she hastened out of the crowded eatery. I glared at her retreating form, shaking my head in disbelief.

  So, no party invite, and then she leaves me sitting in a restaurant all on my lonesome, like I'd been stood up. And for Cory, no less. One of several men she'd screwed, who might also have been her brother. What a mess!

  After five minutes of playing around with my salad, doing very little eating, I pushed the plate away, drained my glass of lemonade, and considered what I would do with the rest of my night. Or, rather, tried to talk myself out of what I'd already decide
d to do.

  I couldn't. My mind was made up. I hurried out of the complex, waited at the taxi bay and eventually climbed into a taxi.

  "Where to, sweetheart?"

  "Canterbury Manor, please."

  "You got it."

  He wasn't an especially talkative driver, and so the twenty-minute journey passed in relative silence. Which was just as well, because it gave me the chance to think about what I would say to Jean when I got there. What I would do differently, that I had failed to do all the previous times I'd visited her.

  The more time we spent separated, the less comfortable I felt letting myself into her house. But I twisted the key in the lock anyway, and entered. It was almost eleven, but no time was ever too late for her.

  The house smelled of vanilla, and had that warm, inviting, homely feel to it that my minuscule apartment would forever lack. Just as it had ceased being home, was the point at which it felt like it. The irony.

  I couldn't hear any signs of life. I'd completely forgotten to check for the car in the driveway.

  Instead of heading straight to my studio, I crept up the stairs, feeling like an intruder. This part of the house was technically off limits to me now. This was no longer my home.

  I didn't know where I was going until I got there. Until I was standing outside Jean's bedroom door. I pressed my ear to it, listened for movement or breathing inside. Listened for multiple voices... It would have devastated me, but I needed to know.

  And when I heard nothing, I tapped lightly. "Jean?"

  No answer. I opened the door. The room was in darkness; her curtain was drawn, blocking out the moonlight that would have normally brought a sliver of light into the pitch black space.

  She wasn't there. At least not in the physical sense. But her scent pervaded the room. I felt around on the wall for the light switch.

  I wasn't surprised to see how tidy, how immaculate, it was. Only when I shared her bed with her did the room look untidy. Funnily enough, she'd said more than once how much she delighted in seeing my stuff lying everywhere. It reminded her that she wasn't alone.

  I closed the door behind me, then crept over to her bed and sat down. I missed being here, waking up here, making love to her here. It all seemed like a lifetime ago.

  "You traded this all in for a lousy, cheap mattress on a floor!" I grumbled to myself. When you think you know better...

  I rested my head on the pillow, buried my face in it, taking in the faint scent of her. Faint because she didn't spend much time in bed, seeing as it wasn't her place of rest.

  I clung to that pillow, intoxicating myself on her smell, and didn't realize how tired I was, or that I'd begun to drift off.

  Her face was the first thing I saw when my eyes flickered open. Just like it once was when I fell asleep during the afternoon and woke in the evening to find her beside me, watching me sleep, the most natural, most contented smile on her beautiful face.

  She wasn't wearing a smile this time. And I realized quickly that I hadn't woken up naturally, but by her hand.

  I was so embarrassed when I became cognizant of what had happened.

  "I–I didn't know I'd fallen asleep," I said, scrambling to sit up, still disoriented. "I'm sorry."

  "What are you doing in here?" she asked, her tone gentle. She wasn't angry. Judging from the furrowed brow, she was more confused than anything else.

  "I don't know. I came in to see if you were up here, then sort of fell asleep." I wanted to cringe at how ridiculous my explanation was, even more so when the tiniest smile teased the corner of her lips. She must have thought I was pathetic. I certainly did.

  "I don't know how that could have happened, but I'll take your word for it. Are you planning on staying in there, or do I get my bed back?" She chuckled.

  "Oh God, sorry." I sprung from the bed, dying of shame. Leaving was the last thing I wanted to do, but had no choice. As much as she'd once insisted it belonged to us both, this was hers and hers alone. My bed lay half an hour away in a slum so cold I got chills just thinking about it.

  Would she have let me stay if I'd grovelled? If I'd confessed that I woke up miserable every morning knowing that I would have to face yet another day without her by my side? Or what about if I told her that I still thought about her when I touched myself? What would have been enough to get her to take me back, to forgive me?

  "You probably want your key back," I said.

  "How would you let yourself in? Sandra and I won't always be around."

  I watched her mouth as she spoke, those cherry red lips that my own lips had been pining for. It would have been a dream to feel them against mine. Once, it had been my reality, my everyday treat that I'd taken for granted. Now, I had no right to them.

  "So you don't want it back?"

  She shook her head, smiled. "I won't hold it against you that you fell asleep in my bed. And we can just forget all about this, okay?"

  No! I didn't want to forget about it. How could she expect me to? How could she be so nonchalant? Hadn't she once loved me so much she would have given up anything for me? And now this.

  The ball in my throat wouldn't budge, and was still there when I opened my mouth to respond. "Sure. Let's forget about it." Contempt filled my words. The only way she could have missed it was if she wasn't listening.

  She smiled and said, "Good. Would you like me to call you a cab?" As cool as a fucking cucumber. I hated that vegetable, and I hated her in that moment, though I knew it was only fleeting.

  "I'll take care of it. Goodnight."

  "Lissa." She stopped me before I left. "My offer still stands. About the car, I mean."

  "We're not together anymore. You don't have to worry about me now."

  "That doesn't mean I don't. I still want you to be happy, even if it's not with me."

  It wasn't her words that infuriated me, but the ease with which she delivered them. Like she was talking to the paperboy or something, not the person she'd promised to love for ever. It was so easy for her to just let me go, as though I'd never meant anything to her at all.

  My look was a glare, my tone icy. "So you'll still want me to be happy even if I'm with Dallas? Oh, that's my werewolf girlfriend, in case you'd forgotten."

  I watched her closely, waiting for any signs of the cool exterior faltering. But there were none.

  "If that's what makes you happy, Lissa, then you have my blessing."

  I couldn't believe what she was saying. She was giving me her blessing! I wanted to throw up.

  "Whatever," was the only word that escaped my mouth. No others seemed adequate to express how stunned I was.

  And then I left. I just turned around and walked out of there, without saying goodbye, without exploding, without reacting the usual Lissa way. Maybe if I had stayed and done so, become the spoiled brat she used to know, she would have taken me in her arms and professed her love for me. Maybe she wanted a kid instead of a girlfriend.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Apart from the salient differences between Jean and Dallas, there was one thing that stuck out in a major way: Dallas wasn't consistent in my life. Nothing about her was. Her time-keeping, her mood, her showing up at all. The latter was a big deal. I would go days without seeing or hearing from her, then she'd show up at my door, or my work, or I'd get a text saying she wanted to see me. I never knew when to expect it.

  That was her way – her thing. I didn't like it. Having grown accustomed to Jean always being available for me, well, at night anyway, inconsistency didn't sit well with me.

  Possibly it had something to do with the ambiguous nature of our relationship, i.e., the fact that neither of us knew what we were to each other. The need to define had never concerned me. But maybe Dallas required some sort of commitment before she gave more of herself.

  I'd essentially chosen her over Jean, so it was about time I showed some commitment.

  Camille was hovering behind me while I groomed one of the dogs. It was an act that soothed not only them, but me too. Th
ere was something tranquilizing about it.

  "Nothing interesting ever happens in this town," she said, flicking through the local paper. "Unless you count the story about the man who discovered bones under his garage when he was refurbishing."

  "That's pretty interesting," I said. "Does it say who they belonged to?"

  She flicked back to the story. "They're believed to have been there more than thirty years. They haven't ID'd the body yet."

  "Spooky."

  "Oh, and there was another platting a few nights ago. Or an attempt, at least."

  This made me stop and look at her. Her delivery sounded like she couldn't have cared less about vampire problems. As much as Jean had hurt me with her apathetic behavior a few nights prior, and on all the encounters since, I simply wasn't ready to completely write her off; to stop caring.

  "An attempt? So no one was hurt or killed?"

  "That's what it says. I'm not surprised it went wrong. If you're going after a fanger, you don't attack at night. Everyone knows that." She rolled her eyes. "Someone got cocky."

  "But now they'll be identified, right? And all of this stuff can stop?" Knowing that there was someone – maybe even a group of someones – out there whose sole purpose was to kill vampires made me more than a little anxious. I'd thought that the worst image I could ever envision was Jean with another person. But picturing her covered in platinum, her body shriveling away, smoldering before my eyes, that was far worse.

  "Oh ye of too much faith. That's not how the law works around here. Or anywhere in the US. Not when it comes to vampires. I'm surprised this guy got a mention in the paper. Nobody cares unless they're dead, usually. He must be important."

  How was this place any better than Lox Ridge? Yeah, there were more vampires and a lot less public outcry, but they still had no rights.

  "The law doesn't care about the undead, or whatever they like to be called these days. I can't keep up with all this pc nonsense."

  "I think just vampire is fine." Why did every word always have to have a derogatory alternative?