"Why me?" What's so great about me? I just don't understand," I speak. Andrew glares at me like he's surprised that those words just left my mouth.
"You took me by surprise. I didn't see you coming," he pauses. "My heart chose you, Nina." Andrew kisses me on my lips.
"So, you must have been in love before. 127 years is a long time," I continue the conversation.
"I was close to love with one girl. It was years ago. She was a vampire. We lived an adventures life together."
"What happened?"
"As the year past with her, she turned out to be crazy and obsessed with me," Andrew laughs.
"I don't blame her," I joke.
"Tell me a secret," Andrew asks.
"A secret?"
"You know my biggest secret. I want to know yours." Andrew asks.
I lay there with my head still resting on his chest, and think of one of my darkest secrets. "I suffer from a major depressive disorder," I admit.
"What started your depression?" Andrew asks as he rubs my back.
"It all started when my father died. I was a complete mess. Losing him triggered my depression. It's been hard living my life without him. Everyday I fight through the feeling of giving up on life."
"Over the years, I've seen a lot of humans struggle with depression. I've realized that fighting depression is one of the hardest wars to conquer. Learning to accept what you can't change is the key to winning." Andrew starts giving me advice. He must have learned so much over the years. His advice is the most important to me.
I smile at him and kiss his soft lips. "I love you so much, Andrew."
"Always and forever."
CHAPTER 16
Pros and Cons
Dear Diary,
Waking up next to the love of my life is the most spectacular feeling to experience. The minute I opened my eyes I got to see his dark stunning eyes and his glorious smile.
I told my mom that I was staying at Kali's house for the weekend. If Ali found out I stayed the night at Andrew's house, I would most likely be grounded for like a month or the rest of my life. I actually feel bad for lying to her, but it's not like I can tell her the truth. Don't get me wrong, Ali is the nicest, most caring mother in the whole world, but ever since my father died she has been way to over protective of Caroline and I. I understand where she's coming from. She just wants to keep us safe and out of harm's way. I just need space and room to breath a little bit.
I finally have found a reason to smile again. I will not let anyone take that away from me. I can't be depressed and faking a smile on my face again. It would be unbearable to experience that pain once again. The thought of it is like someone puncturing my heart with a knife. The aching in my chest is making it hard to breath. I will never let myself be that unhappy again.
Love, Nina
* * * *
Andrew leaves me alone in his room while he makes a trip to the grocery store. I didn't get the chance to look around and observe Andrew's room last night. My eyes and mind were too busy focusing on him. Andrew's room looks like it was decorated sometime in the mid-1900's. It doesn't look like it's updated with anything from the present time period.
His room consists of a bed, bureaus, reading chairs, lamps, a radio, and his own bathroom and closet. His room is really big. It has so much space in it. My room isn't even half the size of his. It's smaller.
He has a view that overlooks a hill with trees surrounding it. In the corner of his room is two wooden reading chairs with a lamp in the middle. In front of me is no TV, just a painting of the sun rising over the water with an island off to the side. Under the painting sat a bureau that looks older than my grandfather. He has two doors off to the side. One leads to the bathroom and the other leads to his closet.
I'm laying on an over- sized king bed placed on a fancy wooden bed frame. I let my fingers grace the top of the carvings on the head board. The carvings must have been done by hand because it's so magnificent, with so much detail.
"Hungry?" Andrew startles me and I jump.
"I hate when you do that," I say as I try to pull myself together after he scares me. "But, yes, I am hungry."
"I cooked you blueberry pancakes," he says.
"My favorite," I announce as he brings the plate over with a glass of orange juice.
"I just got back from the store. We didn't expect to have guests over or I would have bought you some food."
"You don't eat?" I ask as I'm shoveling some pancakes into my mouth.
"No," Andrew admits.
"You had breakfast at my house though?" I ask with my mouth full of food. I'm so hungry. I forget to eat when I'm with Andrew and he forgets to feed me. Now I know why.
"Well, I can eat human food, but I don't have too," Andrew explains.
"Do you really drink people's blood?" I ask. It's probably the wrong time for that question because I'm in the middle of having a piece of pancake in my mouth and enjoying it.
"Yes, but we don't have to talk about this right now while you're eating," Andrew says.
"I'm curious though¸" I ask because I want to know more about his kind and who he is.
"I feed on people's blood. What more is there to know?" he asks me.
"Do you kill them?"
"Nina," Andrew shouts.
"What? It's just a question. I want to know. Do you kill them?"
"Not anymore," Andrew confesses as he's about to walk out of the room. I don't plan on asking him what that meant. At least not right now.
"Do humans let you drink their blood?" I keep asking questions. Drilling him for more answers.
"We vampires have this special gift where we can make them forget."
"Explain," I tell him.
"All we do is whisper in their ear to forget."
"Can you make them do other things?" I ask.
"All we can do is make humans forget things. Like they never happened. We can't make them go out and rob a bank. All we can do is erase a memory from their brain, like it never happened."
"That's actually pretty convenient." They need human blood to survive. No human would ever let a vampire's fangs come near them. So, they suck out some of their blood and just simply make them forget. I hope Andrew doesn't do that to me. Actually, I hope he hasn't done that to me. "Have you done that to me?" As I say that, Andrew rolls his eyes, shakes his head to say no, and walks out of the room as if he wants to forget I just asked him that and forget we just had that conversation.
I'm still trying to adjust to my boyfriend being a vampire. He can do things that humans would only be able to dream about doing. I wonder what else vampires can do that us humans can't. "What other perks do you have?" I yell loud so he can hear me.
In an instant, Andrew's standing in his doorway. "Our senses are heightened. You didn't have to yell." He laughs.
"So, you have like super sonic hearing?" I ask as I shovel another piece of pancake in my mouth and wash it down with orange juice.
"Yes," Andrew says as he walks over to me to be by my side, "Every sense we had as a human has been heightened and magnified. Like, our sense of smell," he says as he takes a deep breath in. "Our sense of sight. We can see in the dark." Andrew begins to sit down right next to me on the bed. "Our sense of touch," he says as his hand finds the bare skin on my leg. "Something soft now feels like smooth silk." Andrew begins to slide his hand up my leg onto my thigh. "And last, our sense of taste," he says as he presses his tongue onto my inner thigh. "heightens extremely."
"That tickles," I giggle.
He puts his tongue back into his mouth and his lips touch mine. I can definitely get used to this, being happy and smiling all the time.
* * * *
As I hold Andrew's hand and walk out the back door to his yard, I notice how beautiful the weather is today. The sun is scintillating and is twinkling onto the bright green grass and shimmering off of the trees. Andrew walks me out and pulls a chair out for me to sit on. "I didn't know Vampires could sleep," I say.
"Yes, we can. I sleep at night time just like you do. The vampires that don't have a spell on them for sunlight, sleep during the day and come out at night."
"Do you have to sleep though?"
"Yes, absolutely," Andrew says.
"Stupid question." I laugh.
"What else do you want to know about my kind?" he asks.
"Everything! The good and the bad," I say.
"Let's start with what you do know. Some of my kind have the ability to walk in the sunlight because of witches casting spells on us. The tricky part is finding a witch that will do it for you," he says as he stares off into the radiant sunlight. "Most witches don't like my kind. Not all vampires are nice like my family is. Most of them are just out for themselves. All they want is power and blood. They're greedy and selfish."
Witches are real too. That didn't surprise me though. I have always heard of people using witch craft and owning stores where you can buy special things to cast spells or have your fortune read.
"Do you remember the story I told you about Ambrogio and Selene?" he asks.
"Of course."
"Well, we do have the abilities of strength and speed like great hunters."
"So, you can like pick up a car or something?" I ask in a humorous way.
"That's easy. I can pick it up within seconds."
"We'll have to test out that theory some day." I laugh.
Andrew gets up out of his chair and goes into the house and is back into his chair within seconds. He's holding a knife in his hand. What's he about to do? My eyes get wide as I'm on the edge of my seat wondering what he's up to. "Don't worry. I want to show you something," he says as he looks at the knife. He then takes the knife and cuts his arm wide open. The blood starts gushing out of his body.
"Andrew, what the hell?" I yell as I jump out of my seat.
"We vampires also have the ability to heal quickly," he says as he gestures to the cut on his arm.
It's unbelievable. It's healing in a matter of seconds right in front of my eyes. I stand there with my eyes bugged open staring at his arm. It's healed within a minute. "Oh my," I say as I walk over to him. I glide my fingertips over his arm. The cut healed like it wasn't even there. "It's like it never even happened."
Andrew pulls me onto his lap and I wrap my arms around his neck. I love the fact that he's so strong. No reason for any girl to get self-conscious with him around. Even if I gained thirty pounds he would still be able to pick me up. Every girl's dream right here in my arms. "Do you have any faults?" I whisper in his ear.
"Everyone has faults, my love, even vampires."
"Name one fault," I say as I look him directly in his eyes.
"We can't smell garlic or touch silver," he says in a laughter. I don't know if I should take him seriously. He can't smell garlic. So, the myths are true.
I remember hearing him tell me the story about Ambrogio and Selene. Ambrogio stole Artemis' silver bow and Ambrogio was cursed for that. He can't touch silver. It makes sense now. "I understand the silver part, but not the garlic?"
"Garlic is extremely sensitive to our heightened sense of smell, in a bad way."
"What does it do to you if you do smell it?"
"It's very painful."
"I don't like garlic anyway." I flash a smirk at him.
Andrew's words are shouting through my head. Did he really kill people? "You said that you don't kill humans anymore. What does that mean?" I ask with hesitation.
He takes a minute to think about my question. His eyes drift off of me and onto something in the near distance. "When I was first turned, I was beyond blood thirsty. I wanted to kill everything in my path. I was a monster that was out of control and needed to be tamed. I took the lives of many humans and it will stay with me for the rest of eternity, but I am who I am and I decided to embrace it instead of living in denial for the rest of my existence. It's like a food chain." The appearence of his eyes bring me back to his past emotionally. I can't bare the thought of having human deaths washed all over my hands.
"Normally, humans eat animals. Animals eat other animals or even humans," I hesitate to finish.
"Vampires drink human blood. That's just how it is."
"Well, I don't care. You're perfect to me, Andrew Madsen."
"I have no soul, Nina. That's the worst part of being a vampire." Hades kept Ambrogio's soul until he brought back Artemis' silver bow. So, the legend is true, vampires can't touch silver, no sunlight for most, and no soul.
Looking at Andrew's face hurt me inside. He didn't have to speak for me to know what he's thinking and feeling.
A soul is the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action. It's a person's total self. A moving spirit within you. The moral and emotional nature of humans. The quality that arouse emotion and sentiment.
I can't look at Andrew and say he doesn't have a soul. It would feel like a lie to me. He has emotions and feelings. He's a part of life in everyway. Andrew definitely has qualities that arouses emotion and sentiment.
No one can look me in the eyes and tell me that Andrew doesn't have a soul. It would be a complete and utter lie.
Andrew's showing the emotion of love with me everyday and on every level. Most humans can't show the affection that he has showed me since he met me. That must say something about him. I believe with the most confidence that Andrew Madsen has a soft, gentle, loving, and caring soul.
Looking at Andrew's dark and heart melting eyes, makes me feel like I'm the luckiest girl in the world. I don't care about his faults because we all have them, in different ways, shapes, and forms. Andrew and I are now a big part of each other's lives. I can see us planning a future together. I can see myself introducing him to everyone I know. I want Andrew Madsen to be mine, forever and I want to be his, forever.
CHAPTER 17
Sydney Paigee
Dear Diary,
I'm starting to get used to the fact that my boyfriend is a vampire. I don't think it will ever really sink in completely, but I'm just trying to cope with it for now. I never knew I could have all of these feelings built up for one person. The sensitiveness that runs through my body when he touches me, there is no words to explain. It just feels magnificent. It feels like heaven.
What I've realized since my dad died is that life is so precious. You have to grab onto whatever makes you happy and never let it go. You have to chase your dreams no matter how far away or out of reach they are because eventually your time, on this place we call earth, runs out. I miss my father more then anyone could imagine, but I can't sit around living in the past for the rest of my life. Sometimes you just need to pick yourself up and keep moving because life continues with or without you.
I'm not trying to say that I'm going to completely forget about my dad and move on with my life. What I'm trying to say is, my father will always be an important part of my life. I just can't sit around feeling so much pain over his death. He wouldn't want me to. He would want me to be happy.
With Andrew, I am happy. That gaping whole in my heart is half way filled now. The other half will always be empty since the only person that can fill it is my father, but at least it's finding a way to fill up.
But, it's safe to say that I'm perfectly content with this moment right now. I wish I could live in it forever.
Love, Nina
* * * *
I've been missing work lately. I haven't had the time to go. My life is just completely hectic right now. It's not like I can tell my boss that I need some time off of work because I just found out the love of my life is a vampire. That's like trying to tell my teacher that my dog ate my homework or like the little boy who cried wolf, no one will believe it.
Staring up at my ceiling, I start dozing off into a dream land. Andrew and I are sitting on a beach and our feet are slightly in the water. It's only us, no one else is around. The sky is clear with no clouds in sight. The warm wind is blowing in my hair and applying goosebumps to my skin. His smile is melting my heart. We are at comple
te and utter peace. It feels like what heaven may be like.
My alarm starts beeping that annoying and irritating sound, and I start to regain consciousness. It ruins my fantasy dream and absorbs me back into the real world.
It's about that time to go to school. Sometimes I hate going to school, and other times I enjoy it because it gives me an excuse to see Andrew.
I start with my morning routine: getting in the shower and putting my clothes on. It's just another regular and uninteresting day for me.
Caroline is running around the house, like always, searching for clothes and making sure she looks physically attractive. I don't know how she has this much energy in the morning. I can barely get myself into the shower. I couldn't be running around the house like she does. She hasn't even had coffee. I'm more of a tea kind of girl.
"How does Caroline get her energy?" I ask my mom as I step off the last stair and walk over to eat breakfast.
"I wish I knew and I wish she shared some of that blasted energy of hers." Ali laughs.
"How does this look?" Caroline asks as she walks down the stairs like she's walking on a runway in pursuit of becoming America's Next Top Model.
"You look very nice, Lynns," Ali says.
"Nice? That's it?" Caroline asks.
"You look like a beautiful Barbie doll," I add.
"Thanks!" Lynns says and takes my comment as a compliment. I was implying it more to be a sarcastic remark.
"Now, is Ms. Barbie ready for school?" I ask in a sarcastic tone. Maybe she'll get the hint that I'm not complimenting her.
Caroline grabs an orange and starts walking toward the front door without saying anything. OK, I'm taking it as she's ready for school. I grab a blueberry muffin and follow her out.
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