“That’s a complicated question,” Brennan said.
The game started, and Nellie turned to assume position with hands on the controls. Brennan mirrored her. They chose characters, and they immediately started beating each other up on the screen.
“I’ve got nothing but time,” Nellie said, and finished Brennan’s character with a roundhouse kick to the face.
Another round began, and with Brennan’s hands busy button-mashing, the words flowed out easily. Brennan usually needed a few sessions to get comfortable with a new therapist, but something about them both being vampires, or Nellie looking his age, or the fact that he had been stewing in his own angst without therapy for about a month, made Brennan let loose.
He started with the Dom stuff. How she admitted to killing her own sister. Then it spiraled.
He told Nellie he was terrified of being immortal.
He told Nellie he was afraid of fucking up irreparably.
He told Nellie he still hated himself most of the time.
He told Nellie about Cole. About the library. How Cole was the only person who knew about him.
Nellie, for her part, was a good therapist, all while destroying atStreet Fighter.She asked questions at the appropriate times, called him out on negative language and biases.
When he finally stopped rambling, Nellie spoke.
“As a side note, I’m gonna have to get you to fill out some forms about the people who know about you. Just housekeeping, Sunny will keep an eye on them.”
Brennan frowned, still smashing the buttons of the game.
“That sounds sketchy. Keep an eye on them how?”
“Nothing worse than what Facebook or the US government does already.”
“Oh, great, so full-on surveillance then?”
“Nothing invasive, don’t worry. She makes sure nobody makes any information public, or does anything to endanger any of us. You’re not putting your friends at risk.”
“What about you? Areyourfriends and family on the vampire FBI watch list?”
“I never told my family about me, and all my human friends who once knew have died.”
There was a lot to process there, and Brennan stumbled in his button-mashing. It was easy to think Nellie was the same as him—she looked like any other college student, if a bit more retro, and that could easily pass as hipster. But she was decades older than him. She had stayed the same while the people she knew grew old and died.
“You never told your family?” Brennan asked. He couldn’t imagine telling his mom, but he also couldn’t imagine herneverknowing.
Nellie curb-stomped him a final time inStreet Fighterand the game ended. Brennan faced Nellie, but Nellie remained with her head bowed toward the controls.
“My sister had such a bright future, and I knew if I ever told her, she would have given it all up to try to help me. And my mother alreadygave so much for me and my sister. I couldn’t give them the burden of the truth.” She inhaled sharply, blinking rapidly and forcing a smile onto her face. “I stayed in their lives for as long as I could. But then my little sister started maturing, and my mom’s hair started graying, and I stayed the same.”
“What did you do?”
“I left.”
“You left.”
“I estranged myself, over time. Answered calls less, visited less, then stopped until I was just writing them letters. Even that was hard, because they wanted to hear that I was having children and settling down and doing the kinds of things I’d never be able to do. I stopped writing, too, eventually.”
“And that was it? You cut off contact?”
“I went to see my mother in the hospital when she was dying. She thought I was an angel. I wished I hadn’t gone. I have a niece who’s still alive, my little sister’s kid, and I have Sunny keep an eye on her for me, from a distance.”
“Those are the only two options? Keep it a secret and lose your family, or tell them the truth and keep them?”
