Page 2 of Don't Bite the Boy Next Door
The first time he’d knocked and gone away as I hid in my room. The second time he’d knocked and called out, but I had not replied, and neither had Valerie. And this last time he had simply left flowers.
I don’t know what he wants.
Each time I’d ventured out in the evening to find his lingering scent on the porch. A scent so strong my stomach clenched in desire and hunger the moment I smelled it. A scent so strong that, were I not as old as I am, or as frightened and heartsick, I might follow to its ultimate conclusion. I would drain him as I once did the only other man who had ever smelled so irresistible to me, all those centuries ago: my love, my poet, my Jacques.
“If he keeps coming over, I’ll have to move. I can’t stay,” I sob now into the darkness. “But knowing he is here, I don’t think I’m strong enough to leave.”
‘Oh, God! Is killing myself the only answer? It must be.’
Resolute, I take a deep, ragged breath and begin to calm down.
‘And if I choose to end this long, long life, if that is even what you can call it. That is my decision, no one else’s.’
Sniffing, I sit up as the faint sound of an engine reaches my ears, and I see headlights illuminate my long, treed driveway.
“Oh, no,” I whisper, frozen.
“Of course I didn’t believe you,” Pru snorts, “you can’t bullshit a bullshitter, Tess.”
Sighing, I hand her a blood bag and a pretty swirly-coloured paper straw and sit down across from her at my family-sized antique kitchen table.
“Sometimes, Pru,” I shake my head, “I want to kill you.”
“I know,” she laughs, “but not tonight, huh?”
“No,” I smile gently, “not tonight.”
“And do you still plan to killyourself?” she asks quietly, her eyes boring into mine over the top of her straw. “These are pretty by the way,” she gestures to the straw, “and I’m guessing environmentally friendly.”
“Yes,” I nod. “I buy them in bulk from India; same with the pretty labels I use to remind me of the drink-by dates. And ‘no’ to your other question.”
“You are a bad liar, Tess,” she shakes her head and turns to flick the empty bag and straw into the recycling bin near the sink, “and that’s why I’m here.”
“Pru,” I shake my head as my tears begin again, “I thought I could stay here, on my farm, safe. Safe from attack from other vampires, just able to live my life, safe from ever wanting to kill anyone. But I’m not strong enough, I’m a monster.”
“And you say he’s your neighbour?” she muses, chewing her fingernail and ignoring my whining.
“Yes,” I shake my head, sadly. “He’s moved into the old Spencer house near the road.”
“That big old ramshackle joint surrounded by the junkyard?” Pru snorts.
“It’s an original farmhouse, and its bones are beautiful,” I screw up my nose at her. “Thatjunkis heritage farm machinery, have you no appreciation of history?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” she rolls her eyes and studies me, her head tilted to one side.
“Are you saying you’re here to preserve me?” I smile, the first smile I think I’ve held in over a fortnight.
“You do hold a certain charm, for something so very old,” she laughs, “a fixer-upper I’d suggest.”
I laugh. I never could resist her silly humour.
“I need fixing,” I agree, still smiling, “whatdoyou suggest?”
“And you are determined you want to live here still? In this house,” she waves her hand around, “on this Minnesota backwater of a farm?”
“I am,” I say sincerely, “if it’s at all possible.”
“And you are also determined you won’t come to Aspen for Christmas with the rest of us?”
