Page 94 of Blood from the Marrow
With one arm around each of their shoulders, Marisol laughed. Threw her head back and laughed like she was in on some joke with the universe. Laughed the way some creatures howled at the moon. Like she was releasing a primal sound planted deeper than a scream.
“I’m getting married!”
Marisol’s shout pierced the night and Zuri’s left eardrum, but she found herself laughing too. They were facing a war at any moment and they were standing in the freezing ocean water in the middle of the night laughing. To any onlooker, they must have made the most fucked up adult baptism ever.
Hazel eyes so bright they were the green of new growth, Marisol settled into a broad grin. “I’m getting married,” she repeated like she still couldn’t believe it. “I’m in love and my mom helped me get ready and I don’t care what comes tomorrow, this is the best day of my life,” she announced with the gusto of a Super Bowl MVP going to Disneyland.
Zuri furrowed her brow. She was calling Clara mom now? When the fuck had that happened? She didn’t get the chance to ask before Marisol was talking again.
“I’ve been thinking. Hyphenating our names three ways is probably a lot.” Marisol tossed her hair over her bare shoulder. “So what if we came up with a new one?”
“A new surname?” Elena clarified like she’d also been distracted by Marisol’smomcomment. Though judging by the dopey look on Elena’s face, she’d gotten caught up in Bambi’s joyful outburst. She was probably trying to figure out how to replicate it so they could bask in a carefree moment with her again and again. “I’ve always quite liked the sound of Fiasco.”
“Yeah, I bet you do.” Zuri laughed, entire body buzzing. She could live a thousand lifetimes and nothing would ever feel as right as the three of them together. As right as the three of them choosing each other. Binding themselves together in every way that mattered. “We’re not appropriating an Italian name,” she decided, gaze hopelessly trained on Marisol. On the way her hair moved and her skin brightened and just being near her made Zuri want to be a better person. Marisol, simply, made life worth living. Made love worth having. She was like the vitamin D that made calcium absorbable. Withouther, there would be nothem.
Jesus Christ, a little love and I’m turning into Bill Nye the Science Witch.
“Why not? I?—”
Marisol interrupted Elena with a chuckle. “Actually, I have one in mind.” She bit the bottom lip she’d painted red and it took all of Zuri’s self-control not to smear it with a kiss. Not to beg Marisol to stain her skin with it.
“What is it?” Zuri smoothed Marisol’s hair back, tucking it behind her ear before the wind could pick it up.
“Durán,” Marisol replied like she was still getting used to the way it sounded in her mouth. “It means to endure.” She swallowed. “To remain.”
There was only the sound of water rushing over their feet. Of wind jostling palm fronds. Zuri wished she wasn’t holding the freaking bowl so she could hold her. So she could tell her they weren’t going to die. That she’d savage the Grim Reaper’s throat herself if he ever dared look in her direction.
“That’s beautiful.” Elena ran hand over Marisol’s back while squeezing Zuri tighter. “I love that as the symbol of our new family.” She smiled at Marisol with a gentleness even Zuri had never seen. “I’ve had so many names, and sometimes, it feels like just as many lives.” She took a deep breath but it didn’t stop the tremble from creeping into her voice. It was the sameweakness blurring Zuri’s vision. “Marisol, you’ve taught me the names and properties of emotions I never knew existed.” She smiled, catching a runaway tear with the corner of her mouth. “From the moment we met, it was…” Elena shook her head like she still couldn’t believe what she was feeling. “You always felt mine.” She looked at Zuri, triggering overwhelming emotion to rise like a tide in her chest. “Ours,” she corrected softly. “All my lives have led up to this one. Every moment of fear or agony has been a just price for the gift of you. I would pay it again and again to wear a final name. Elena Durán until my days are no more.”
“God damn,” Zuri muttered, wishing she could wipe the tears from her face on Elena’s shoulder without transferring a pound of makeup with it. “Sometimes, Elena, you really fuck me up.”
Marisol and Elena chuckled in unison, but Zuri knew it was only to leak the unbearable tension building between them. Her gaze drifted between them and there was no doubt in her mind what she wanted. “My grandmother always used to say love was sacrifice.” She took a deep breath. “Probably because my grandpa was so useless he couldn’t even pick out his own clothes in the morning.” She laughed to herself thinking about their constant—if not always endearing—bickering. “But not a single moment has felt like a burden with you.” Zuri shifted her attention between them, wishing she could look both of them in the eyes at once. “Love isn’t sacrifice. It’s willingly giving everything of yourself for the ones you love. It’s doing anything to make them happy. To keep them safe. To help them thrive.” She tried to hold it together but she was an engine rattling on the verge of breaking. “You are the best parts of me. And I would be so fucking proud to be Zuri Durán from this breath until my last.”
Face flushed, Marisol didn’t even try to slow her tears. “I’ve never felt what I have with you,” she said to both of them. “I never could have imagined this life for myself. Would never havethought that I would ever feel so full. That it would take two people to give me all the love I’d never known.” She chuckled. “I hadn’t really thought of myself as greedy before, but here I am. Two incredible women who make me confident and brave. Who let me love them. Since we decided to do this, to choose each other like this, I’ve been thinking about how hard this should be. A two-person relationship can be so fraught, and that’s without all the other stuff. I mean, some couples don’t survive a trip to IKEA, but everything we face makes us stronger.” She gazed at them like she still couldn’t believe they were there. “Every night I go to bed surrounded by love and it follows me through every step of my day. I could never have done any of this without you.” Her wings flickered to life behind her, just a moment of translucent light before they disappeared as if to show her incredible control. “And it’s because it took loving you to understand myself. It’s like… I couldn’t know myself until I was me.” She furrowed her brow. “Until I realized that I was always destined to be Marisol Durán.”
Zuri dried her unstoppable tears with her forearm. “Now Bambi is fucking me up,” she muttered before leaning in to kiss her. Every time Zuri thought she couldn’t love Marisol more, she opened her mouth and proved Zuri was a fool.
“Before we do this, Bernice told me about this vampire ritual.” Elena dropped her arms and took a small step backward. “The tradition never made its way to me in Havana while it was en vogue, but the symbolism of it feels… right.”
Unsure of what Bernice would’ve taught Elena, Zuri tipped her head to the side. “What’s it about?”
“Blood?” Marisol guessed.
Elena nodded.
Zuri narrowed her gaze. “What is the impact of the ritual?”
“Well...” Elena hesitated.
Zuri couldn’t help but laugh at Elena’s attempt at sheepish. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Details were hazy,” she admitted. “But I think it’s mostly a symbolic joining.”
“I mean what else could it be?” Marisol’s expression made Zuri relax her shoulders. “We’re already binding our souls with very incomplete information about the fine print.”
“Bambi with the good points,” Zuri joked before shrugging. “Alright. We’ve got a new name. Let’s do some new blood thing, too. What the hell.”
“There are some words.” Elena pulled out a scrap of paper from her pocket like a semi-prepared groom. She read them to herself before shoving it back into her pocket.
