The Beginning of a Fairy Tale Ending
*I have been in love with this girl since the day we met, and it was a perfect fairy tale story. We met on my first day of middle school, started dating, kept dating straight on through high school and college. She was my first kiss, first time, first bite… She knows I’m a vampire, but she never thought of me as a monster. I can still walk in the sunlight, since I'm only a half breed, and I can fight that darker nature. I’ve never hurt her. It’s all consensual. She loves the feel of getting bitten, and the feel of my body against her, inside her. We have a baby together now, a little boy, and we got married just before he came into this world, right before she started showing. We should have done this years ago really. I was just always too nervous to pop the question, taking things way too slow with her in every step of our relationship. I was even nervous she’d say no. She was in love with someone else…
But that was crazy. There’s never been anyone else. It is always just the two of us, inseparable, since the day we met.
“You are my family, my heart, and I love you,” she tells me on our wedding day. “I can’t survive without you.”
When I first saw her at the end of the aisle, standing at the altar in that shimmery dress of silk and long lace sleeves… I told her she was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I tell her that all the time, even when she’s wearing her worn out jeans or her nursing scrubs, and I mean it every time. This time it made her smile wider than ever though.
I never want this day to end. I want to say my vows and slide that silver wedding band onto her finger, but then I just want to stay holding her hand and gazing at her. I don’t need to take her back to our house, to the bedroom. I don’t need to drink her blood, or to let things get rough, and twisted, and dark… I can just say these words, “I take you for my wife.” Then I will never want for anything, not ever again.
“And I take you for my third husband,” comes Leah’s bizarre, smiling response, and I feel my brow furrow.
That’s when I recognize the priest conducting this ceremony. I thought he didn’t look qualified, this boyish-looking teenager with shining amber eyes… And what kind of priest carries a revolver? The Catholic church would never allow him to be a priest. He refuses to be celibate, and the way Leah gazes at him...
She met Julian at that nightclub, found out what a talented partner he was and got him to teach her how to dance. She got him to teach her so many other things, while I was out making ambulance calls… I didn’t even accuse her of anything. Julian was such a great guy and I trusted him completely. No, really. He was kind of shy and quiet, but so compassionate, there to support me when my father passed away…
Leah couldn’t help with that. I don’t remember why. She was so detached and cruel to me when Roman died, the only parent I had left, and maybe the only person who actually, truly loved me…
Leah was cheating on me after all. She told me about it like it was nothing, called me prudish and jealous for having a problem with it. “I love all three of you.” Who the hell was the third?! My mind feels fuzzy…
But crystal clear are those conversations with Leah. She kept gushing about all the details each night, so much so that I could picture the sex acts like I'd seen them on video... Julian gives great oral sex, like nothing she had ever felt before. I was shocked to hear it, because I honestly thought Julian was gay. He had that possessive, handsy boyfriend of his, Luc…
Luc is standing right there at Leah’s shoulder. Why the hell didn’t I notice? He already has a silver wedding band around his ring finger, a perfect match for Leah’s. And Julian has one too. I am the only one who has not yet committed to her, not yet taken vows to be with her forever…
“But I can’t live without you, Gracen.” Leah’s crying. Her smile is gone, her wedding train is stained with filth and gore, and her chest is stained with blood, running down from the fresh bite mark in her neck. “I need you. Don’t do this. I’ll give you whatever you need. Just don’t…”
I remember her scream then. She was screaming my name. She charged into that lavish, evil bedroom with Luc at her back, as I was tearing my head away from my shoulders, cutting through my spine with my claws…
I turn my eyes to Roman, my loving father, seated in the front row of this otherwise empty church. I remember what he did now. I remember what I…
I don’t have any breath to sob or scream. I’m keeled over, hyperventilating. Leah hugs me just to drop dead in my arms, completely drained of blood…
Luc presses Julian’s gun flush to my temple. “You deserve to die for this, you brat.”
“I know. Do it. Do it now. Make it all go away. I just need it all to go away!” My scream breaks the walls, and the church turns into a burning night club, packed wall to wall with rotting corpses.
“Then forget.” Leah opens her eyes, and the rest of the world vanishes. She’s still weak, and anemic, but she squeezes at my hand with a stubborn strength that could win any arm wrestle. “He is your son, Gracen.”
I follow the distant cries of an infant to the most beautiful little boy, cradled tight in Julian’s arms, being baptized... in a font filled with blood.
“He was always going to be yours,” Leah swears. “He looks just like you.”
He really does. He has my eyes.
He has Roman's magnetic, evil eyes.
“This was supposed to be a fairy tale…” A wholesome, perfect story of two best friends and a love so deep it could conquer any horror…
“It is,” Leah swears, sitting up and letting me fold, so it’s my head being stroked so soothingly, nestled in her lap. “All the best fairy tales are a little bit twisted.” She smiles. “But you will always be prince charming. I don’t care what you did. My tears will heal your wounds like fucking Rapunzel.”
“Don’t swear in front of the kid,” I distractedly murmur.
“Shit, that’s right. He’s can’t-- Shit! Whatever, fuck it. He can’t understand what we’re saying yet anyway.”
I break up laughing, a sobbing, desperate release, as I bury my head in her lap and squeeze shut my eyes.
I will love this girl for all my life, through centuries of pain, and mess, and the both of our many mistakes. I will forgive her every decision, even if it is a sin unrepented, so long as she keeps holding onto me like this. That makes it a fairy tale ending.*