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Deb Hollis took a sip from her shitty, shitty vanilla soy latte from Beanie’s. With each taste of burnt beans and barista spit, her heart pounded faster, compounded by what she had to say next to her girlfriend. It didn’t help that Alice Woodward, who she thought could be the love of her life, kept tapping her gloved fingernails against the plastic table in sync with her heart. Everything just went on and on, compounding, overloading her.
She couldn’t take this anymore.
“I feel like something’s up with you,” Deb blurted out. “Like you’re keeping something from me.”
“What? No, there’s not. There’s nothing,” Alice said, her words rushing out so quickly that Deb almost couldn’t hear her. But she could, and she wasn’t convinced.
“Are you sure? ‘Cause ever since you went to Watcher World with your dad you’ve seemed… different.”
“Maybe it’s because your Instagram was filled with photos of you and Ziggy!” Alice exclaimed. This fight again?
Deb sighed, placing her coffee cup on the table. If she didn’t, she figured she’d hold it so tightly that it’d explode. “I thought we worked through this. Ziggs and I are just friends.”
“Yeah? Why were they kissing your cheek?” Because they were friends. Because sometimes you just kiss your friends on the cheek. And, yeah, she was in a fight with Alice then, but Deb didn’t see Ziggs like that. They didn’t see her like that, either. They were just each other’s only friends in middle school, that was all it was.
Instead of saying that, Deb chose a different defence. “Even if I did cheat on you over three months ago, which I didn’t, that doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to cheat on me.”
“I’m not cheating on you!” Alice said, shaking her head, before brushing her hair out of her face, running her fingers through her silky tresses. Because, of course, she still looked perfect in the middle of a fight. Even more than perfect. She was almost inhuman.
“Oh, yeah?” Deb scoffed, looking away so she wouldn’t get distracted. “Then why do you keep hanging out with Grace Chasity? I know your dad likes her more than me.”
“That- She- Grace Chastity is a nerdy prude! I have to do stuff with her for church, that’s it.”
Yeah, okay. That made some sense. “Then why do I still feel like you’re hiding something from me?”
“I can’t tell you.” Sighing, Alice looked out the window, to the rust-coloured leaves drifting from the trees. She couldn’t even face her. Great. Great.
“Can’t you?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Alice said, probably some attempt to reassure her. But, when she reached for Deb’s hands, Deb could almost hear her teeth grinding against each other. Even though Alice kept her mouth as closed as possible, Deb sensed how tense she was from something that used to be second nature for them.
“Oh, yeah? Then what is it? ‘Cause it seems like you just don’t want me to know anything about you anymore.”
“That’s not true.”
Deb took away her hands. She didn’t want to notice Alice’s sigh of relief, that came without a breath to precede it. “Really? You don’t show me your play drafts anymore, you only go out with me at night - even though you still have a curfew, and it- fuck, it feels like you don’t wanna be with me anymore.”
“Maybe I’ve seemed a little distant…”
“Maybe?” Deb interrupted. She couldn’t ignore how Alice flinched every time she moved in for a kiss, how she seemed almost allergic to touching her, how her eyes developed a red tint to them every time she got injured.
“But, trust me, I don’t want to be,” said Alice, clearly pleading.
Deb didn’t want to be left in the dark. She wanted to be there for her girlfriend. If she would just let her in. “Then why are you?”
“I’m… I…” Alice stuttered. She tapped her fingers to the same rhythm of Deb’s heart again. “I don’t know how to say it.”
“Well, fuck, Alice! I’m here to listen to you.”
Her pause felt like an eternity. The edge of comfort and love and support. All Alice had to do was take the leap. “I can’t.” This wasn’t gonna go anywhere.
“Yeah. Okay. Whatever. Let me know if you actually wanna talk. Until then…”
Deb got in her car and drove over to Witchwood Forest. For years, it had always been the only place she could really clear her head. The endless void of trees reminded her that she was just one thing, one point in time. One day, no one knew when, her life would be carried away by the wind. Nothing was permanent, none of her pain or her mistakes. She needed that reminder.
Each part of the forest felt secluded, a space truly separated from everyone and everything else. The trees, with leaves a green so dark they were almost black, didn’t falter in the late months of fall. Their thick trunks were the only sign of time passing, graffiti from the kids forced to attend Camp Idontwannabag and the young adults making out. Deb approached one, before catching the corny heart-shaped marking. AW + DH 4EVA. Maybe not that tree. It looked weird anyway, patterns of amber and black spreading across it.
Instead, she chose the one across from it, on the other side, so that marking wouldn’t taunt her. Yeah, that worked. Deb pulled a lighter and a joint from her jean pocket. She hadn’t smoked as much around Alice recently, since she seemed to flinch every time she pulled out a lighter. Deb couldn’t really get why, they had always been cool with how much each other smoked, but Alice said there was an incident with fire and refused to detail it. Was it that, or did she just not like that part of her anymore?
Lifting the flickering flame to the joint, careful to wait until the wind had become still, Deb heard a crack. A crack, across from her. She snapped her eyes towards that tree, that fucking tree.
In a split second, it began falling. It was falling. It was falling, and it was so tall and heavy that it would crush Deb if she didn’t move.
Move, Deb, move. Move, you fucking loser, move.
But she couldn’t. She was frozen in place, as her heart raced.
This was it, wasn’t it? The end of her life. She wasn’t disappointed with how she lived. She liked staying in Hatchetfield, working at Guitarzone and picking up the odd class at the community college. She just wished she could’ve kept doing that, instead of dying. Only one regret circled through her mind.
Her last conversation with Alice was a fight. A stupid fight. They left on bad terms. Deb couldn’t think through how she could fix it, but she would. Anything to sort their problems out.
The tree fell like it was in slow motion, a stupid way to rub in that she was gonna die. Couldn’t it be quick? Couldn’t that pain just be over already?
Tightening her muscles in the wait for impact, Deb held her breath, until she would have to breathe again. But the impact never came. Instead, something lifted her up in its arms and ran her out of the way.
Deb opened her eyes and looked at the attacker, just in case it was a fucking timberwolf about to eat her.
It was not, in fact, a timberwolf.
It was Alice Woodward.
Her eyes sparkled with tears, barely avoiding running down her face. Her smile of relief, the smile Deb hadn’t seen in months, was brighter and sharper than ever. Sharper? That couldn’t be right. Her skin was glittering… no, it was more than that. In the small hits of sunlight, Alice’s skin was catching fire.
Was she hallucinating? Was this what happened when someone had a near death experience?
“Alice…” Deb began, staring at the flames on the side of her girlfriend’s face. “How… When… Are- are you burning?”
Alice paused. She looked around Witchwood Forest, anywhere but Deb’s face. Suddenly, the world became a massive blur, and they were outside Deb’s car.
“Is… I…” Deb couldn’t think straight. Her brain was still whipping around her skull, head spinning. “Huh?”
“Sit down,” Alice said, opening the door to the backseat. “Breathe. You’re safe.” Her voice faltered in her last sentence, but Deb couldn’t look beyond the comfort of her words, her hushed, gentle tone.
The pair climbed in and faced each other. Deb leaned against the car door, resting her legs on the seats. Alice sat like a princess, legs tucked at the ankles, and passed her a bottle of water.
“I don’t need water,” Deb said. Her heart was pounding so much that she thought she’d be sick.
“Please,” Alice asked. “You might get to do a comedy spit take.”
Deb snorted. “Doubt it.” She lifted the bottle to her lips and, oh, yeah, fuck, that helped. The clear stream of water cooled her throat and her anxieties, calming her stomach once it sat there. She began on another sip, when…
“I’m a vampire,” Alice said, not a hint of humour in her face.
As predicted, Deb spat her water onto the car floor. She’d probably have to take some sort of hairdryer to it when she got home, make sure it didn’t grow mould or anything.
“Nope. Alice, I love you, but vampires aren’t real,” Deb said, shaking her head, before the motion made little white pieces of glitter in her vision appear. She probably just misheard her.
But Alice continued, confirming that she was talking about what Deb thought. “How did I move us so quickly?”
“It was… we were high?”
“I don’t let myself near fire or sunlight, Deb. Did you see my skin start burning?” she asked. She was serious.
“Yeah, but…” Alice didn’t get sunburns. She wore sunscreen, to avoid getting skin cancer, but hours in the sun had never made her glow like Deb did. They never used to. She didn’t just turn red; she had been set on fire. In fall. That wasn’t normal. “Shit, you’re a vampire.”
Everything began clicking. Why she had hardly seen Alice eating, why they didn’t go out during the day as often, why Alice started flinching when she brought out her lighter, why the things that used to be normal became hard for her.
“Surprise,” she said, an awkward smile on her face. The first time she had smiled in front of her in a while. Even with fangs protruding from her mouth, Alice started looking like herself again.
“How long…”
Alice nodded. “Three months. It was when I went to Watcher World during my summer break, actually. I got on a different carriage of the ferris wheel to my dad, and the person next to me started eating me. They didn’t do it right, I guess, and the next morning I woke up as a vampire.”
“Hold on. Is this why you took a gap year in the middle of your degree?” Deb asked. As much as she had missed her while she was out of state, college was something for Alice. She was a great writer, and she loved her classes.
“Yeah. A little. I know I talked a lot about being independent, and I do still want that. And New York was great. But if I’m gonna live forever, and he’s not, then I don’t want to waste time while he’s still alive.”
“Does he know?”
“Yeah. Turns out screaming for help always ends up turning your overprotective dad’s head. I couldn’t really hide it from him.”
Deb smiled bitterly. She couldn’t help it. She got the consideration for her dad, she did, and she wanted to make Alice feel okay, but it sucked she didn’t factor her in at all. Like she thought she wouldn’t notice. “Just me.”
“And my mom,” Alice replied, leaning towards her, but not breaking the barrier of Deb’s legs on the car's backseat. “And all our other friends. And my grandparents. And-”
“Grace Chasity?” Deb interrupted. “Or is she a vampire too?”
“No. She’s, uh, she’s fae now. Stepped into a fairy circle with her girlfriend, that quarterback who won us the Clivesdale game last year. Val Jagerman, I think her name is. Apparently they liked them and, sorta, gave them powers instead of killing them. She still brags about her perfect church attendance, though.” She rolled her eyes, revealing how they were greyed on the underside.
“Why do you spend time with her, then? I know you don’t like her that much,” Deb said. Maybe it didn’t make sense that she thought Alice was cheating on her with Grace, but she thought it could’ve been a lie. It could’ve been something that motivated them into cheating. It wasn’t, sure, but it was a hell of a more likely explanation than the truth.
“I wasn’t completely lying to you, we are partnered for a lot of stuff at church. And she helps me… find blood. She’s been less obnoxious to be around since high school and, I don’t know, I feel like I owe her one.”
That made sense. More sense, anyway. “Okay. I got that. But what I don’t get is why you didn’t just tell me.”
“I was scared, I guess,” Alice said, fidgeting with her hands. “I didn’t want you to see me as a monster. I can’t script your feelings but, you know, in every draft I’d written of my play - every good one, at least - the human feared the vampire. She worried about getting eaten, at least for a little bit, and… just… I thought that might be you.”
“I’m not.” That suggestion was more surprising than the vampire reveal. “Alice, you saved my life.”
“I did. I always will. I love you.” Looking intently into her eyes, Alice reached for her once again. This time, there was nothing between them. No lies, or secrets, or fears.
“I love you, too,” Deb smiled, stripping her flannel button up from her shoulders. “And I happen to find vampires very sexy.”
“Oh, do you?” Alice asked, her fangs shining bright as she moved closer.
“Yeah. Something about the teeth, biting, blood drinking,” she said, shuffling towards her girlfriend.
As her girlfriend began to laugh, Deb moved in for a kiss. The touch of her lips felt like magic, as it always did. Deb had missed this, even though it wasn’t identical to how it used to be. Alice didn’t breathe in her air anymore, nor did she return the bite Deb gave to her upper lip. She didn’t taste the same, but she was still Alice. Still beautiful.
She moved her trail of kisses to Alice’s cheek, her ear, placing her neck underneath her mouth. Her lips were soft, beautiful, the perfect contrast to her sharp, smooth teeth. “You can bite me, if you want,” Deb whispered.
Much as she thought that would keep them close together, Alice pulled away. “I want you, I do, in every way, but not yet. You need to recover.”
“Recover?”
“You almost died today, sweetheart,” she said, using the pet name that only sounded genuine when it was in her voice. “And, when we do, we’ll have to be careful.”
“Soon?” Deb asked. She would trust her when it happened. Fully and completely.
“Soon,” Alice said, planting a gentle kiss on her hand.