Death is Only the Beginning: A Guide to Vampirism

Twelve: The Blame Game

If not for you

I'd have happiness in my hands

If not for you

My life would be more than a shadow

If not for you

I wouldn't be grasping at strands

If not for you

I'd have a life that didn't stink like stinky gym socks you left in your locker over summer break.

If not for you.

If not for you.

I wasn't meant to see it.

She was never going to tell me.

And now that I know, I'm not sure I'll ever be the same again.

Sleep wouldn't come to me and put me out of misery. Instead I wallowed in depression over being a monster, a real actual monster. I skipped school, ignored Lobo's phone calls, and stayed holed up in my room for the rest of the night, wondering why I had to live at all. 

 What point is there to my existence if all I am going to do is mooch the life out of other people's blood like a parasite? Is this even a life at this point?

Mom must not have realized I was home since she never came to deliver Lobo's messages (I could overhear her taking another message and talk in a soothing voice). I guess she assumed I was out hunting with Gabe again. I hadn't told her yet of my decision to stop hunting or the reasons why. I couldn't face her, knowing what I had almost done. What would have happened to Emily Ann's baby if I had bitten her? What if I had hurt it? Or killed it?

I had every intention to let myself starve to death, but my body betrayed me and had me moving out my bedroom door before I knew what it was doing. On my way to the kitchen to search for something to try to take the edge off my hunger, I passed my parents' room. That's when I stopped dead in my tracks at the sound I heard.

My mother is crying.

Sobbing is actually a better word. It sounds as if her heart is broken. It's the same sound of despair she made the day she found out my aunt Alison, her older sister, died. It hurts to hear. The door is open just a crack, so I peek in.

Mom is on the bed, pictures spread around, spilling on the floor. Most are too small for me to make out, but there are some larger ones that I recognize. Family vacation photos and some old school pictures. Dad sits beside her, patting her hair, and mumbling nonsense words that are meant to comfort. Even Pete is beside her, meowing and butting his head against her. Part of me wants to join them, but something keeps me on the other side of the door.

"Our little girl..." she wails from Dad's shoulder where she had buried her head. She moves just enough so that she can look at the picture in her hand before breaking out in a wave of fresh sobs. "I couldn't protect her!"

"Ssshhh... it's okay, sweetie," Dad croons, looking and sounding helpless. I've never heard his voice sound like that before. My eyes fill with tears.

"It's not okay, Ian!" she snaps, shoving herself away from him. "She's a vampire. A vampire!" She wails some more, as she frantically gathers the pictures she can reach to her chest. "The blood! What are we going to do? So much blood..."

Dad is obviously uncomfortable and is beginning to fidget. "All girls grow up... The woman thing... just... happens."

That stops the tears with a hiccup.

"What?"

"The woman thing."

She groans and drops her head. "Oh Ian... it's not puberty. Tiffany is a vampire ."

"Okay. Whatever you want to call it. It's fine. It'll be okay. You'll handle it just fine." I notice he doesn't plan on having anything to do with it. Then again, he has always been rather phobic about me growing up. Or maybe phobic about girl things in general. Girl things? Sheesh, now he has ME doing it.

She flops back on the bed and cries some more. "It's my fault. All my fault..."

Quietly, I back away from the door as her cries become increasingly choked and heart wrenching, and head back to the safety of my room. Suddenly, I'm not very hungry anymore. I feel cowardly and sick.

I thought that Mom was taking everything in stride. I thought she was fine with my new life change. I thought that she almost seemed excited about it. It never even occurred to me that she could possibly blame herself. Why hadn't I seen it? How many times has she cried when I wasn't around to make her force herself to be cheerful?

But she's wrong. It isn't her fault.

It's mine.

If I hadn't broken curfew, I wouldn't be in this bloody mess. If I hadn't let myself get talked into going to the dance club by friends who haven't even called once to see how I am or if I am even still alive, I'd still be going to regular school and hanging out in the sunlight and not stuck in a world of perpetual darkness. If I had paid more attention to my surroundings, my mom wouldn't have to play Mad Doctor and come up with blood concoctions to try and get me to stomach the stuff. If not for me... she wouldn't be in her room, half in hysterics over the monster I've turned into.

It's all my fault.

It would be cruel to keep making her find me the blood. I don't know where she was getting it, but I'll get her to stop. I won't make her find some for me anymore.

But I don't want to bite anyone again. EVER. What am I supposed to do? Is it possible for a vampire to starve to death? Would that be worse than... seeing the sun rise for the very last time? Aw, who am I kidding, I've never been up early enough to see a sunrise before. I suppose it would be kind of poetic that it would be the first and last time.

Will my soul find peace if I do that, though? Do I even have a soul anymore? Surely, I do... I mean, wouldn't I know if it was gone? Lobo said I didn't really die when I became a vampire, I just mutated. So surely, I still have my soul. Or does a person lose their soul when they become a monster?

What has my life become?

Why did I go and have to mess it all up?

Why did Jeremiah have to bite me?

If he hadn't...

If HE hadn't.

Jeremiah...

It's HIS fault.

He was the one who bit me first and turned me into this. 

 He's the reason my mother is sobbing in her bedroom, taking her daughter and leaving her with a monster instead. 

 He is the reason I will always be trapped in my house during the day. 

 He is the reason I have to survive on blood. 

 He is the one who 

RUINED 

MY 

LIFE!

I throw my pillow against the wall in a fit of rage. The only damage it does is tilt one of my pictures to the side. A sound coming from the hall has me opening the window and hopping out (luckily, we only have a one-story home). I don't want my Mom to know I heard her. I don't want to have to see her red, puffy eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. I don't want to hear her say that everything is okay when everything is most definitely not okay. I don't want her to try to make me feel better. 

 I don't WANT to feel better.

I want revenge.