Losing Everything [COMPLETED]

Paint It

APRIL

🏀Clawd Wolf🏀

For the first time in months, I had managed to convince Laura to get into my truck and go for a nice, long drive. It had been an hour of just country music before she spoke. I didn't hear what she said the first time. I reached out with one hand and turned down the radio. "Come again, sweetheart?" I asked.

"Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to die?" she asked.

I swallowed. "No, can't say I have."

"I have."

"Oh?"

She nodded, her head still pressed against the window. "I've wondered what it would feel like to drown. I mean, I were human. I want to know what it would feel like when water was filling my lungs instead of air. I want to feel that burning sensation when you're physically being dragged to your death."

It took everything I had to keep my eyes on the road in front of us. "Why would you want that, exactly?" I asked.

"Many reasons," she said with a simple shrug. "Reason one, it would finally make me feel something again. Even pain is better than... numbness," she said. "Reason two, death ends the guilt, the worthlessness. It-"

"I'm gonna have to stop you right there, Laura. You, my dear, are far from being worthless," I said.

"I find myself doubting that."

"You stopped taking the meds again, didn't you?" I asked.

"They don't help. They make me numb. Do you know what it's like to take a little pull and then be able to feel no emotion whatsoever?" she asked. The tone of her voice told me she was about to cry. That was the reason I didn't look at her. "I want to feel something. Those damned pills prevent it. Completely," she said.

"Why do you think that is?" I asked. Her response was simply another half-hearted shrug. "Baby, I can't help you if you don't help me understand," I said softly.

She sniffled. "I'm trying, Clawd. I'm trying so hard," she whispered. "That Rolling Stones song?" she asked. I nodded slightly. "It's about depression. And it's how I feel most of the time. I want to paint everything black. If everything is dark and dreary, the whole world matches my mood... and then I'm no longer the downer of the group," she said.

I placed a hand on her leg and squeezed. "Laura, sweetheart, you can paint this whole entire town black. It doesn't change the fact that you're still my little ray of sunshine," I said. She looked over at me and smiled. It was very faint, but - believe me - it was there. I smiled back. "There's my girl," I whispered. "We'll be okay. You'll be okay," I said. She nodded. I wasn't sure if she believed it or not, but the smile was still to be considered progress.

JUNE

💋Draculaura💋

For a month, I had been in a little white room. My meals - that I didn't eat - were served on paper plates. My silverware was limited to spoons. And they weren't silver. They were cheap plastic. Again, I didn't use them.

My bed was a thin mattress on an extremely uncomfortable metal frame. Lucky me - they even gave me thin, cotton sheets for my bed, and a pillowcase to match. And, even more lucky me, everything was white.

Do you know how maddening the color white is? Do you know how infuriating it is to have some tall douchebag hovering over you twenty-four seven to make sure you don't somehow find something in their child-proofed room you can use to kill yourself?

Thirty-one days.

I had been locked in a completely white room for thirty-one days.

Suicide watch.

I hadn't even tried to kill myself.

I was a vampire, for Chris sakes! What was I going to do? Tear myself at the limbs? Ram a stake through my chest? Douse myself in gasoline and flick a match?

No, thanks! I had talked about death, yes. But the ways I discussed were ways I couldn't die - jumping off a bridge, drowning, cutting. Basically, anything normies could do to harm themselves.

Newsflash: I was a vampire.

I didn't die that easily.

Because if I did, I would've killed myself the exact second they locked me in that damned room.

SEPTEMBER

🐺Clawdeen Wolf🐺

"How're you feeling?" I asked. Draculaura barely looked at me, offering - instead - a light shrug. "D, come on. Give me something verbal." Another shrug.

For a while, she had been getting better. She had been healing. She knew the murders weren't her fault. She knew she wasn't to blame. She knew she wasn't worthless. She knew she was cared for. She didn't think about dying.

And then, like a sudden turn of dark clouds circling a once blue sky, she had caused a storm. Dracula and Clawd had relayed the story that she had locked herself in her bathroom for an entire week. In those seven days, she hadn't spoken to anyone. Obviously, she hadn't eaten. And it was presumed that she hadn't been sleeping, either.

And things had apparently gone downhill from there. Verbal communication was few and far between. If you were lucky enough to hear her voice, it was most likely a nightmare or an accident. For instance, maybe she yawned too loud, or sneezed at the wrong time. Both were accidents that she would then apologize for, because she suddenly would feel bad for being loud, obnoxious, and 'horrendously annoying'.

"D, talk to me," I said. Another shrug. I couldn't help it - I growled. She shrunk even further into the corner she had wedged herself into and looked up at me - horrified. I had scared her.

Great.

DECEMBER - CHRISTMAS MORNING

🏀Clawd Wolf🏀

I walked into Laura's room and shut the door behind me. She didn't look up at me. She didn't even acknowledge my presence. that was okay, though. I was used to it at this point. It didn't really bother me much any more.

Without need for acknowledgement, I strode across the room and sat down next to her. I pushed her hair out of her face before resting my hand on her cheek - I couldn't resist.

And much to my surprise, she leaned into my palm. I little, tiny sigh even fell from her lips. Heavenly.

"It's Christmas. I got you something," I said. Her eyes shifted to my face. For a second, the cheerful vampire I had fallen in love with so long ago danced in her deep violet eyes. And then she was gone. Her eyes lost most of their color in a single second as they dulled and glazed over simultaneously. I set the box in her open palm and waited.

Slowly, her other hand moved to cover the box. Her index finger traced the silver hinge that ran along one of the four sides of the lid. And then - finally - she opened it. "Clawd..." Her voice was breathless and weak, but that didn't change the fact that it was beautiful.

"If you want to say no, I understand. I don't want to force you into anything," I said.

Box still in hand, she threw her arms around my neck and pressed her lips to mine. There was nothing hesitant about any of it. She kissed me as if there had never been a huge hiccup in our relationship. When she pulled back, a grin covered most of the lower section of her face. One hand moved to my face as her fingers traced my bottom lip. "I love you, Clawd - the answer is always going to be yes."

"Yes?" I asked. I needed confirmation. Again.

"Yes. Clawd Wolf, it'd be an honor to marry you," she whispered.