Pulse

The first month after vampires told us they were real wasn’t really much different than the months before it. I had shifts at work, friend crises that needed to be averted, and my love life was relatively nonexistent. From the outside, it probably looked like everything was the same as always, which would have been the second biggest lie on the planet. The biggest one was the lie our newly introduced neighbors were telling. According to every vampire that appeared in public, they didn’t eat people.

There might be a bridge in New York for sale if you believe it.

By the time you see a vampire coming for you, it’s probably too late. Even when they’re just a customer at the bar where you work, you might as well start figuring out what you’d like on your tombstone. Sure, vampires aren’t mindless beasts drawn to anything with a pulse any more than they are tragic figures struggling to adapt to changes the passage of time brings with it. Fiction can’t substitute for the real thing, where there is only one simple fact that matters. The obvious one. Vampires are dangerous.

Especially the ones with bright blue eyes, who learn your name by swiping your cell phone from your purse after they save you from another vampire trying to make you into a snack. All of it is a ploy, manipulation, for some reason that you just can’t figure out in the here and now. They can never seriously be interested in you. How would that work? After all, they’re the predator and you’re the prey.

If only these predators didn’t seem like they might have a few shreds of humanity, and hints of a good heart beneath all the grit that has settled on them over the years. If only a pair of blue eyes didn’t seem so safe, even knowing that they belong to a vampire. If only my dreams weren’t filled by memories of cool lips, safe arms, and more than a little thrill at being close to something so dangerous.

If only. Because then, maybe, all my friends would still be alive.