Nine Months Later
The day I’ve been dreading has finally arrived.
I haven’t been able to stomach the thought of celebrating my birthday this year because it’s also hers. For the first time in our lives, Salma and I won’t be blowing out the candles together.
I’m turning nineteen without her.
“I wore the wrong shoes for this,” my roommate complains. It’s her constant refrain since she lives in stilettos.
“You knew we were coming to the beach,” I say, kicking off my flip-flops before setting foot on the cool sand. The moon overhead is half full, and the horizon is so dark that the ocean blends with the black space.
“Hold up a sec!” she calls out, and I glance back. Tiffany looks like a flamingo in her pink dress, one knee bent in the shape of a 4.
“I got you,” says our third roommate. Zach holds her up by the elbow while she switches legs to slip off her other shoe.
“You okay?” Trevor asks me. In board shorts and a long-sleeved shirt, his curls frizzing in the briny breeze, he really looks the part of a Californian.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I ask. “This is just an ordinary day.”
Tiffany and Zach catch up to us, and we keep walking, until we’re far enough from the city that darkness surrounds us, the waves’ roaring drowning out all other sounds.
“This is a good spot,” I say, and when Trevor reaches into his bag, I flash to the flamethrower and that awful day in Huntington that only I remember.
He pulls out a large blanket, and the four of us each grab a corner. It flaps in the wind as we set it down, then we all sit on top of it. Fall doesn’t start for another couple of weeks, but it doesn’t feel like summer anymore. I hug my arms to my chest as I inhale the sea-soaked air.
Trevor pulls out a flask and a small bottle of rosé. He hands the wine to Tiffany, since it’s the only alcohol she likes.
“Here,” says Trevor, passing me a hoodie from his bag. “Figured you’d forget a jacket.”
I look down at my jeans and three-quarter-sleeves top. I thought I’d be warm enough, that New York had trained me better than this—but surprisingly not.
The rosé’s cap is a twist-off, and after Tiffany opens it, Trevor clinks his flask to its glass mouth. “To … Huntington,” he says, after reading the alarm in my gaze when I thought he would say my name or Salma’s.
“To Huntington,” says Tiffany, and they both drink. Then Trevor passes the flask to Zach, and Tiffany hands the wine to me.
Zach and I clink our drinks, too, then he takes the smallest, quickest sip possible. I’m going to do the same, but as soon as the fizzy liquid hits my tongue, I take a long swig.
Then I lie back and look up at the stars, thinking of when Salma and I did this as kids in Colorado. I wonder where she is right now, if she remembers what today is, or if birthdays don’t matter to her anymore.
She said she’d send me postcards, but I never got any at Huntington or at home. Maybe she didn’t think it was safe to send them to either place.
She must have tracked down her father and compelled him at some point over winter break because he called Ma and told her Salma had been spending time with him in Europe when she got sick and passed away.
Her body was transported to New York, and we held a funeral. I still wonder whose body we buried—or if there was a body there at all. Maybe Salma just compelled people into thinking there was.
When my friends and I returned to school, Minaro was no longer the director and someone new had been put in charge. She miraculously got the phone reception and Wi-Fi issues resolved, and the school became a lot more … normal.
Trevor, Tiffany, and Zach got into the colleges of their choice, but all three of them decided to defer their admission to spend the year with me in Los Angeles.
Trevor and I are interning for his dad, while Tiffany and Zach work on building up the Tiff Investigates platform.
They already have more than fifty thousand followers.
“You got mail today,” says Tiffany, reaching into her Tory Burch purse and handing me a couple of envelopes.
The first one is a Hallmark card with my parents’ return address. I’ve already video-chatted with them twice today, but Ma loves sending physical cards. Before ripping it open, I look at the other piece of mail—and I sit bolt upright.
A postcard.
The photo is of an endless blue ocean, and I gasp at the sight of it. I flip it over and see my name and address—but the message part is blank.
“Creepy, right?” says Tiffany. “They didn’t write anything. What do you think that’s about?”
How could Salma have known I would come here today? Or maybe she didn’t know, and we both just thought of the same thing. I look around, squinting into the black air for a sign of her. Is she here now? Watching?
Listening?
“How’d the first week of your internship go?” asks Zach.
“Basic introductory stuff,” says Trevor.
“Can’t you just tell your dad you want in on the Legion operations?” asks Tiffany.
Trevor and I told her and Zach about the Legion and his family’s legacy when we got back to school in January. We all agreed that the most important thing we could do with our lives was get close to the Legion and keep an ear to the ground for the vampires.
Tiffany wants to build her platform and reputation, so that when she breaks the story one day, people will believe her. I want to help protect humanity, but I also secretly want to keep Salma safe.
“It doesn’t work like that,” says Trevor. “I first need to earn his trust, and since I’ve spent most of my life doing the opposite, it’s not going to be quick.”
“Let’s not talk about this stuff right now,” I say, lying back down. “I don’t want to think about this on my birthday.”
“I thought it wasn’t your birthday,” says Tiffany, lying down next to me.
“You know what I mean. Where’s Daniel?” I ask Zach to change the subject. They’ve become inseparable since Trevor introduced them two months ago.
“I told him tonight was a Huntington-only thing,” says Zach, and he lies down beside Tiffany.
“Fine, then,” says Trevor, resting on my other side. “Let’s just look at the stars and pretend we’re normal.”
“I like that,” I say.
But half an hour later, Trevor is hungry, Tiffany needs to pee, and Zach can’t find his phone. So we pack up and take the pedestrian bridge across the street to the parking lot where we left the car.
Trevor and Tiffany go hunt down a place to eat/pee, while I go with Zach to the car. “Found it,” he says, locating his phone. While we walk toward the main street, he returns Daniel’s missed calls.
I get a group text from Trevor with a location, and Zach nods at me as if to say he’ll meet us there.
The promenade is crowded tonight, and I weave through couples and families and tourists lined up to watch street performers. I look down at my phone to make sure I’m going the right way, and when I look up, I see a flash of purple.
Sometimes I’ll trick myself into thinking I’ve spotted William. Maybe to convince myself he’s within reach and that I’ll see him again in my lifetime.
It’s been nearly a year since we met, and I dream of him every night. There are moments when I wish I hadn’t refused his offer to turn me. Then I recall my parents’ devastation at Salma’s funeral, and I feel horrible for even thinking it.
I remember William telling me how he felt that his chance to marry for love was stolen from him. I, too, feel like my love story has been ripped away from me. It’s as if the vampire tore off a chunk of my heart when he left, and I’ve been walking around with a gaping wound in my chest ever since.
The pedestrian traffic thins out as I cross the street, and when I look left, toward the ocean, someone catches my eye.
He’s leaning against the wall, by the entrance to an alley, staring back at me. He has pale skin and windswept dark hair.
Even though I know it’s not him, my feet carry me closer.
The guy starts walking my way, too.
Slowly, like a human.
“Happy birthday, Lore.”
His voice is as velvety as I remember, and I gasp. This is a dream. My heart is a runaway train, and all I can think to say is “This isn’t real. You’re not here.”
“After all we went through, you still refuse to accept that vampires exist?”
His amethyst eyes twinkle, and my breath catches, and I can’t speak. It’s only when I reach out with my hand, and my fingers touch his cold marble skin, that tears burn my eyes.
“How is this possible?” I ask, breathless.
“The spell broke,” he says with a sharp smile, and the night around us seems to darken with his words, making the stars shine brighter and my heart beat louder.
“The world is going to change,” he says, his arms circling my waist and reeling me close. I can’t believe this is really him, that he’s here, touching me. “Yet I vow that I am yours, for all time. I will not abandon you again, unless you ask me to.”
Half my heart is exuberant, the other half is terrorized.
“Is it still a happily-ever-after if the world implodes?” I murmur.
William’s lips brush mine. “As long as we are together.”
Our mouths crash, and his kiss is a blast of winter. I pull him in as close as possible, never again willing to let him go.
Anything can happen now—but two things I know for sure:
The vampires are back.
And I’m going to be with William Stoker forever.