Chapter Fourteen
Luis yawned as he put the car into reverse just before two in the morning. After Julien had returned, there’d been apologies that Luis had mostly waved off, and then they’d gone to the bar as usual. Now with both vampires safely back in their house, he was feeling the late hour.
Luis yawned again as he turned into his apartment complex. The excitement of the evening had exhausted him, but in a good way. Luis pulled the car around the building to where his parking spot was, and slowed.
There was a car in his spot. One he recognized.
His mother’s blue Toyota Corolla.
He stopped his car and scrambled to pull his phone from his pocket. He hadn’t looked at it after playing Words with Friends with Karim at the bar.
But sure enough, there were dozens of texts and at least six calls clogging the notification screen.
Oh fuck.
Quickly, Luis pulled into a visitor spot nearby and parked the car. Had something happened? Or was this just her last straw of him ignoring her calls and texts?
But she never came to his apartment.
It was two in the morning now. How long had she been at his apartment waiting for him?
Fuck. Whatever the length of time, him rolling in at two in the morning was only going to make it worse.
She knew Cassie was away at school, so he couldn’t even use her as an excuse like he usually would.
Cassie was just about the only excuse his mom gave him a pass on, because she still had hopes they would fall in love and settle down.
Ugh.
Luis sat there for a long time in his still car staring up at his apartment building.
The light was on in his place. Part of him wanted to just turn the car back on and drive away.
Leave whatever this was for Later Luis. Ask Julien and Karim if he could crash in their guestroom. They’d probably say yes.
But wasn’t he trying to be better? Stop taking the coward’s way out. He couldn’t ignore this long enough that it’d go away. He needed to deal with it. Put boundaries up. Do what Cassie had been begging him to do for years.
And maybe he was finally ready to.
Luis made himself get out of the car and march his leaden legs to the building.
His apartment door was unlocked when he got to it. His mom had a spare key, because she’d demanded one when he’d first moved. He regretted it now.
Cassie had even told him not to, but he’d been too weak. He’d given in.
“Mama?” Luis called as he stepped out of his shoes in the front entrance.
There was a sound from the direction of the bedroom, but it registered secondary as he caught sight of his apartment.
It was ransacked. There were bills and other mail scattered about his table and onto the floor.
Kitchen drawers were open, their contents haphazardly pulled out on the countertops.
In the living room his laptop was open, an angry alert pop-up on the screen about repeated incorrect password attempts.
His CDs and Blu-rays were a mess on the floor, some left open.
Anger overran the dread.
“Luis, where have you been!” His mother came out of his bedroom. In her hand was his guitar.
Luis saw red.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He spat.
“I was so worried!” His mom stepped forward and pulled him into a one-armed hug. She squeezed him tight, and Luis forced his arms between them to push her away. His skin crawled from her touch, disgust rocketing through his whole body.
“Worried about what? What the fuck did you do to my apartment?” He demanded.
He’d never cursed at her before, but now something had come uncorked in him, spilling toxin.
She frowned. “I’ve been calling and texting you, mijo, and you don’t answer. What am I supposed to think? I come here and then you’re not here, where have you been? It’s the middle of the night. You know that those blood suckers are out at this time–”
“Mom.” It heaved up out of him, so angry he felt like he was spitting fire. “What the fuck? Are you serious? I didn’t answer my phone so you came here and trashed my apartment?”
“Am I serious?” She mocked with a snarl, meeting his temper.
“Ever since you moved out, you’ve been acting strange.
You don’t have time for your Mama no more?
You’re coming and going at odd hours, and with who?
I know your girlfriend left you, I was just trying to figure out what’s going on with you.
” She paused, shaking the guitar in his face.
“I thought we talked about the music, but I see now the devil has been influencing you again–”
A rush of rage hit Luis so hard he couldn’t speak. He reached and snatched the guitar from her.
“Don’t touch it,” he forced out. He turned with shaking hands to put the guitar behind him out of the line of sight. Tried to take a breath that wasn’t lava in his mouth. Anger wasn’t going to help. He needed to calm down. He needed to get her out of his apartment.
“I’m over thirty Ma; I have a life!” Luis tried. “Not answering my phone for a couple days doesn’t mean anything is going on with me. I texted you I was fine!”
“Anyone could be texting from your phone!” She shouted back at him. “Where were you tonight?”
He wanted to scream; he wanted to throw something. He tilted his head back to try and get some semblance of control, scraping hands through his hair. “I was out,” he said forcefully. “I have a life—”
His mother crossed herself in Spanish and then grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked. The suddenness had him pitching forward and down.
“Ow! What are you–?”
“What is on your neck? Is that a bite?” Her voice rose to a shrill and venomous pitch he’d never heard before. It cut into him as much as the collar of his shirt was.
Luis jerked out of her grip. His hand came up, slapping over the spot automatically to cover it. He’d forgotten all about the bite when he’d seen her car in his spot.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“No, it’s just a bug bite–” he tried, but she wasn’t listening.
She crossed herself again. “A vampire attacked you!” She looked horrified.
Fuck, Luis had never meant for her to find out.
“I knew this would happen,” she said as she marched to the kitchen and grabbed her phone off the counter. “I just knew it! Those bloodsucking monsters were just waiting for their opportunity to get their hands on my baby–” She punched in numbers on her phone.
Luis’s heart jolted. This wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be happening. “It’s not like that. Who are you calling?”
“Hello," his mom said into the phone. “Yes, I’d like to report a vampire attack–”
Luis shot forward and grabbed for the phone. “Mama!” He was quick enough to get it out of her reach, and his height helped keep it away as he stepped back and put the phone to his ear. His mother cursed at him in Spanish, batting at him to try and get the phone back.
“Ma’am?” A calm voice on the other end asked. A quick look at the screen told him she’d called the police.
“Hey, sorry,” Luis said to the dispatcher, “We’re all good here, my mom doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
“A vampire bit you!” She screamed.
“Consensually,” he said with feeling. “There was no crime, I went to a vampire bar.”
That was not technically the truth, but he needed to sell how much this was not an issue. The last fucking thing he needed tonight was cops at his door.
The operator asked him something further, but he couldn’t hear it over his mother’s shouting that he’d been attacked by a blood-sucking devil creature.
“We’re fine–I’m fine–she just doesn’t like vampires. Thank you, bye!” Luis hung up. Staying on the line couldn’t make it any better, the dispatcher would either believe him or not.
“We have to report this! They cannot get away with this!” His mom was trying to get the phone from him.
“Enough!” Luis roared. He put a hand out to try and reinforce distance between them. “There was no crime, Mama! I asked the vampire to bite me.”
He didn’t want to say it, but he needed to get through to her. He was sick of having to hide, having to lie. If it was going to be out there, let it all be out there.
“I asked to be bitten,” he said. “I wanted it.”
She froze like he’d cut her strings. His mother stared at him, red eyes wide with shock.
“That’s not true,” She said, shaking her head. Her expression was pinched, pained. “They said–I didn’t want to believe them–”
“It’s true,” Luis said. “That’s where I was. There was no crime, and I wasn’t hurt. The person who bit me is a friend. It’s–it’s helping with my condition Mama; it heals better than a needle and–”
“No,” his mother spat it, spittle hitting Luis’s face. Her cheeks were ruddy with emotion, eyes glossy with anger. “You were attacked,” she said, as if she could make it true just by saying it enough.
“I wasn’t,” Luis repeated. He needed her to hear him. To understand. “Mama, I asked him to–”
The slap came so fast Luis didn’t know what had happened at first. There was pain, a loud and sharp sound.
She’d struck him. Smacked him with the back of her hand, clean-cutting the words from his mouth, moving his head with the force of it. One of the chunky gold rings she always wore must have cut his cheek, because a hard sting settled in a second later.
She’d been generous with physical punishment growing up, but she’d never struck him across the face like that before. With rage and hatred.
The shock and shame of it rippled through him.
Then, stupid, childish tears welled up.
“I won’t listen to that.” She snapped. “No God-fearing Christian would let themselves be defiled like that. If you asked to be bitten, there’s something wrong with you.”
Luis’s stomach roiled at her words. His hands were shaking, and he kept blinking to try and not let the tears fall.
“You’re wrong.” His voice was thick and wobbly. He hated how young it made him sound. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“Cállate.” She stepped away, disgust on her face. “How long has this been going on? How long have you been a thrall?” She threw the last word at him as though its very presence in her mouth made her sick.
It struck like a knife. “Mama,” Luis tried again, “it’s for my condition.”
But she wasn’t listening. “They tried to tell me, but I didn’t want to see it.
You wanted so badly to move out, and I convinced myself that it would be good for you, that maybe this was the step you and your girlfriend needed.
But I see the Devil’s work here. I spent so many years praying for your soul, but you’ve let the evil in.
You’ve let them make you their bloodbag.
” She laughed hollowly, viciously. “This is the thanks I get for raising you. A disgusting thrall of a son.”
He felt stupid and small and ashamed at her words. He knew, knew what she thought about vampires, what she thought about all the things that made him, him. But somewhere along the line he’d convinced a tiny part of him that maybe she would hear him. That he could make her understand, somehow.
That if she loved him, she’d at least–at least–
But no. That was impossible. She loved a version of him that didn’t exist. Would never exist. Anything outside of that wasn’t acceptable.
“Mama–” He was shamed by the wet plea that fell from his mouth, but he couldn’t help it. He just wanted her to understand. To accept him.
She held out her hand. “Give me my phone,” she demanded.
In that moment, Luis was eleven years old again, getting the guitar ripped out of his hands. He was thirteen being forbidden from the boys sleepover. He was fifteen, trying so, so hard to be who she wanted him to be and failing, failing, failing.
What else could he do? He’d tried everything.
He dropped the phone into her hand, dejected.
His mother stepped around him like he was a virus, grabbing her purse on the way to the door.
“Do not call me, do not come to the house,” she said. Her expression was unadulterated loathing. “Until you have repented and cut off this pact with the Devil, you are no son of mine.”
Each word was a barb. He couldn’t speak around the pain.
A second later the door slammed shut behind her. The framed photo of him and Cassie on the wall rattled from the impact.
Luis sank to the floor where he stood. His whole body was shaking, the tears finally falling down his cheeks. Everything was a mess of scattered papers, books open on their spine. The tears made his cheek burn where she’d hit him, and his heart ached like she’d torn it out.
He didn’t understand. The way she could love him and hate him. The way she didn’t want to change, didn’t want to listen.
Didn’t understand how he could know all of this, and it still hurt this badly.
Sobs shook themselves free as he curled himself inward, hugging his own body.
He cried for all the years he’d spent trying to get her understanding and acceptance, and been left wanting. For the years he’d lost trying to make himself into someone she could approve of.
For all the years after when he’d been living a half-life, trying to hide who he was and still find enough to fill the hunger of want that always sat inside him.
But the truth was that his mother had never loved him. Not the real him.
And she never would.