Alive
I couldn’t move. Something was shaking me. Nudging my hand. My eyes shot open to an unfamiliar face—piercing yellow eyes bore into mine. My breathing became shallow, my heart beating so violently it hurt. Suddenly, I could move. I sat up with an earsplitting scream.
“It’s just me!”
My eyes darted to find Ari beside me. The sheets slipped from my hands.
“What happened?” Dennis’ panicked voice came as he and Sean entered the room.
I stared at them. My breathing was going back to normal, but my eyes filled with tears at their looks of pity.
“She had a night terror,” Ari said. “It happens sometimes.”
“Are you okay?” Dennis’ concern heightened when I rushed past them to the bathroom, locking myself in just before the breakdown started.
Flashes of the dream kept repeating while I blindly stripped down to shower.
The demon’s eyes stared back at me, even as I sank against the shower floor, weeping uncontrollably.
The taste of salt blended with water as both ran down my cheeks.
I gripped my hair and doubled over. The crying turned to choked sobbing.
Ari was dead. She had died and everyone else left. No one wanted anything to do with me if she was gone. All of my friends here and my family. Uncle Tom and Aunt Helen were gone. I’d put a gun to my head before everything went black and someone started screaming.
“Emy, please let me in.” Ari was knocking.
“Is it locked?” Dennis’ voice now. “I can break it.” The rattling of his bracelet followed.
“Don’t,” she said. “It’s okay. I’ll wait here. I don’t think she’ll try to hurt herself or anything. You guys can go. She’ll let me in when she’s ready.”
“Are you sure?” Sean’s voice.
Rustling of hair against her shirt as she nodded. Dennis murmured something that sounded equally skeptical, followed by leaving footsteps. Only one pair.
“Dennis, really. You can go. I’ll get you if we need to break the door.”
There was a moment of hesitation before his footsteps followed Sean’s. Several minutes passed before I shakily stood to take an actual shower. I was determined to wash away every trace of the terrible nightmare, so maybe the memory of it would leave too.
A while later I was finished. I squeezed my dripping hair over the sink, then stared at my lack of reflection before robotically brushing my teeth. Maybe an hour passed before I opened the door to see Ari sitting across from it.
“Sorry.” I forced a smile. “I had a bad dream.”
“It was more than that. You don’t have to pretend with me.”
“Okay. It was a night terror and when I woke up I had sleep paralysis and thought I was being possessed by a demon. I think I’m fine, though. I feel normal again.”
“You thought you were possessed?” she asked.
“What was the nightmare?” Dennis appeared, leaning against the wall a few feet from her.
“Uh. Someone killed Ari,” I started unsurely, “and then it switched to you guys.” I gestured to Dennis and then toward the living room, where Sean and Mateo were talking.
“You got tired of me and left for good. Then my aunt and uncle decided they wanted nothing to do with me if Ari wasn’t around anymore and they left too.
So I got a gun and I was about to shoot myself in the head when I woke up.
Then I couldn’t move and I heard someone screaming and saw a man who looked like a demon staring me down.
” I was tearing up again. Vivid images of the dream were coming back.
“You know that would never happen.” Ari stood.
“I’m gonna go find clothes.” I walked away before another breakdown could hit.
Mateo and Sean’s conversation stopped when I entered the living room. It was clear in Mateo’s expression that he’d heard what happened.
“Are you feeling any better?” Sean asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks for checking.” I got clothes from my suitcase, carefully since I was only in a towel, and went back to the hallway where Dennis and Ari were quietly discussing something.
“I’m gonna change in your room,” I told Dennis.
For some reason, the idea of being in there was comforting. I dumped my clothes on his red chair, then set my towel on the floor so it wouldn’t get anything wet while I changed. There was a knock on the door just as I was reaching for my shirt.
“Yeah?”
It creaked open and Dennis walked in. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.
“I’ve never had a dream that realistic before,” I said, purposely avoiding his question. “It seemed so real.”
“You know we’re not gonna abandon you.”
There were a few seconds of silence while I tried to believe him.
I put my shirt on and straightened my skirt, then gathered my towel and other things.
Dennis was carefully watching me and I was carefully avoiding his gaze.
I shot him a fleeting smile before leaving the room.
This time I didn’t mind when he followed.
“Here.” Ari brought my meds and water the moment we reached the living room. “I just talked to my dad. He’s on the way home, so we should probably head back. I packed our stuff already.”
“Aw, right now?” I pouted. Sean laughed.
“You seem so sad every time you go,” he said. “You guys should just move in.”
I nearly choked on the second pill before saying, “Too soon, too fast. No.”
“Nope,” Ari chimed in. “Are you kidding? You’re kidding.”
“I’m serious. We have room if you share with me and Emy shares with Dennis.” He gave an enticing smile, to which Ari rolled her eyes.
“Nice try, but no.”
“I wouldn’t care,” Mateo said.
“I wouldn’t mind, either,” Dennis said. “I own Vixen, anyway. May as well.”
“Okay,” I held up a hand as he grinned, “ignoring your rude ass comment, you guys would seriously wanna live with us? I don’t believe you.”
“I already know you’d get so tired of us, you’d probably kick us out within two days. Especially her,” Ari and I pointed to each other at the same time, “she’d take up all the closet space—”
“And she’d bury us alive in textbooks—”
“You’d trip over her array of heels on a daily basis—”
“So many textbooks!”
“And then her makeup would take over both bathrooms—”
“Like millions and millions of fucking textbooks—”
“Will you shut up about my textbooks?”
I made a face as she started mocking my textbook rant, imitating my voice to a T. Dennis was smiling, his eyes now on Ari. He’d never genuinely smiled at her before. It was unnerving.
“What?” she asked, clearly feeling the same.
“You guys are basically twins,” he said. “It gets worse every day.”
“Why aren’t we twins?” I looked at her, tilting my head. This didn’t make any sense. “We should be twins. I’d rather have your dad.”
“I’d rather you have my dad, too. I would say we can share my mom too, but I don’t remember her very much.”
“I remember her a tiny bit. I remember she was really sweet and we both loved her. We should start telling people we’re twins.”
Ari laughed. “No one would believe that. We’re too different.”
“You’re literally the same person,” Dennis said.
“Dye your hair black with purple ombre and get blue contacts. Boom! We’d be the same.”
“How about you grow out your natural auburn and get brown contacts so we can be the same? But also wear glasses. And stop straightening your hair. And get bangs. And start dressing modestly. And get tattoo removal and take out all your piercings. Then we’d be the same.”
“Alright. Fine. We’ll keep our own appearances. I guess we can go now.”
“Before you leave, are you thirsty?” Dennis asked me. “We can go for blood if you want.”
It took a minute of focus to realize I wasn’t thirsty at all. “I’m not. Is that okay? Am I dying?”
“You’re not dying. It means you’re adjusting. Well-adjusted vampires don’t need to drink daily. I only have been to keep an eye on you. You can skip days whenever you’re not thirsty.”
“Really?” My eyes lit up at the news. “Does that mean I’m turning into a real vampire?”
“You are a real vampire, dipshit. You have been for days.”
I waved Ari’s disrespect away and asked Dennis, “So I can really just skip a day?”
“Yeah. If you get thirsty, call me. But if you don’t, that’s fine. We’ll drink tomorrow.”
“Yay!” I did a dance of accomplishment while Ari collected our bags. “Time to go?”
“When are you gonna show us your new bike?” Mateo leaned forward in his seat like he’d been waiting to ask all day.
“Mine?” I asked. He didn’t seem to be talking to Ari. “I don’t have a bike. I hate bicycles.”
“No, your motorcycle.”
I laughed. “I don’t have one of those either, silly. I totaled mine forever ago and promised everyone I wouldn’t get another one.”
“You really don’t remember?” Mateo was looking at me strange.
“Remember what?”
“You bought a motorcycle while you were manic,” Dennis said. “We thought you knew?”
“I what?”
“Right. I was supposed to tell you that,” Ari said. “I was waiting for a good time to bring it up.”
“You honestly don’t remember?” Mateo asked.
I shook my head. “Shit. I thought you were exaggerating about the memory loss.” He ruffled his hair while I sulked at the discovery of having bought yet another expensive thing while manic.
“Well, you got a bike. Ari said it’s purple and black.
I’m sure you’ll love it. At least manic you did a good job picking it out?
” He smiled sheepishly, like he wasn’t sure if joking about it was okay.
“I can’t believe I did this again. I always buy the most random shit.
Although I guess this isn’t random ‘cause I’ve been wanting a new bike for forever.
Actually, maybe this is good! I have a new bike and I didn’t break the promise,” I reasoned.
“I don’t think it counts since I was manic when I bought it.
So it’s kinda okay?” I perked back up. This made sense.
Maybe manic Emy did us a solid. “Do you guys know where it is?”
“It’s at home,” Ari said. “I’ll show you when we get there.”