Epilogue
“Is this you breaking up with me? Is that why you’ve taken me on this blisteringly hot day to get my skull vibrated in a torture machine?”
“Baby, it’s an amusement park.”
“This has to be a form of cruel and unusual punishment. What did I do to you two?”
“For the love of God, Mom, just swipe your credit card.”
Yasmine made her displeasure known with a groan, but ultimately, she succumbed.
Wild Waves Park just outside Exeter, New Hampshire embodied everything Yasmine Sokolov disliked in a location: one, it was in New Hampshire, which was sin enough; two, it was packed with enough sweaty human beings to constitute a human zoo; and three, it meant watching her two favorite people on Earth put their lives into the hands of a metal seatbelt and a teenage ride operator.
It’s what her new therapist called exposure therapy.
“Oh my god,” Wallace squealed. “That one looks so fun.”
He pointed up at a flying disc that contained another flying disc that contained another flying disc, a proper Matryoshka doll of rotating agony. The sign outside the booth called it the Throw-er Upper, with an endearing logo of a man holding a paper bag to his face.
Yasmine sighed. “When we get home, I’m going to buy this park and close it.”
Wallace ignored her, grabbing Jason’s hand and dragging him towards the queue.
She expected Bella to jog after them—she was the worst adrenaline junkie in the whole pack—but this time, she lagged behind, coiling her arm around Yasmine’s back, forcing her to face her.
And like any good drug, one glance at Bella was enough to dissolve every miserable complaint out of Yasmine’s head.
Because even though dark, overfed September clouds were hanging just overhead, Bella was dressed like it was still the dead center of sunny July, in a tight tank top and denim shorts.
Ever since curing herself, she had developed a weather-agnostic fashion sense, opting to wear as little clothing as possible as much of the time as she could.
Yasmine couldn’t blame her—she’d been waiting two thousand years to feel comfortable in her skin.
It made Yasmine smile like a fool to see her finally basking in it.
She reached over, tucking a stray hair behind Bella’s mildly sunburnt ear. “You’re not joining them for the Vomit-tron 2000?” she said. “Seems right up your alley.”
“Oh, don’t be fooled. I’m going. I’m just slow.” She made a show of lifting her leg with her arm, as if it couldn’t manage on its own. “You know, old bones.”
Yasmine laughed, equal parts annoyed and delighted. “God, fuck off.”
Bella had recently become a member of a local running club in the Upper East Side.
The first time she joined, she accidentally ran a three minute mile.
The following week, an Olympic recruiter showed up at their doorstep, asking if “blonde Usain Bolt” was already signed, or if she was still exploring contracts.
Bella grinned, dropping her leg and leaning in to press a brief, jolting kiss to Yasmine’s lips.
“You’re doing great, you know,” she whispered against them.
Yasmine shivered. Even though she supposed it was technically normal now for Bella to show her random bouts of affection, her body was certainly not accustomed to it.
It always felt like the hottest woman on Earth had taken time out of her day to do something charitable.
You should probably bring that up to the damn psychiatrist.
“Doing great?” Yasmine said, trying to hide the tremble in her voice. “At what?”
“What else? This.”
“Enduring a theme park? Thank you, it’s an under-recognized art.”
“Yasmine.”
“Bella.”
Bella rolled her eyes, putting her hands into the back pockets of Yasmine’s jeans.
“Letting Wallace live his life,” Bella whispered. “Living it with him. As opposed to your previous strategy of locking yourself in a laboratory and only seeing him once a month.”
“It felt sane at the time,” Yasmine muttered. She bit her lip, feeling more vulnerable than she wanted to when she asked, “You really think I’m doing better?”
Ever since their conversation several months ago, when Wallace had been lying limp on a gurney, Yasmine had changed… a lot of things about her life.
The most seismic of them all was probably that she handed off her lab.
After long ignoring her graduate student applications, she’d finally looked over the list Rebecca had sent her. On the top of it was Bella’s from two years ago—Rebecca certainly had a sense of humor—but underneath that were, admittedly, several impressive CVs.
So she’d hired ten of them. Ten extremely promising students from various backgrounds—Ivy League universities, community colleges, foreign academies, even one eager high schooler—and given them unlimited funding, and a lab full of sea urchins.
Because, after spending many months unpacking the solution for immortality that Bella had created, they’d come to the conclusion that it was not ready for the public.
It required administering vampirism first, which would awaken powers in every person who received a dose; and since they didn’t like the idea of corralling immortality to a select few, that would mean enrolling the entire world in an evil villain lottery. No thanks.
So they shelved it, and told the college students to take the longer, smarter route. Longevity research. Her students were already making way bigger strides than she ever did—they were on track to increase human life expectancy by two years.
Yasmine smiled after Wallace as he loaded himself into the ride, dragging a terrified Jason behind him. Two years. She’d take it. She’d take every extra moment she got.
“Hey! Losers!”
Yasmine and Bella broke apart at the sound of Sylvia’s voice. Bella’s eyebrows flew up, her fingertips trembling against Yasmine’s; Yasmine sensed a burst of, was it fear? No… relief?
A tear streaked down Bella’s face. “Is that… is that actually them?”
“Did you know you can receive a lifetime ban from one of these places?” Sylvia said as she strolled up with a baby carriage, Aster in hangover sunglasses, and what looked like a vodka martini. “That’s what they threatened me with. Totally without reason, by the way.”
“I think I’m looking at the reason,” Yasmine muttered, taking the martini out of her hands, but she was still confused—why was Bella crying about these two?
They were subjected to them every weekend for what Aster and Bella called “game night” and what Yasmine called “Sylvia’s weekly financial literacy course.
” Very slow progress on that subject so far.
She got her answer when Bella took off running. Running right past Sylvia and Aster, but directly behind them, towards a crowd of people that had just gotten through the entrance.
She saw Bella jump at someone—no, into someone’s arms—and they caught her and spun her around like a hurricane, laughing, yelling something Yasmine couldn’t hear.
Then a second stranger came up from the side, hugging Bella from behind.
Yasmine felt Bella's relief radiate and blossom and expand until it was the only emotion she could feel.
The stranger dropped her, and Yasmine got a good look at their faces for the first time.
And—oh.
***
In the minutes after Yasmine tore apart the contract, and Bella was freed from the shackles of Suggestion, Bella had been filled with so much hope. A hope like she’d never had before.
Because her sisters had finally seen what her mother was capable of. They’d seen that they were just tools to her; that she’d never wanted children, she’d wanted servants.
But then Yasmine had let Ileana go.
She’d been merciful, because that’s who Yasmine was.
And Ileana had flown right back up towards them, shaken and furious, and she’d looked Sabina and Teodora plainly in the face, and told them that Bella had gained the power of Suggestion and used it against Ileana—that’s what had caused her to say all those mean, awful things.
She told them that Bella had betrayed them all, and she was dead to the family. Dead, dead, dead.
Teodora and Sabina didn’t believe it at first. They defended Bella. Bella defended herself. The shouting match lasted an hour.
But Ileana had always been a better liar than Bella was at telling the truth.
And when Ileana threw up her hands and said that she was leaving, that she was going on an airplane back to Romania and if they didn’t come with her, they were dead to her, too…
They went.
In the end, Sabina chose their mother.
And whatever Sabina chose, Teodora chose, too.
And even though Bella always knew it might happen someday—she’d prepared for it her whole life—actually losing them was a crushing blow.
Bella fell into a depression that lasted weeks.
One that only alleviated when Yasmine slunk into bed next to her one day, curled a hand around her cold stomach, and said, “You know, they do still have cell phones.”
Bella had texted them almost every single day since.
Furious, angry, screaming messages at first. They didn’t reply.
Slowly, as her emotions tempered, she began to send pictures.
Life updates. Telling them every time she and Yasmine went to an interesting museum, or traveled to a new city.
She thought maybe flexing her freedom would tempt them.
But they’d never replied. Not even Teodora. She’d cried about it for a long time, until it hardened into a scar. But she still kept texting them.
Bella: matcha update - tried the new flavor at Lola’s. WAY too sweet.
Bella: visited the animal shelter today. found this hairless cat named smooches who tried to claw me to death. he kind of has your eyebrows, sabina
Bella: just passed a street performer that was belting that one schlager song that was super big on romanian radio in the 80s. the one mom used to hate. i stood there for twenty minutes just listening. people probably thought i was crazy for crying, the lyrics are so bad
Bella: it’s storming really badly here. remember when we were little and we used to build a fort under sabina’s bed whenever it thundered? i’m sitting on a king-sized mattress right now and it feels way too big.
Bella: i found an old lip gloss in the pocket of my winter coat. it's the sparkly pink one you bought me for my three hundredth birthday teodora. it’s completely dried up now.
Bella: i had a nightmare last night that i forgot what your voices sounded like. i don’t want that to happen someday. im starting to feel like it might.
She hadn’t texted for a while after that one. It hurt too much. But then, a week later, over breakfast, Yasmine had slipped her a post it note with a bank account number on it.
“The eighty million dollars I owe you for finishing your research. It’s all there,” she’d said, sipping her not-Americano. “Sorry it took so long. I didn’t tell Rebecca about the agreement when we first decided it, so naturally I forgot about it entirely. Oops.”
“Yasmine,” Bella had laughed. “I don’t need this. You pay for everything anyway.”
“I put it in an online Romanian bank account under your name. If you don’t want the money, you can always put other names on it. The process is easy.”
Bella hadn’t understood why that was relevant at first, but later that day, when she opened her chat with her sisters, she’d realized.
She’d sent them the account number, and told them how to access it. No reply.
Bella: we’re going to an amusement park next Sunday called Wild Waves, which is hilarious because there’s zero water park elements.
it’s supposed to have some solid coasters though.
do you still like riding rollercoasters, Teodora?
there’s a really big new one there that’s making people sick.
i wish we could ride it together. i think it’d be fun.
Of course, they hadn’t replied.
And honestly, Bella hadn’t been thinking of them that day.
She’d been having too much fun.
She had a new home now, and it was enough.
***
After a lot of laughing and a lot of crying, the sisters finally separated.
Yasmine had been waiting patiently there the whole time, fidgeting with her hands, taking several nondiscreet family photos. It was so ridiculously endearing that Bella could hardly take it.
Bella cleared her throat, wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, and looked at her sisters.
“Go get some cotton candy,” Bella said, her voice still thick. She pointed toward a brightly lit pink stall a few yards away. “Do you see the woman over there? The one wearing heels in an amusement park? She’s very nice. She’ll pay for your cotton candy.”
Teodora squealed, immediately hooking her arm through Sabina’s and pulling her along before Sabina could protest. They walked away with their shoulders pressed tight against each other, looking around the gaudy American theme park like they had just landed on Mars.
Bella watched them go, her heart doing a strange, fluttering dance in her chest until they were completely swallowed by the crowd.
Then she turned to Yasmine, shooting her an accusatory glance.
“You absolutely had something to do with this.”
Yasmine scoffed, gesticulating wildly with her hands. “Me? No, this was all of their own volition—”
“Yasmine.”
Yasmine’s hands fell limp, and she bit down on her lip.
“Okay, but for the record, they reached out to me first—and they were supposed to visit a month from now,” she said.
“I had a hotel locked in and everything. I even sprung for the complimentary breakfast—all without Rebecca’s help, mind you.
All on my lonesome. Big feat. I have no idea how they even got the timing or the address right for this place. ”
Bella let out a loud, wet laugh.
“I might have tipped Teodora off,” she said, wrapping her arms around Yasmine’s waist. “Sorry. I’m always ruining your plans.”
Yasmine shook her head. As the rain went from a drizzle to a pour, and the guests around them parted in waves to get to safety under tents, she cupped the side of Bella’s face.
“You’re the only plan worth sticking to, anyway.”
Bella burned red.
“When did you get so cheesy?”
“Oh, fuck off.” Yasmine pushed at her chest playfully. “That wasn’t cheesy. That was romantic. And also, I’m a physicist, not a writer—”
“That was a joke, Yasmine. I love you.”
“Oh. Well. You’re a biologist, not a comedian, so…”
“Say it back.”
“Say what back?”
“That you love me, you idiot.”
Yasmine grinned, leaned in, and kissed Bella so hard she nearly fell backwards.
“I love you,” she said. “Now come on. Before Sylvia kills your poor sister.”