Chapter 46 The First Love Is True Love Trope
Back when I was a child, men would dress in bearskins and dance through town to ward off evil spirits. Answering the door to fierce bear dancing—now that had been a tradition. Ryan’s parka paled in comparison.
“It’s only a few minutes to the new year,” Ryan commented.
The woman smiled through the pain, clearly shivering. She was a half-naked middle-aged woman acting excited about a teen pop star and using words like sus and rizz, trying to be forever young and on display in below-freezing temperatures, which was worse than being a vampire, if you ask me.
“She’s on her first date with Dr. R.” I was already planning their wedding, so hopefully they were having a good night.
The Times Square ball slowly lowered down the pole, indicating the beginning of a new year and the end of the old. If an entire crowd of people hadn’t been screaming, it would be hard to know it was exciting.
“Remember that year we went to Times Square?” I said, smiling at the recollection. We had kissed to welcome in 1910. A good year. Vlad had tried to share a virgin with me and I’d refused. It had been harder to find bagged blood in those days.
The camera scanned the crowd. “Where do all those people go to the bathroom?” I asked.
“They just have to hold it,” Vlad said.
On TV the mortals were singing “Auld Lang Syne.”
Vlad sat down at the piano we’d rolled into the room during Heaven’s panic reno and ran his fingers across the keys. With a cringe he said, “This needs a tuning.”
It would be destroyed with the house in a couple of days. Not much sense worrying if it was a little sharp.
He began to sing “Auld Lang Syne” in a melancholy voice along with the TV.
How many times had I heard this song? Every new year since Robert Burns had written it.
I remember when it was new. Even then, I hadn’t liked it.
Better not to reflect upon the passage of time or old friends. Better not to listen to the song.
I muted the TV. What did any of this matter compared to eternity?
Vlad played the piano well and the sound filled the room and reverberated inside my soul in a way only music can, strumming the chords of feelings I didn’t want to acknowledge and definitely didn’t want to feel.
“Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?” Vlad crooned.
Tears pricked my eyes at the sentiment. My whole life was about saying goodbye to acquaintances or being alone and having no one to say goodbye to.
Every goodbye emptied me a little more until there was nothing left at all.
Vampires are lonely creatures by nature, but Dr. Rosetti was right—I could do better. The world didn’t have to whir past me.
All the people I’d met in Valentine—I would never see them again. Sure, they didn’t really know me, and I didn’t really know them, but we’d connected through the long nights of winter. Would they remember me in a few years?
I sat down on the piano bench next to Vlad, scooting myself as close to him as I could get. When his fingers stopped on the keys, I shook my head. “Keep playing.”
We two have run about the hills,
And picked the daisies fine;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot
Since auld lang syne.
I looked at Vlad’s beautiful profile, the boyish hair curling around his ears, the freckles smattered across his nose from sunshine hundreds of years past. His kind eyes and strong hands.
This song was about us.
For three hundred years, Vlad had been there. Sure, I kicked him out and said “Goodbye forever” every few years, but he came back. He always came back.
His full, rich voice filled the house. We sang the last chorus together.
And there’s a hand my trusty friend, and give me a hand of thine.
Tears streamed down my face for all the goodbyes, but especially the most recent. Sure, a sentimental vampire is the biggest oxymoron in the world, but I was who I was.
Vlad lifted his fingers from the keys and wiped away my tears. “Tiffenie, I’m so sorry. I’ve been a naysayer for many years, always warning you against mobs with their torches and pitchforks, but you were right. You made friends. I didn’t think it was possible.”
“What’s next?” I made light of his compliments if only to stem the tide of my tears. “Do you think men and women can be friends?”
“No.” He guffawed at the absurdity. “I’m changing, but not that fast.”
“What about Heaven?” I asked. “Or Dr. R?”
With tenderness, he rubbed my back. “One thing at a time, my love.”
“In three hundred years, I’ve never really tried to fit in.
I’ve just been paying the bills, existing, trying to fit into a box.
This is the closest I’ve ever come to feeling part of a community.
” What are you going to make? Heaven’s question echoed in my mind.
Maybe I sucked at crafting, but I could make friends, even without a tutorial from Dr. R.
“Remember when we were first together,” I reminisced, “before you turned me?”
He smiled at the memory.
“I wanted to be with you because I was desperate to make my own way, to have independence. I wanted to read books and think big thoughts, to live a bigger life. You were the only one who saw that as a possibility for me.”
“I still do.”
“I know. Instead, I’ve been hiding, living a smaller life than I did as a girl. Until now. I want to live that life we imagined so long ago. I’m ready for it.”
His hands barely touched the keys. When he looked into my eyes, I saw the Vlad from long ago, a man filled with hope, not the jaded misanthrope of late. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” he asked.
“Were you serious about pulling a Harry and Meghan?”
“Yes, I want to be Harry and Meghan,” he said, with the utmost earnestness.
That was all I needed to hear.
“Three hundred years ago you asked me to be your vampire bride. We were so young and stupid. I wasn’t ready then. I wasn’t strong enough.”
He clasped my hands tighter and shut his eyes. “I loved you even more for walking away, Tiffenie. You were stronger than me. You have stood by your principles for over three hundred years.”
I looked up at his sparkling green eyes, softened with love.
“No matter what, you have been here for me, through every move and every dumb job, every century. You kept me hidden from the parliament. You have been my only consistent companion. So many times, I would have chosen to be with you, if it didn’t mean choosing everything that went along with it. ”
He mouthed, “I’m sorry.”
“I love you, Vlad. I have always loved you. There is no one who I would rather share every trivial detail of my day with for the rest of my existence.”
He cupped my face with his hands tenderly.
“You made me wait three centuries for a yes.” He threw his head back. “The torture! If we get married, promise you will continue. It has given me a reason to keep going for all these years.”
When I laughed, he said, “No, seriously.”
“I’m sure I can think of something.” I’d loaned my BDSM manual to Pete, but that was for beginners.
“Three hundred years of waiting.” Vlad was laugh-crying, all the emotions coming out at once. “And all I had to do was quit my job?”
“Either quit, or change the office culture.” I smiled. “I’ll take either one.”
“We’ll feel it out, but I promise it will be better.” He kissed me softly and then pulled back, his face radiant with joy. “We’re getting married!” he shouted. He picked me up and twirled me around. “You have made me the happiest man, dead or alive.”