July 14, 5:40 pm

July 14, 5:40 pm

It’s Saturday and if last night hadn’t happened, I would think that Jacob had gone back to Sacramento for the weekend to see his family, like he supposedly did last weekend. But last night did happen. And now I know nothing about him.

When he came over, I knew right away something was wrong. He came in and sat down on the couch in the living room. I asked him if he was hungry. “Yes, always,” he said.

“Do you want me to get you something?”

“No.”

“But, if you’re hungry…”

“No.” His voice scared me. I’d never heard him speak like he spoke that one word.

“What’s wrong?” I asked softly.

“I need to talk to you. Can we go up to your room?”

So we went up to my room. He sat on my bed and leaned back against the pillows and headboard. “I have to tell you something. And I need you to… to not panic.”

“Panic? Why would I panic?”

“You’re panicking already.”

So I was. What the hell was it? “You’re not leaving, are you?” I gasped out.

“No.”

“You don’t really love me…”

“No!”

“There’s someone else, isn’t there?” I suddenly realized. That must be it. I slowly sat down next to him on the bed.

“No! Kat, dear… well, there was someone else, before I met you--”

“Jacob, if that’s it, that’s fine! I had boyfriends before I met you. I mean really, what girl my age hasn’t--”

“Kat! Would you please just listen to me. This is important.”

“I’m sorry.”

He smiled his almost hidden smile at me. “Come here.” He grabbed my wrist and pulled me down on top of him. He positioned our bodies so that my head was lying on his chest, something that he always seemed to avoid. “Now listen.”

“I’m listening.”

“No, you aren’t. Listen.”

He was quiet. All I could hear was my breathing.

“I don’t hear anything,” I complained.

Wait. I didn’t hear anything. I pressed my ear harder against his chest. Nothing. Nothing! No heartbeat. No gentle rush of air entering and leaving his lungs. I rested my hand on his stomach. His chest did not rise and fall with each breath. I reached up and placed two fingers on the side of his neck like I’d learned to take a pulse in health class.

No pulse. No heartbeat. Not breathing.

But he was there. Watching me panic. Alive, moving. Holding me. “Are…” I finally found my voice. “Did you, like, learn how to stop your heart like those Chinese medicine men or something?”

“No,” he almost laughed.

I pulled away and sat up. “Then…” I swallowed hard. “You’re dead.”

The smile faded from his face. “It seems so. This is what I needed to tell you.”

“That you’re dead!?” I shrieked and stood up.

“Kat, dear- please stay calm. I didn’t want to lie to you any more. …Remember how I said that there was someone before you?”

I nodded almost frantically.

“Last time I was with someone that I cared for almost as much as I do for you… it was three hundred years ago.”

Then I was the one who wasn’t breathing. “Three hundred years ago.”

“Yes.”

“When is your birthday?” I repeated the question I’d asked less than two weeks before.

“I don’t remember.”

“How… old are you?”

“Kat…”

“How old are you!?” I demanded.

“Over… at least nine thousand years.”

I felt my knees buckle and my head swim. I would have fallen over if Jacob wasn’t suddenly standing and catching me. He wouldn’t lie to me. He couldn’t. Not about something like this. He… what was he?

“I’m sorry, Kat,” I vaguely heard him whisper before he set me back down on my bed. And then he was gone. Gone.

I regained my balance and ran downstairs. I looked everywhere. My mom, just returning from work, asked me what I was panicking about. I couldn’t answer. I looked outside. His car was gone. Had it ever even been there? I ran to the kitchen phone and dialed Lisa’s phone number as quick as possible. Once she answered, I burst out, “Lisa, what stays alive and young for thousands of years?”

“What is this, like a riddle or something?” she laughed a little.

“Noooo,” I whined.

“I dunno. Like someone who found the fountain of youth? Or—ooh, is this for a crossword puzzle? How many letters?”

“Lisa…”

“Vampire, maybe? They’re supposed to be immortal, I think. Does that fit?”

“Ghuh.”

“Thought so.” She sounded proud. “Hey, has Jacob come over yet? Tell him to tell Mike that I’m mad at him. I’m not really mad, but if he thinks I am he’ll be all fussy over me and I--”

“I gotta go now Lisa, bye.”

I slammed the phone down on the receiver. Vampire-? Like Dracula or something. Damnit. It all fit. He only comes over at night, and never slept- probably because he spent all day sleeping in a coffin or some other creepy shit.

“Kat, are you alright?” my mom’s voice called in from the living room.

“I’m fine!” I yelled back.

I needed some air. I ran out the back door into the driveway behind the house. It was nearing night now. The sun was still in the sky, harsh and turning the sky different shades of purple and red and orange. The air was hot and humid and suffocating. Or maybe it was my thoughts that were suffocating.

It was impossible. Such things don’t exist. But… he wouldn’t lie. And there was no heartbeat and no pulse. I heard it for myself. Anyone can hold their breath, but except for like those far east monks and shit, no one can stop their heart from beating.

He never talks about his family or anything… Because they died nine thousand years ago. I can’t even remember nine years ago.

Oh, god… what if it’s true? How much has he seen? I can’t even imagine living a hundred years. A thousand would be outrageous, and nine thousand… how do you not get bored? Or lonely?

I don’t know if he’s really a… a vampire, like Lisa suggested. It seems to fit, maybe. Or maybe he’s just immortal. Like, he found the fountain of youth. But that doesn’t explain the whole no heartbeat undead type thing he’s got going. Zombie? But don’t zombies, like, deteriorate over time? I never heard of any zombie living for nine thousand years. …Then again, I haven’t heard of any one who lived for nine thousand years. Except for my boyfriend. Why had he left? Why had he left me to my thoughts and my wild imagination? By the time I finally decided to go back inside, it was really dark out.

I dialed the first three numbers of the phone number he’d given me, and then hesitated. What would I say? “It’s okay you’re some undead immortal?” That was the truth, but I couldn’t exactly say it like that. I needed some finesse to it. I eventually heard the phone ringing on the other end. I didn’t even realize that I’d finished dialing.

Someone answered. It wasn’t Jacob, and it wasn’t Mike. It was some other guy. I spoke calmly and politely. “I need to speak to Jacob, please.”

“Nope, sorry, wrong number” came a response.

“I need to speak to Jacob, NOW!” I yelled

There was a grumbling on the other end, then some calling out in the distance. Finally, the person who answered returned and said, with a heavy tone of resentment, “He’ll be with you in a bit, Katherine.”

Then a click. A click as in someone hanging up click. I hung the phone up then picked up and called the number back. It just rang. It kept ringing and no one would answer. I was a moment away from slamming the phone back on the hook, when there was a knock at the back door.

Honestly, who knocks at the back door at this house?

Anyone who knocks, would go to the front. Those who live here just walk in the back door. Lisa does too, and if it’s locked, she gets the key from under the mat. The only person who knocks at the back door is…

I dashed out of the kitchen and down the three stairs to the back door.

It was him. I thought it might be, but… “How’d you get here so quick?”

“I ran,” Jacob replied.

“But… you’re staying at the university, right?”

“Renting an apartment just off campus, yes.”

“That’s… it’s a five minute drive.”

He nodded.

“Weren’t you just there when I called?”

He nodded again.

“That was… less than a minute ago that I called. How did you make a five minute drive in less than a minute?”

“I didn’t drive.”

“…what.”

“I ran.”

Somehow, I believed it. “Come inside and we’ll talk.”

He smiled that small smile. I think he was expecting me to say “Go away,” or “You’re horrible.”

I was planning on just taking him down to the basement so we could talk without encountering my mom in the living room, but I heard water running upstairs, so I figured she was in the shower. And for the second time that day, I led Jacob up to my room.

Not even a second passed after I closed the door that he began to apologize. “I’m so sorry that I ran out of you like that. I just… I’ve done this about ten times now. It’s never been easy, but it’s never been this hard either.”

“I still don’t understand entirely.”

“Do you believe me? In what I’ve told you?”

“I think so.”

“You do?”

“I don’t have any reason not to. Well, because I trust you. And I don’t think you’d lie to me. Especially not about something so ridiculous.”

He grabbed my hand and gently pulled me down to sit next to him on the bed. “I’m glad you’ve accepted that. That’s the easy part.”

“Easy part? But, Jacob… that’s a really… it’s a really long time to be around for. And… why? How? And… you don’t breathe or…” I didn’t know how to finish. I thought I should be quiet, since I wanted answers. But I had to ask, “What are you?”

“I… What do you think?”

I turned my head back so that I was looking straight ahead and I saw him out of the corner of my eye. “I can’t think I called Lisa—don’t worry, I didn’t tell her anything about you. I just kind of asked vague questions.”

“What did she say?”

“Fountain of youth?” I suggested. It was… kind of what I hoped the answer was.

“You don’t think that’s it.”

“No.”

“Then…”

I breathed out what I suspected more than anything. “Vampire?”

He said nothing. I glanced at him but didn’t dare to turn my head. Well!? I wanted to ask. Tell me! I should have screamed.

Finally, his words came and answered me. “I never used to be called that. That word’s a more recent invention.”

My body had chills. I turned my head to look at him. He was turned away from me. “You wouldn’t lie.”

“I’ve no reason to. I’m doing this, telling you, so that I can stop lying. Kat, I care more for you than anyone I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a lot of people.”

“Over the course of nine thousand years, I’d imagine so.” I accepted it. I think I did anyhow. I think I always knew. I could tell there was something different about him. The fear her had inside of hurting me, the trigger. This was it. It had to me.

I couldn’t see his face. He was turned too much for me to see. But I think he had that small smile. “I don’t want things to change between us. But if you’d-- if you’re scared or worried or… now that you know me and…”

“Things are just so different now.”

“Kat… the only thing that has changed since you’ve found out, is that I’m absolutely terrified that you’ll hate me.”

“I couldn’t hate you. Why would you think that I could?”

“Fearful, then.”

I couldn’t be afraid of him. It wasn’t working. The little switch in my head that should flip to freak-out mode wasn’t flipping. It didn’t need to. He was right. Nothing had changed. He was still the same Jacob. All that was different was that he finally opened up to me the way I had always hoped he would. If anything, we should be stronger.

“Why would I be afraid?”

“Because among my type, humans are classified as food.”

“So,” I spoke hesitantly. “When am I on the menu?”

“Never.” I couldn’t tell if his tone was laughing or angry. “Kat, if there’s something that I thought you understood, it’s that I love you.”

“Prove it.”

“Prove what? That I love you?”

“No. That you are what you say you are. That you’re a vampire.”

“How?” His brown eyebrows raised in slight confusion.

“Do something… inhuman.”

“Like what?”

I glanced around my room for a bit before coming up with something. “I want you to prove that you really can run really quickly.”

“That would hardly prove I’m a vampire. That just would prove that I can run fast.”

“Fine then, show me the coffin you sleep in.”

His laugh was the loudest I’ve ever heard it. “I don’t sleep.”

“At all?”

“No.”

“Do any… of you sleep?”

“No.”

“So you don’t sleep in a coffin during the day. Why do you only come over at night then?”

“The sun burns.” Well, obvious. I get really bad sunburn in the summer sometimes. I had a sunburn so bad once that I had, like, blisters and shit. “Really horribly. Midday sun would make me burst into flames.” Not as obvious.

“You can stay here during the day,” I offered.

“You’d need to get a lot thicker curtains than these,” he said, referring to the lace curtains that had been on the windows since I was a little girl. “Besides, I need to keep an eye on everyone else sometimes. Especially Mike, since he’s hanging out with your friend so much.”

“Mike?! Mike, too?!” I shrieked. “Oh shit. I have to tell Lisa…”

“You can’t.”

“Why not? She’s my friend, she’s got a right to know.”

“Mike can tell her himself if he feels like it’s important enough. I doubt he will though. They won’t last very long together.”

I had to agree with that last bit. “But you told me…”

“Because I love you.”

“And you want to… last very long with me.”

He looked away again. “I would rather not talk about the future.”

“Why?” I asked. And no sooner than I had, I knew the answer. “Oh, god.” I clasped my hands over my mouth. He’d been around for nine thousand years. I’d been around for less than twenty. And I’d probably only be around for maybe sixty more. He’d be around for… nine thousand more, possibly. I suddenly felt very small. “Oh, god.” I leaned over and wrapped my arms around his chest.

“That’s why,” he answered. “I’ve been through it before. It’s never pleasant.”

I’d be on my deathbed and he’d be as pretty and youthful as he is today. I thought of that part in Peter Pan where Peter comes back from Never Never Land to get Wendy, and Wendy’s all old and shit and her granddaughter is the one in the little girl bed instead.

“I would rather not talk about the future,” I echoed his words. “I can’t believe you’re real… well not you exactly. But vampires and shit.”

He chuckled a little and I felt better. I tried to push the thought from my mind. We’d only just gotten together. I didn’t need to think about my end just yet.

“Did you ever want to, like, suck my blood, or whatever it is that you do?”

“Yes,” he admitted rather quickly.

“Really?” I somehow found this quite amazing. I don’t know why. It would just be human nature for him… or vampire nature or whatever.

“That night I first saw you. When I had to calm Mike down after you tried to get Lisa to leave that party. I’m really glad you did that, because otherwise… well, the reason we were there is because college parties are like…” He hesitated. “Well, like all-you-can-eat buffets.”

I cracked out a laugh. “Oh, shit,” I cursed myself and slapped a hand over my mouth. “That’s just… really funny for some reason.”

“If you and Lisa hadn’t left when you did, I would have called dibs on you.”

“Why me?”

“You smell nice. And your heart’s always beating so beautifully.”

“You can hear it?”

“Always.”

“You could hear it over even that loud music and everything?

“Everyone’s.”

“And why would you have gotten to call dibs on me?”

“I’m oldest. I get first dibs on everything.”

I thought for a moment. “How many are there of you?”

“Right now… there’s me, Mike, and three other guys. One of them was originally from this area when he was human, and he wanted to come back.”

“But if you wanted to, like, suck my blood or whatever, why haven’t you?”

“I told you. I love you. I’m not going to hurt you like that.”

“How do you make up your mind which is friend and which is food?”

He laughed again with that little smile. “It’s sort of along the lines of how people have pet pigs, and then also eat bacon.”

I love bacon. “So what, I’m a pet pig then?”

“If you want to think of it like that, then sure.”

DREADFULLY sorry about this, but I haven’t finished this section yet. I’m sure I’ll get around to doing so any decade now. But until I do get around to that, I need you, gentle reader, to imagine Kat and Jake having sex. Are you imagining it?

…perv. Anyway. What you just imagined is what is supposed to take place here. But only if you imagined what I told you to imagine. I can’t be held responsible for you imagining something completely off the wall and then expecting it to magically work itself into my story.

And with that, I’ll leave you to Kat’s diary.

July 19.

I got to have a weird conversation with Jacob last night.

I’m due to start my period on the 21st or so. I figured, considering his life state, being around me when there’s blood gushing from my body is probably not a good idea. He says its bad enough just being able to, like, hear it pumping around inside of me. So, the day I start feeling cramps- and I ALWAYS get cramps the day before I start- I’ll tell him to stay away. Then, when I stop, I’ll let him know on the phone. I’ll call him during those days- run up the phone bill with questions like “Where did you come from” and “So does garlic really make you, like, cringe?” and “If you were human, what job would you like to work at?” I don’t want to be apart from him, but maybe its good for us to be able to actually just talk, rather than our just being close and wrapped up in each other. Plus, summer’s going to be over before I know it, and I can’t be staying up all night with him once I have to start waking up at, like, 7 AM to go to school.

July 25

Lisa and I went shopping today. She asked how things between me and Jacob were, and I said “Wonderful,” or something that made her upset because things between her and Mike are not anywhere near wonderful. It feels wrong to keep secrets from her. But soon she and Mike will break up, and I won’t have to worry about it.

Jacob asked last night if I was getting cramps yet, and I told him to calm down and not to worry and that I’d tell him when I got them. I’m wondering myself when I’m gonna get them. But, like, I don’t eat as much in the summer time, and when I change around how much I eat, it usually puts me off for a couple days.

July 31

I’M ONLY LIKE A WEEK AND A HALF LATE NOW BUT STILL I AM OFFICIALLY FREAKING OUT

HOLY SHIT CAN VAMPIRES EVEN HAVE BABIES

August 4

I said I would never ever ever lie to him. I said yeah I had my period and yeah it was a little late, but its over now and things are fine and fine and oh yeah since I just went through a reproductive related thing I was thinking can vampires have babies or like impregnate people and he laughed and said no and I said good because I don’t want to have kids anyway and god I’m gonna go to the drug store AND I’M FUCKING TWO WEEKS LATE NOW THIS BETTER BE SOME FUCKING WEIRD HORMONAL THING AND I’LL JUST START TOMORROW OR NEXT WEEK OR SOMETHING

August 9

Still nothing.

It’s just sitting in a box at the bottom of my dresser. I’m too scared to take the test. I shelled out like twenty bucks for it and I haven’t used it yet. I can’t look him in the eye when he’s around, he asked what was wrong about four thousand times and I lied again and said that I was just upset about school starting at the end of the month. I can’t even think straight.

August 14

I’ve known the truth about him for about a month now. He still doesn’t know the truth about me. I still don’t know the truth about me. I’ve gotta take it. I can’t talk to lisa even, because she’ll eventually blab to someone, and it will get to my mom eventually… at least she’s not with Mike anymore.

August 17

I promise promise I’ll do it tomorrow

While my mom’s at work, and Jacob’s hiding from the sun.

August 18

I can’t tell if I’m nauseous from being pregnant or realizing that I’m pregnant. I can’t have a vampire baby. Unless it’s like the immaculate conception and this is the second coming of Jesus. I had my period in June. And aside from Jacob, I haven’t even made out with someone since March. This is impossible. Vampires cant have babies. He would know! He’s been around for FOREVER. He says that humans and his kind hook up all the time, and theres NEVER been any vampire/human babies. He’s been around for thousands of years, and if it’s happened, surely it would have eventually gotten around to him.

But I think I’ll tell him. I can’t keep it secrets any longer.

August 19

I saw last night. I haven’t had one in over four years and I thought they were gone. All the convincing myself that the visions were a product of my imagination, and thoughts to suppress them were for nothing. Because I saw again.

I can’t tell him. His sister will find out and then there will be problems. My child will be in trouble. Worse than dead.

I’ll go live with my aunt. My dad’s sister. She won’t tell my mom, she doesn’t even know the address or phone number since we’ve moved. And she won’t even want to attempt to talk to my mom, since she, like most of my dad’s family and several local police officers and prosecutors, believes that she was the one who killed my dad and made it look like an accident.

August 25

I had to say goodbye to him without actually saying goodbye. I hoped he wouldn’t realize what I was doing. It would only be a year- less even, and then I’d be back. With how long he’d been around, what was just one year without me? The second he left to escape the sun, and my mom went off to work, I packed. I didn’t pack much- just a couple of my favorite shirts… I figured my stomach would outgrow most of my clothes so I didn’t need to bring a lot.

I thought about just, like, maybe getting rid of it. It would cost some money but… I couldn’t. It was Jacob’s child too. I could never kill Jacob’s child. I’d have to talk extensively with him about it. And I can’t do that because he can’t know. But I can’t take care of it either. I’ll have to give it up for adoption. I don’t have any other option. If I come back to California- well, it completely negates the whole reason I’m running off to Ohio.

October 9

My aunt isn’t here anymore. I don’t know where she is, and I didn’t know where to go. I was at a homeless shelter for a while, and working as a waitress. Since then, I’ve gotten a crappy little apartment. One of the other girls at work, Tina, is helping me out some. She just had her second baby last year. She asked me what I was going the name the baby. I told her I wasn’t going to keep it once it was born. She said I should still name it, so that it has at least one thing from its mother. I told her I didn’t know, and she gave me her baby name book and her small pile of baby guides. She said her kids defy all that the books said so she doesn’t need them anymore.

I miss Jacob. I wonder if my mom thought I ran off with him. But him showing up and looking for me might make her think otherwise. Maybe my mom called the police. Can they track me across thousands of miles? Can Jacob track me over thousands of miles? If he can, I hope its not until May or so.

October 15

If it is a boy, I will name him Ryan, after my father. If it is a girl, I will name her Mona, after my great-grandmother. My mom always said that I was supposed to be named Mona, but after I was born, I seemed more like a Katherine.

November 3

Oh god, it’s freezing here! And it’s not even winter yet.

And I’m starting to show. I haven’t been this large before in my life.

Happy birthday, me.

November 17

I passed out at work yesterday. So I spent all day today waiting to see a doctor at the clinic. He gave me a list of vitamins I should take. He seemed puzzled at my blood work. And then I knew the problem. It was something Tina and every other mother on this planet would never experience. Babies n the womb survive off of nutrients from the mother carried through blood. My baby wasn’t just stealing the nutrients, but the blood itself. My vampire baby was stealing my blood. Making me weak

Faint

There was nothing I can do but hope I survive until the birth.

November 30

Tina invited me to her house for thanksgiving. It was nice to meet her family.

She asked me about Jacob- well, about the baby’s father. I said I didn’t want to talk about it. she assumed that he’d left me once he found out about the baby. But I had to tell her that it wasn’t like that. That I’d never told him, and he probably would have wanted to marry me. She was surprised at this

February 21, 1985

Things have been nothing but downhill.

All I do is work sleep and eat. But I can’t even work anymore. I can barely get out of bed. So I can’t pay rent. Tina’s being super rad and is letting me stay with her until the baby is born. I promised her that the baby would be given up and I’d go back home to California as soon as I was allowed, and I’d send her money to pay her back for all she’s done. But I’m afraid I won’t ever make it back to California.

March 17

I feel so weak now. I feel terrible for doing nothing but sleeping at Tina’s but she insists its not a problem.

March 29

I saw. She’ll be born soon. I’ll name her Mona. But the birth will be too much. Mona will be frantic and she’ll take more and more from me and I’ll die as she is born. The doctors will think Mona died too. She will be more vampire than human. No need for a heartbeat or breathing. She’ll still be surviving off of my blood.

Jacob will finally find me. Trace me to work, to Tina’s, to the hospital. They’ll tell him that I died, that the baby died. He won’t know what to think of the baby. He’ll wonder if I cheated on him. If I was seeing someone else during the day. But he won’t be able to think long about it, because I’m gone. For the first time in his thousands of years, he’ll wish he was dead.

Hours after Jacob leaves, after punching through the brick wall exterior of the hospital, the human blood that Mona absorbed from me will change her- activate the human side and she’ll be breathing, heart beating, crying for attention. She’ll be a surprise to all around her. She’ll be put up for adoption, but no one will take her. It’ll be almost like they know who she is, what her father is. She’ll be difficult to feed, as those who feed her want to give her only food made for humans.

But she will be alive and okay.

And I hope that she’ll eventually have a family. And that Jacob’s sister never finds her.

But I don’t know. I didn’t see that far.