Everything was a blur. 

Just breathing, just walking, even just blinking, it all felt to me just a little surreal. My lips were still buzzing, tingling, stubbornly refusing to part with that feeling, with her, and as such, now it just wouldn’t stop squirming around my face. 

I left Ash at the front lawn, waiting… while I scurried away inside the house, mumbling something about sleeping bags and tents or whatever, and had said anything in response, then I clearly didn’t hear her. 

All the way in, dazedly staggering into my room, almost failing to even twist the knob to swing open my bedroom door, and once in, I didn’t dare another go with that dastardly knob again and just slammed it close… the back of my head slamming along with it.

Right there, it was precisely right there, my heart had throbbed and gathered enough energy to beat out nuclear fusion, and because of it, was also on its way to a complete catastrophic meltdown.

And I melted alright, sank… right down there on the floorboards, against the doorframe – just little ol’ unthinking, unfeeling me. 

This was actually happening right now, wasn’t it? Not a dream, not a thought, but true reality unfolding real and raw.

I knew eventually this was gonna happen, Ash and I together…but I just… I guess in the heat of the moment, all my preparations weren’t enough to prepare me, after all. 

My head right then was a dangerous place to be in, so I left it, I returned to the present moment, thinking’s dangerous… something about a tent, was it? I’ll go find a tent. It’s somewhere, probably, hopefully, under my bed, maybe.

But In spite of saying that, the closet was where my jelly legs took me instead, and almost like a robot obeying an order, I quietly began to sift through years worth of accumulated memories. I searched but didn’t see, survey but didn’t scour, it’s like my eyes were trying to convince me that I was blind, and in my current stare, I almost believed them too. 

Then I heard a noise from nearby somewhere, a rustling outdoor breeze billowing indoors, and was utterly convinced my ears were also playing a part in this sinister ploy to drive me fucking mad for some inane reason. 

But when I snapped my gaze to the side, towards the foot of my bed, I found to my extreme relief, that I hadn’t gone completely insane just yet… but from what I was staring right before me – those clouded pupils, that vacant expression, jagged claws resting atop a rumpled, frilly dress – hell, maybe my eyes were still playing me for a fool, perhaps. 

Only one way to know for sure…

“You’re back,” at once, I stopped my searching… tent wasn’t even there anyway, I remembered. It was somewhere else. “So where did you run off to, all this while?” 

If that really was a figment of my mind I was seeing, I must have a real vivid imagination, then. The piercing emptiness of her gaze, the quiet cascade of her hair, as she cocked her head at me… yeah, real vivid, alright.

“Your… hand…” She whispered, her gaze in a downward angle.

“Let’s not start that again, alright? It’s fine, really,” I said, waving it off with a blur of bandages. “So where were you anyway??

“With… you…” She said, as deafening as the stillness of the vicinity itself. “Always… with you…” 

In a span of a second, I thought, I wondered, I realized, and then finally I understood.

It seems my sneaking suspicions of illusions weren’t so far out of reach, after all.

“You spying on me, Adalia?” 

“Watching…” She hastened to say. “Just… watching…”

Same thing.

“And… thinking…” 

Thinking. Well, we all know what we think about thinking…

“Thinking about what?” I asked.

“What you… said… to me…” a rickety squeak had her standing,  and a faint creak had her taking a step forward, closer. “And… how I… feel… for you…”

Umm, Is it normal for some alarm bells to be ringing? I mean, dark looming figure, foreboding evening lightning, and hidden mysterious intent… yeah normal, right? 

Not to mention, if this just wasn’t the most awkward time to bring something like this up right now, especially considering… y’know… and yet, why do I get this strange feeling that this perfect timing, as well as her sudden reappearance, were all intricately planned? 

Swallowing nothing, I asked, “And… what did you find out?” 

Adalia gradually came to a standstill. Her misty gaze abruptly wandered away from our conversation, deciding instead to peer out the window, towards the evening’s fading rays… and the front lawn in full clear view.

“To… night…” She muttered, her tone somehow even more distant than her stare. “You’ll be… with Ash tonight… won’t you…?” 

There it was, the same question my throbbing head has been parroting to me all this while. Only now instead of asking myself, I was the one answering…

“Yes, tonight,” I told her, unsure still of how I was actually gonna sound saying it and ending up sounding like nothing at all. “I’m going to be with her tonight.”

“You wish to… make love with her…” She stated aloud, delicacy be damned. “And she… wants to… make love… with you… too…” 

No censor, no tack either, she really was putting me on the spot here, wasn’t she? Well, can’t really blame her for it either, could I? After I outright professed myself to her, and also pretty much having her professed to me too roundaboutly… why should she even be concerned about being tactful?

No use beating around the bush for me, needed to get rid of my embarrassment, the rope tied around my tongue, don’t stutter, don’t waver, just say what you really need to say.

“Do you not want me to?” I asked, the entire world once a whizzing blur, focusing now, focusing on her. “Do you not want her to?”

Adalia didn’t answer me again… immersed in her own little world, having her own little conversation… the slender, sullen reflection in the window frame meeting her stare. 

“It’s okay to tell me… how you feel about it, about me and Ash,” I said, taking my own steps forward to close the distance. “If it hurts, if I hurt you, I – “

“Hurt…” was the single word springing from her lips, shifting her gaze, and stopping me in place. “Hurt… me…?” 

“It’s alright if you feel that way.”

“I… don’t…” and a little louder, a little quicker she repeated. “I don’t feel that way… I don’t…” and growing fainter, she whispered. “You never… hurt me… you never… will… you never… had… never… say that again… never… say it…”

Adalia was reprimanding me. Her hard expression, her firm tone, yeah, I’m being reprimanded. Well, this was… new… so new in fact, that I couldn’t help but comply without question, arms up in surrender and disbelief, “Alright, I won’t say it again.” 

“You are… selfless… you are forgiving… you are… kind…” She went on without so much as a pause. “And it is… hurting you…” Her hands curled, her claws hidden. “I am… hurting you…” 

“Adalia…”

“You need to… be happy… I want you… to be happy… that’s what… I feel… about you…” She finally ran out of breath, but she didn’t run out of words just yet. “And Ash… makes you… very happy… I know…” 

“You do too,” I said. 

“Not as… much…”

“Just as much,” a little firmer, a step closer, I continued to say. “You make me happy just as much.” 

Yet Adalia remained just as firm as I, shaking her head ever so slightly. 

“No… not yet…” She whispered, then before I could start the whole process again, she spoke some more. “But I will… I want to… I want to make you… just as… happy too…” 

Beyond my notice, in the numbness of my bandaged hand, I could feel a little something, something small, something light – I look down – her hand in mine, and there in her clouded eyes, a vacantness filling, a coldness warming, I could see, that she felt a little something too. 

“Because… I love you… just as much… too…” 

Speaking of surreal, this moment as well… tonight was seemingly just the night of broken precedents, and I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot more being broken from here on.

“For tonight…” I looked at her in the eye. “You’ll be alright, right?”

“You’ll be… happy…” She replied, her lips shifting into a ghost of a smile. “So I’ll be… happy too…”

This close, this absence of any distance, I could see every single detail of her face. I noticed the hollow rings in her eyes, the faintness of her breath, and the narrow blue streaks slightly visible across her skin. 

I almost forgot… 

“You haven’t feast yet,” I muttered.

“No… not yet…” Adalia affirmed. “That’s why… I showed myself… before you go…” 

“Yeah, thought as much…” I rolled back a sleeve, exposing a good chunk of skin, and without wasting another second, I raised my arm at her… only for her to just slowly, gently, lower it back down again.

Suddenly, Adalia was a whole lot closer than before. Behind her slightly parted lips, the tips of fangs were poking through. I saw her expression, the same one back at the lake, and alarm bells in my head once more rang even louder than before.

“Adalia,” I leaned away from her. “What do you think you’re doing?” 

“Feasting…” was her first answer, before she suddenly lunged forward at me. Then in her cold touch, the weight of her body, and the feel of her breath grazing the surface of my skin, I heard her second answer. “Borrowing…” 

A hard jolt shot through my body stemming from many places. From my hands in hers, from the locks of her silver hair brushing against my shoulder, and most of all, from the feel of her sharp fangs burrowing deep in my neck. 

It didn’t hurt, it didn’t even twinge. But it was different, so much different from how it felt when she feasted on my arm. There was something carnal in the way she fed on me… less like I need, a responsibility… burrowing deeper, rougher… no, this was desire, this was want… so much want… and the strangest thing of all… I was feeling it too. 

But before that sensation could build, could take over… it suddenly dwindled, dissipated, and with a warmth dribbling down my skin, I felt Adalia lift her fangs with a long, heavy, and satisfied gasp. 

So many questions, so many thoughts – I swiped a hand around my neck, feeling the slight dampness of blood but nothing more. Just like it was with my arm, the puncture wound had closed. 

I felt dizzy, I felt giddy… strangely euphoric… I tried to blink it all away, and that only intensified the feeling. 

“That’s…” I pulled a face, feeling the sensation fiddling in my head. “That’s new… what was… what was that?”

“You know… already…” Adalia answered, a slightly sly, slightly content expression on her face. “I told you… before…”

“Remind me again,” I said, gulping in mouthfuls of air.

Her lips glimmered a bright, fresh red, and between breaths, I saw her slowly lick it clean, then heard her soft, impish answer. “Devious… intent…”