Bite me. @x-mike-reed-x - Tumblr Blog

Patricia A. McKillip, from her book titled "The Book of Atrix Wolfe," originally published in 1995

All these years, I stood and watched you waste your life on things and people who will never ever feel enough for you. Deep down you know it too.. what a life it is if you live it in secrecy and denial about who you are? I feel so sorry for you.. to a point I can no longer stay and watch you killing yourself slowly while trying to be someone you were never meant to be. Presentable for society but not to your own heart. I used to think you were just a coward.. now I understand the weight of your choices. I can tolerate a coward but never a fool.

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“I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.”

— Robin Williams

mournfulroses

Emily Brontë, from The Collected Works & Poetry of Emily Brontë; “Wuthering Heights,”

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theotherkingdoms

—Olivia Gatwood, “We All Got Burnt that Summer” from Life of the Party

Where did she go?

Mike stood by the window long after the city had gone quiet, a glass of whiskey untouched in his hand. Vampires didn't need sleep, but exhaustion still found them. It settled in the bones instead of the eyelids. She had vanished. No note. No threat. No sarcastic remark scratched into the door just to annoy him. Nothing. His jaw tightened. Those last moments they spent in the shower replayed in cruel fragments. The steam. Her fingers trailing over his skin. The way she'd looked at him, all hunger and surrender, pulling him closer until there was barely any space left between them. Then... the numbness in her eyes. The shove. The door slamming. Gone. "What the hell was that?" he muttered into the empty room for perhaps the hundredth time. He'd been angry that night. He was furious now. Not because she'd refused him. God knew he could survive that. It was the invitation followed by the rejection, the intimacy wielded like a blade, that kept reopening the wound. And underneath the anger lurked something far worse. She'd gone back to him. To the other vampire. Every hour she stayed missing made that possibility harder to silence. Mike's fingers tightened around the glass until it shattered. Amber liquor spilled across his palm, mixing with shards that disappeared into healing flesh almost instantly. "Tell me it isn't him..." The room offered no answer. He'd searched the places she favored without admitting to himself that he was searching. The old bar. The lake house. The bookstore she'd claimed smelled better than people. Even the rooftop where she'd once sworn the stars looked less lonely.

Empty.

She had become a ghost while somehow remaining painfully alive. His pride demanded he stop looking. His heart ignored it. What if she'd chosen the other vampire? The thought curled inside him like smoke. He imagined them together and immediately hated himself for imagining anything at all. He wasn't jealous. He was...No. He was jealous. Violently. Because if she'd simply wanted to leave him, she could have said so. She could have insulted him, laughed in his face, told him he wasn't enough. Instead she'd disappeared. Which meant she was either hiding...or being hidden. His thoughts drifted somewhere darker. If that bastard had manipulated her...If he'd hurt her...Mike closed his eyes. "No." The word came out strained. "If I find out he forced this..." His voice died there. He didn't finish the sentence because he knew exactly how it ended. Blood. Too much of it. He hated that part of himself. The one that still solved impossible problems with violence. But another possibility whispered louder every night. What if she hadn't been forced? What if she'd simply chosen him? That possibility hurt more than any blade ever could. Mike sank onto the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor she'd danced across once before. "You infuriating woman..." A bitter laugh escaped him. "I don't even know if I want to find you anymore." It was a lie. The kind that sounded convincing only in empty rooms. The silence became its own kind of conversation. Every creak of the building made his head turn. Every unfamiliar scent drifting through the hallway made something inside him stand at attention before disappointment settled back in. She wasn't coming. Or maybe she was. Maybe she'd appear at three in the morning with rain in her hair and some infuriating half-smile that said, Miss me? He hated that he could picture it so clearly. He hated even more that he'd probably let her in. "Idiot." He wasn't sure whether he meant her or himself.

She'd always done this. Not disappearing. Getting close enough to make him believe she'd finally stopped running, only to flinch the moment it became real. He'd mistaken courage for certainty. She'd mistaken desire for readiness. And they'd both paid for it. He leaned back, letting his head rest against the wall. "I should've stopped." The admission tasted bitter. She'd kissed him. She pulled him into that shower. She'd looked at him like she'd finally surrendered whatever war she'd been fighting inside herself.But somewhere between wanting him and having him...something had broken. He'd seen it. Only after. Not while he was kissing her. Not while her hands trembled against his chest. Only in that split second before she pushed him away. Fear. Not of him. Of herself. His eyes closed. "I saw it too late." That was the part he couldn't forgive himself for. Not because he'd done something unforgivable. Because he'd been so consumed by finally having her that he hadn't noticed she was drowning. Then the anger returned. Hot, sharp and convenient. Because anger was easier. Easier than wondering whether she'd cried after leaving. Easier than wondering whether she'd gone straight into another man's arms because she couldn't bear being in his. That thought poisoned everything. He imagined her laughing with that vampire. Touching him. Looking at him the way she'd looked at Mike. "No." His voice came out low. "No... don't." His imagination ignored him. Every picture grew uglier than the last. Maybe she'd chosen certainty over chaos. Maybe she'd realized Mike was exactly what everyone had warned her about. A predator pretending he wasn't one. A man who claimed he'd wait forever until desire clouded his judgment. Maybe she'd looked at him after leaving and thought, I was wrong. His chest tightened. "I would've waited." The words escaped before he could stop them. A humorless smile crossed his face. "I would've waited another year." Another laugh. Quieter this time. "I would've waited a century." The whole house swallowed the confession. She'd never hear it. Maybe that was for the best. Because if she really had chosen the other vampire... What then? Would he drag her back? No. She wasn't something to be taken. Would he challenge him? Maybe. Would he kill him? His fingers curled slowly. "If he touched you because you wanted him..." He couldn't finish the thought. Not because it made him angry. Because it made him irrelevant. That was the wound. Not losing but being unnecessary..the possibility that she simply didn't need him... That frightened him in a way nothing else ever had. He exhaled through clenched teeth. "So where does that leave me?" Waiting? Pathetic. Searching? Obsessive. Moving on? Impossible. He laughed at himself again. "You really picked the one woman who could disappear while still managing to occupy every damn room." His gaze drifted toward the front door. He'd stopped expecting her weeks ago. But there it was again that stubborn, ridiculous part of him still believed he'd hear three soft knocks. And when he did...He didn't know whether he'd pull her into his arms...or ask why she ever made him wonder if he was worth leaving if she spent all those years convincing him, he was the only one she could ever love.