The Beautiful and the Damned

I had taken Gerard to meet all my college friends a few weeks after we first met. They were impressed. I lived in a house with another girl and two guys. Meg, Jay and Oscar. On the whole they supported the relationship, I was close with them, it meant a lot to me that everyone got on. And they did. Until one day when I’d known for Gerard for around 8 months Meg came up to me looking concerned. Her ginger hair was tied up and she was still in her sweats from the gym. I dumped my bag on the floor as I came in from my last lecture of the day. She looked worried.
“Leia I think you need to sit down,” she had her serious voice on, I knew not to argue. “I was talking to one of the girls at yoga today and she told me something bad that I think you need to hear.” Then she paused, struggling to find the words she was looking for. I waited for a moment, I hated suspense and waiting for her to spill was putting me right on edge. She wasn’t usually a serious person.
“You know some of the girls met Gerard at that house party we had a month or so back?” I nodded, “Well she said that she saw him hooking up with someone at 58th on Wednesday night.” 58th was a club that wasn’t my thing but was pretty popular. My breath caught in my throat a little. I was falling for this guy, and falling hard. I didn’t want to hear this.
“Don’t be silly,” I said, “Gee has life drawing every Wednesday.”
“I don’t think so, apparently this isn’t the first time she’s seen him there was some girl. I know you don’t know her well but she’s not the kind to lie.” I was frozen to my seat. I had this sick feeling in my stomach like something was churning my insides. There’s no way Meg would say anything if she didn’t think there was in something in what she had been told.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Well, he has always been a little too good to be true. I never thought he was a bad guy but he very charming. I don’t really know what to make of it. I was thinking, as you’re not working this Wednesday we could go and see for ourselves. That way we kind find out if there’s anything in it. Fingers crossed there isn’t, and even if you don’t like the music we could still have a laugh.” I looked at her doubtfully, I’d really rather just talk to Gerard about this not go snooping around behind his back. It wasn’t my style. I liked honesty. But I figured that if it was true he wouldn’t just admit it to my face. So I agreed.
I barely slept that night waiting for Wednesday, and I was really distracted for the whole day. I couldn’t focus on any of my lectures which was a bit of a problem considering I had a paper due in soon.
The club was as bad as I remembered it being. Small and sweaty and too hot with loud music that I really didn’t like. I had a few beers and tried to loosen up, convince myself that everything was okay. We had been there for an hour or 2 and I was starting to relax. I’d drank enough beer to forget how little I liked the music and there was no sign of Gee. Okay, the music was awful but the company was good. It wasn’t a big place I was sure to see him if he were there. This rumour must be some horrible mistake. I vowed that the next day I would give Gee a call before I went to work and talk to him about it. Then Meg tapped me on the shoulder and pointed toward a corner of the club. There he was, with one arm wrapped around a blonde girl. And he was wearing that leather jacket I loved to see him in. The churning feeling I’d felt in stomach turned into full blown nausea as I saw him nuzzle into her neck. Some small voice in the back of my head, wait a sec, she’s blonde, why is he with a blonde, I’ve got brown hair. Brown hair and blue eyes. He told me that he preferred brunettes, why is he with a blonde?! This was a slightly ridiculous thing to be focusing on, and I was reminded of this when I saw him lead her out a fire exit to the alley behind the club. I downed my beer and went to follow them, shoving the empty bottle at Meg and ignoring her protests as I stormed off. It took me a full 5 minutes to push my way through the dancing, sweaty, packed crowd. I finally made it to the fire exit and snuck around the corner, part of me still hoping that this was just some guy who looked a lot like Gerard.
I was wrong. It was him. Even if I could only see his back because he had the blonde pressed up against the wall, that was his hair, that was his jacket and those were his favourite sneakers. A breath hitched in my throat. It drew the attention of the blonde girl. She looked at me. She was pretty, I hated that. She giggled,
“Gee, we’re not alone,” her voice was slurred and high pitched. Time seemed to slow a little. Gee’s back visibly stiffened and he arched his head away from the girl’s neck. I let the breath out. He took his hands off her waist and turned to face me. He looked shocked, his eyes were wide and it was clear that he was horrified to see me. I didn’t really focus on that though. It was difficult to see past his mouth. His mouth which had showed me the smile that I loved so much so often. It was covered in blood. It was dripping down his chin and onto his tee. More shockingly it was dripping off fangs. Real honest to god fangs. They protruded down to his lower lip. The blonde was still giggling. Now Gee had moved I could see her neck, she was bleeding. She was bleeding from her neck and he had fangs the size wall nails that were stained red. I turned and ran the hell away as fast as I could.
On my way out I grabbed Meg, told her I was going home, and then carried on running before she could say anything back. She was with a few other girls so I knew she would be safe in the club without me. I made it into the fresh air out front and carried on running. I was wearing heels and tripped over my feet as I tried my best to blink away tears. I pulled them off my feet, picked them up and carried on going. In the end I stopped because I couldn’t breathe anymore. I wasn’t very fit and I couldn’t stop crying. I’d gone quite a bit further than I thought I would’ve been able to. I carried my shoes into an all night dinner with make-up down my face and got a coffee to go. I needed to think. I wanted to move. I walked out of the dinner sipping my coffee, it was too hot and it burned my throat. The pain helped me to focus.
Okay, I had a few problems. My boyfriend was getting off with other girls in clubs. Also, he may or may not be human. He was a… I couldn’t finish the thought. I was terrified. Those teeth were not usually in his mouth, and I should know. He was drinking that girl’s blood, he was hurting her, was he dangerous? He damn sure looked dangerous in alley. Was I safe? I didn’t think so. And I needed some space. Some space to think. I walked to the bus station.
The first bus to leave the terminal was leaving New York in 10 minutes and heading to California. That was a seriously long time to sit on a bus. But I had wanted time to think.
I bought a ticket and 15 minutes later I was leaving. The further we got from New York the safer I felt. Is there some way I could have been wrong? Could someone have spiked my drink? I didn’t think so, I’d had a few beers but not enough to make me see things. And I felt fine now, I hadn’t seen anything else strange. So I guess my drink hadn’t been spiked. Maybe what I saw was real. I didn’t know what to do with this information. The caffeine from the coffee was wearing off and I was feeling calmer and calmer the further I got away from the state. It wasn’t too long before I drifted off.

Notes