Say Yes To Forever

Chapter Three

On my back, hands folded over my flat stomach, I listen to the silent house in contrast to the birds chirping outside my bedroom window. The last morning before school…. The last morning before school and I awoke from another intense and weird dream.

Same forest, a similar night, but no snow. I was by a river this time, mesmerized but the flow. The flow of water, the flow of wind, the flow of energy, the flow of time. And then, just like before, it ended with my name called.

Looking over at my alarm clock, Mama should be in her shower by now. I reach over and push play on my boombox, my Barenaked Ladies CD starting right up. “It’s been one week since you looked at me….”

Feet on the cool wood floors, I roll my shoulders and stretch my neck. I need to just shake it off and get through the day as anticipated. Mama and I are going to Duke’s for breakfast, going to double-check I have everything ready for school tomorrow, then have a movie night just like every year before, though the debate is between Sleepless In Seattle or Clueless or Titanic.

Pulling my bodysuit up, I forgo a b*a and slip the short sleeves over my shoulders. Then I tug one of my spaghetti-strap dresses off the hanger. Pulling my hair out from under my choker, I bend at the waist and pull back to fluff it out. Looking a little bit more like Courtney Cox as Monica Geller today than Sandra Bullock in While You Were Sleeping. One of my favorite outfits, I feel most like myself, and I can finally get past the weirdness and get excited.

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As Tori sits down next to me on the couch, I notice she’s rubbing her face gently. “Are you all right?”

She grunts, “The whole retracting the fangs thing… I’m just sore. I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to the pressure on my sinuses.”

I nod. “At least we don’t have to do it all the time.”

She sighs. “Would just be easier if we didn’t have to do it at all.” Turning to me, I can see the distress on her face. “Like in Montreal! Sure, they might not have been entirely Sub friendly, but they at least tolerated us… I still don’t understand why we had to move here. Here, Basic-human territory; here, this tiny town; here, where they would persecute us for being Vampires.”

Closing my book on my lap, I try to be optimistic. “It won’t always be like this. You remember what it was like before the Revolution… and you know as well as I do that America is moving towards taking the Wall down.”

She offers a small smile. “You’re so young.”

I shrug. “Sure. But think about it. The Revolution, The Great War, World War Two, the Moon landing, the Wall going up because Subs were getting rights… I may only be seventy-eight years old but so much has changed in those seventy-eight years.

“And technology!” I point out excitedly. “Cars, planes, space crafts, personal computers, cell phones, and DVDs. The World Wide Web and finding anything on Google! Com’on… things are kind of exciting now, don’t you think?”