#sometimes u just vaguely remember smth from ur childhood that makes you go Testosterone Wouldve Saved Him i guess

[dateamonster]

My vampire ex-boyfriend is stalking me. This is not an unusual occurrence. Even when we were still dating he was always doing this, he just used to be more obvious about it because if I called him out he already had a line locked and loaded about how he was only looking out for me. And sure, I'll admit that I've had more than the average number of near-death experiences for a seventeen year old, but at the risk of rehashing old arguments, a lot of that could've been avoided if he'd just turned me the first time I asked.

I've broken things off with my vampire ex-boyfriend a couple times before, usually for about the same reasons, but this time it's different. I think he's noticed it too. I'm not grieving anymore, not holing myself up in my room listening to sad music watching every gray day pass me by. I've talked to my friends, then to my dad, and they're on my side. My dad took a little longer to come around, but it helped that his best friend's son went through the same thing. It's good to have people around who want to support me, not just protect me.

My vampire ex-boyfriend didn't want me to be a vampire like him. He didn't want me to have sex, with him or anyone else. He didn't want me to go out with my friends without him there, but he also didn't want to come along. He didn't want me to go out after dark. He didn't want me to cut my hair. But he liked me, he really liked me. He liked that I didn't ever show much skin even in the summer. He liked that I didn't have any real hobbies or passions so that he could be the one to introduce me to music and fine art and literature. He liked that I kept my innermost thoughts so buried that they were a secret even to me.

I don't know for sure if I want to be a vampire anymore. I think I might, or at the very least I want to keep my options open, but it doesn't feel as urgent now that I know there are other ways to change myself. I used to think I needed it to be close to him. He was so beautiful, is so beautiful. My vampire ex-boyfriend, with his serious, brooding stare and his model chin and his body carved from the center of a pale diamond, his chiseled angles sharp enough to cut with just a glance. And then me beside him, with my long mousy hair and my fragile frame hidden beneath overlarge shirts and jeans when even a knee-length skirt made me feel too exposed. For all his sanguineous habits, I was the parasite, and he was the genuine article, and maybe that's why it hurt so much to have him reject me again and again. All I ever wanted was to burrow into his colorless skin, to feel what it was like to be strong and unyielding. My vampire ex-boyfriend hated his perfect body. He waxed poetic about my warmth, my softness. Maybe we were more alike than I thought in the end.

I load my old pickup truck full of lumber and nails and feel pleased by how much easier it is now that I've started to put on a little muscle. Working with my hands makes me feel more grounded in my body, so dad's enlisted my help in some of his DIY projects around the house. My collection of bandages is growing, from splinters and slips and the occasional dropped hammer, but my coordination grows a fraction less abysmal each day, and if I spill blood there's no one there to wince and whine about it.

I put a lock on my bedroom window. I pin photographs to my wall documenting my changes from month to month. Dad shows me how to shave without cutting myself, despite my insistence that if I could figure out my legs I can figure out my face. I smile more days than I don't. I still turn my head in the same direction when I hear a loud crack from beyond the treeline that's not quite thunder. I still visit his family, when he's not around. In another life I know his parents would've treated me like one of their own.

Just as I'm climbing into the driver's seat I hear a voice from the shadows, whispering the name of a stranger. I drive away. I've got no more interest in raising the dead.