The third day of your honeymoon finds us sitting at your kitchen table, using the knives my parents gave you as a wedding gift to whittle wooden stakes from broken chair legs. I spent my whole life in love with you, and even allowed myself a brief moment of hope that you might return my affection one drunk morning when we crossed over the line between friendship and something more.<br><br>Then you went and got married. To a vampire.<br><br>When you called me for help killing her, how could I say no?

Til Death

Tall, like I said—she was your height without shoes, but in heels, she towered over us both. Lithe to the point of being skinny. Eyes like sapphires, lips as red as rubies, skin opalescent. When you introduced us, I stared at her paper-white skin and wondered if she used talcum powder for make-up. Her sunblock must’ve been SPF 400. She was so pale, her skin took on a bluish hue from the veins running just underneath it. If that long, blonde hair was black, she’d be more Goth than Morticia Adams.


Then she smiled, and I stared at a dazzling array of more teeth than any person had a right to have. Either she was gifted with perfect choppers or her dentist made a fortune off those pearly, polished, almost pointed, veneers.


When she gave me a fake, one-armed hug, a cloying perfume like calla lilies rose   from her to fill my senses and left me thinking of funeral homes. That heavy and oppressive.


Chapter 4