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“Isn’t August right there?” asked Esther.
“He’s blindfolded,” Uther answered.
“Don’t tell them about our sex life, love,” August teased. Or Ashley assumed it was teasing. “We promised we’d call in the new year. Remember?”
“I thought you would call closer to New Year’s,” said Ashley. “You know, when the sun is still down and vampires are still awake like a considerate friend?”
“I never claimed to be considerate,” said August. “Plus, we were busy around midnight.”
“Ashley,” Esther whispered. “We were a little busy around midnight too.”
“I heard that!” yelled Uther. “Omg, we’re all going to double date. Tell me it’s official, and I don’t have to wait for the two of you to figure out why the other is making starry eyes.”
Ashley turned to Esther, unsure how to answer. They never had a chance to discuss what happened let alone what that meant going forward.
Esther didn’t look at her, directing her answer at the phone instead. “Calm down, Uther. We just woke up.”
“Fine,” he said, “but let me know the second you know what’s happening, you crazy kids.”
They chatted a little longer about their nights before hanging up. Ashley collapsed on the bed and threw her arm over her face. It was the middle of the day, but she was suddenly so keyed up—there was no way she could fall asleep now. She felt like a warm, shiny ball of fluff sitting here in her bed with the woman she was falling head over feet for, and now their two closest friends knew too.
It felt permanent. A good sign for the dawning year.
She took Esther’s hand in her own, and Esther smiled in her sweet, closed-mouth way, with just the one side pulling up. Ashley wanted to kiss that secret smile and live in it forever. She wanted forever like this—her and Esther. The realization struck her, and she remembered the silver capsule Claribel had given her ages ago.
She thought about the last time she’d fallen for someone.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” Esther asked. Of course, she’d noticed the change in Ashley’s mood.
“It’s nothing, just thinking about stuff.”
“Any of it involve me?” Esther ran her hand up and down Ashley’s thigh.
The heat of Esther’s touch was intoxicating. “Yes. And also no.”
Esther sat up, draped her legs across Ashley’s lap, and wrapped Ashley’s arms around her. “I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
Ashley held her tight. They’d started something that couldn’t be taken back or undone, but it could still be broken. Ashley would be gentle with it. “I make impulsive decisions.”
A small chuckle escaped Esther at that comment. “You don’t say.”
“Hey now.” She bit playfully at Esther’s neck, enjoying Esther’s squealed laughter. “I’m working on it.” She took a moment to fit together what she wanted to say. “I’ve made mistakes in the past, and one of them really cost me. Well, probably more than one, but one of them cost me five years of my life, and I don’t want to do that again.”
“The last time you tried to join the vampires?” Esther lifted Ashley’s hand, playing with her fingers before lacing her own in them.
“There was this girl. It’s silly really. I was lonely after spending the last year banished from my first attempt.”
“We’ll put a pin in that story.”
“And I just wanted to… Well, I barely made it to the second semester before I told her about me.”
Ashley waited, but Esther stayed quiet. She assumed there would be comments at the end.
“Obviously, that was a mistake,” Ashley continued. “She ended up telling a friend, who told another friend, and the next thing I knew, the supposed existence of vampires was the worst kept secret in Plattsburgh. I thought maybe if I controlled the spread until the end of the school year, I could still make it work. But one of the vampires caught word of it, and that’s when I had to leave town while they did a city-wide sweep, cleaning people’s memories of me.”
Ashley shivered, thinking back on those early days when Hannah and John would interrogate people in the front sitting room, trying to follow the trail of the rumor and control the spread. Taking someone’s memories—nonconsensual control over another person’s body—never settled right with Ashley. There was a certain level of violence to the action, and that thought was probably what kept her from letting go and perform it herself.
“Geez, that sucks,” Esther said.
