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Esther chuckled. “Well, go finish off the beer blood then.” She flicked her hands at Ashley, waving her out of the room.
“I’m going, I’m going.”
“Oh, and Ashley?”
“What?” Ashley groaned in mock frustration.
“We’re real now, right?”
Ashley jumped and tackled Esther to the bed, giving her a quick and firm kiss. “We’re very real, sweetheart.”
25
Esther
Esther carved out a rhythm in the following weeks. Her time split evenly between coursework, her internship, and GA duties during the day and evenings spent wandering moonlit paths by a quiet lake, slipping between winter-cool fingers, and hushing each other’s sighs and giggles in her attic.
The weekends were a constant tug between staying on top of the week’s assignments and spending time with friends. Between catching up with Uther over brunch and laughing while Ashley and August fought over the popcorn bowl at movie night—despite August’s protests that she wasn’t eating it anyway—her work window shrank exponentially. She did very little sleeping and could see herself fraying at the edges. A snapping remark here, an ignored text there. More and more often, brunch was a chore rather than a way to decompress from the week.
And so, it was with a groan that she found her body curved over a desk and her cheek smooshed to a notebook on the night she’d put aside to catch up on schoolwork. A thin, college-linedpage peeled away from her face as she sat up. She rubbed her cheek, hoping none of her notes transferred to her face. The only other student in this part of the library was two tables over and fully immersed in their project. An envious snake coiled in her gut, and a weight like the steepled space above her had solidified into a massive wood-paneled vulture to perch on her shoulders.
She wiggled the mouse, and the computer came to life. Her professor had assigned a project meant to help her better understand this program, but Esther didn’t want to dig deeper into her student loans when the software was available for free on campus computers. So, she was at the school library trying to wrangle the massive workload her master's program had dumped on her before her last semester got out of hand.
A movement in her peripheral alerted Esther her late-night companion was calling it quits for the night. That was fine. She would channel the second wind her little nap should have given her and power through. She was on the cusp of a breakthrough. Just another hour tops and she could go home and get a couple hours of sleep before starting from scratch on another project due this week. If she didn’t finish these two projects before Sunday, she’d have to miss movie night again, and Uther would disown her. She adjusted the number in her spreadsheet, and an error message flashed across the screen. The whole program froze.
“No, no, no.” She clicked furiously, pushing every escape, backspace, undo-whatever-that-was button she could think of. Nothing changed.
Her phone buzzed.
Ashley
How’s studying going?
Esther
Like crap. Might cry. Might just fail. TBD
She waited a few seconds without a reply before sliding her phone back into her pocket. If she turned the machine off and on again, she’d lose everything she’d worked on. Stupid, buggy, outdated program. Surely, someone had made something better that served the same purpose by now. As she was getting ready to throw the mouse across the table and screech at the computer screen, a light cough alerted her of another’s presence. Her spine cracked as she twisted around to see who’d interrupted her melancholy.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Ashley leaned against the bookshelf behind her as though she had only been in the other room the whole time.
Feelings blocked up Esther’s throat, preventing her from replying. The legs of her chair skidded against the thin, faded rug as she leaped into Ashley’s open arms, nuzzling in snug under her chin. Ashley’s lips brush the top of her head, and Esther closed her eyes, letting herself breathe in Ashley’s nearness and nothing else. Ashley was an anchor in the storm called grad school, a lifeline, a source of comfort, and a safe place to vent. People said grad school was a trial on a relationship, but those people weren’t dating a vampire.
Ashley was everything but still hadn’t asked Esther to change, to live forever with her. So, while all this support was comforting, a tight knot in the pit of her chest continued to warn her this was all temporary.
Although, if she was given the option, would she take it? As much as she skulked away from people, she wasn’t a night person. But that was an easy adjustment. Her pale complexion had a rough relationship with the sun as it was. It was thepotential to kill someone that held her back. Sunlight, she could take or leave, blood—she’d get over that—but after seeing the way Ashley was barely hanging on to her self-control on the plane, Esther wasn’t sure she wanted the burden of keeping everyone safe from her tenuous hold on control. Or the repercussions and emotional toll of the outcome.
“Hey.” Ashley touched Esther’s chin, tilting it to meet her eyes. “Did you want to tell me what’s going on?”
Esther turned to the end of the row where the librarian sat behind the help desk, clicking away at her computer. Ashley followed her gaze, understanding without Esther needing to utter a word that she was uncomfortable sharing vulnerable moments. She took Esther’s hand and led her to a more secluded aisle.
“All right.” Ashley leaned against the shelves across the aisle from Esther, the space small enough that Esther, leaning against her side of bookshelves, was still able to weave a foot between Ashley’s, the contact keeping her grounded. “Are you ready to tell me what’s upsetting you?”
What upset Esther was that Ashley was a fairytale. Here she was in her cute sweater ready to save the day, and there was this phantom ticking clock hovering over everything they did together. Esther couldn’t focus properly on anything knowing that, as a human, this support, this encouragement, this friendship, this love would someday come to an end. And she had no clue when, but the not knowing only added to her stress levels. She couldn’t implement some arbitrary rule to keep her safe here. All she could do was hang on for the ride and enjoy it while she could. And in the spirit of enjoying it while she could, she couldn’t pressure Ashley into deciding on Esther’s eternal state one way or the other because Esther still wasn’t sure one way or the other.
So, she deflected to the next pressing item on the list.
“My program froze, and I’m about to lose everything I stayed up to work on.” The words came out quiet, embarrassed by how frivolous it sounded in the shadow of eternity. Funny how one problem could be so massive until placed next to another.
