My Vampire Plus-One

by Jenna Levine

More importantly, she was human. I had sworn off fucking with anything mortal during the Carter Administration.

And there was my most prized possession: a framed oil painting of Edward Cullen on the wall above the sink, sparkly and magnificent as he gazed moodily into the middle distance.

“The truth is, I quite like making you happy.” He shook his head. “I’m frightened to think too much about what that means, because I honestly can’t remember the last time I wanted to do anything for another person, simply for its own sake. And without having an ulterior motive.” His eyes, when they met mine, were so intense I had to look away. “But for you, I would brave a blizzard just to see you smile.”

“The problem with young people is not that they’re lazy. It’s that they think they have unlimited time. So they postpone the fun parts of life thinking they can get to those later. Only at the end do they realize how badly they squandered…well. Everything.”

If her eyes had been open, she’d have seen it written all over my face just how desperately I was falling for her.

“I’ve wanted to see you like this for what feels like a century,”

“I’ve wanted to make you laugh like this since the night we met. You were terrible at pretending to laugh when I asked you to, but in hindsight I see that was a good thing. Because if I’d seen what you are like when you truly let go, I would have fallen to my knees. Right then and there.”

“He also said that leaving you when he did is one of the hardest things he’s ever done. He placed special emphasis on the word hardest, but out of concern for my own sanity, I refuse to analyze why that might be.”