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I don’t know how to live in this world if these are the choices, if everything just gets stripped away. I don’t see the point. —Buffy the Vampire Slayer
On the other side is Dad’s mahogany beast he found at a yard sale because he likes the history of used things.
but we stayed out until the sunset came and lit the woods with its own magic,
I hesitate, which means I’m about to say yes because I never hesitate to say no.
Even with the awkwardness between us and the things I’m sure neither of us has healed from, we still feel like a team, like we never spent a day apart. I guess ten years of friendship isn’t destroyed that easily,
might have been the brave one, but it was always because I knew he’d be there when I hit the ground and ended up covered in my own blood.
This city is a vampire—beautiful and old and seductive, living off the energy of the people it attracts. I do love the night already, the way the neon bar signs contrast with the old gas lamps and make the puddles of water from the summer thunderstorms glow like portals to another place and time, but nobody steps in them because nobody wants to be anywhere but here. Life pulses up and down Bourbon Street, and I imagine anyone without a dying dad wouldn’t be able to walk down this street without grinning.
The way you could paint a night sky and still make it feel warm.
but love and pain always walk hand in hand. Haven’t I watched Buffy enough times to understand that? Be strong like Buffy. But maybe I’ve been wrong about what that means. What if it isn’t about not feeling at all? What if it’s about letting go of control sometimes, letting it all go—not just the pieces you think are okay—so you can be in control when it counts?
always thought of him as the kind and sweet one—I was the brave one, always jumping in headfirst. But maybe it’s braver to be kind time and time again, even when people push you away.
And I know now this is strength—showing emotions as you feel them, counting on others to be able to share the burden of them with you.
And I don’t want you to ever stop believing in vampires or God or unicorns or anything else in the world that gives you hope, even if you never get to see or touch them. Because that’s what belief really is, a hope in something outside of yourself, and hope can never be a bad thing. Even if you think it fails you in the end, did it really fail you if it carried you through the toughest parts of your life? I don’t believe so.
