The year of my life that I would re-live is the year that I got married. My husband was handsome, thoughtful, and kind. He never got sick because he said he wanted to protect me forever. Love me forever. I never met his family. They had all passed away or lived far away. I grew up with my family, but when we were married, he bought a house in another country, and that’s where we would live. That scared me, to be away from my family, but I loved him, so I trusted him.
One night, while we sat across from each other during one of our candlelight dinners, he said nonchalantly, “I’m a vampire.”
I laughed. He liked to tell jokes. He said he didn’t have enough opportunities to tell jokes because he worked the night shift. He didn’t have any friends. The words played over in my head. He had no friends, no family.
“I’m a vampire,” he repeated, “and I want to make you one too because I love you.”
“That’s not love!” I said, confused. Yet I could not run from him. I trusted him. Right? We were married. I started to feel the doubt and fear crawl across my skin. Could I love someone who had hidden such a big secret from me all this time?
“You’re sick, my love,” he said. “You saw the doctor yesterday. They confirmed it was cancer! I can’t lose you.”
“There’s a chance we can still beat it. What you’re suggesting is ridiculous.”
“No, not at all.” He rushed over to me and held me in his arms. I sank into his familiar embrace and told myself this was a dream or a prank. There was no such thing as vampires. Soon, everything would be okay again.
“You wouldn’t hurt me.” I felt his lips on my neck, then a numbness took over me.
He pulled back and said, “I can’t live in a world without you. If you were to die from cancer, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself. This is what’s best for us both. This is what I must do. Thank you for the love that you gave me.”
“The love that I gave you?”
I felt myself being lowered to the floor. My head and back rested on the carpeted floor. Next to me, my husband’s skin started to peel. He started to disintegrate like ash. All the pieces of him fell in a heap to the ground.
***
I haven’t been sick for decades. I feel fine. I can’t remember when I finally swept his ashes off the floor and put them in a beautiful container, locked away. I found a journal on the chair where he had been sitting at dinner.
I’m a vampire now. But I don’t drink blood. My husband said, our kind drinks away poisons and illnesses. And of course, the price is our life. I keep replaying that night over in my mind, reliving it for years. This was not the decision I wanted him to make. We were supposed to make decisions together. I wanted to go back to that night, to change the past. He’s left me here alone.
The question I think about a lot now is this: does it really matter how we live if we find our true love? I will always wonder what the best answer is.
Image credit: CrimsonMystique
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