The sun sets on two trees, entwined impossibly around each other. The colors are breathtaking, achingly so in their beauty. The lights on the street flicker on one after another, lighting the darkening night. I sit on this bench, the one that I had installed just for you in the corner of our yard, under the weeping willows. They were always your favorite. You had told me that they seemed so majestic and calm with their curtaining branches. So, I had bought you several, had made a sort of gazebo with a rooftop to keep out the rain. You told me that day, when I had taken off the black blindfold around your eyes on your thirtieth birthday, that it was perfect. You had given me a hug so tight that I hurt. I relished every single moment of it. You kissed me, thanking me. That night was the first night that we had made love under the stars.

We had spent that next morning wrapped up in each other's arms, watching the sunrise. You told me of how you wanted to write here, that it would be your sanctuary away from the world when things got to be too much. I had agreed and hoped you would allow me into this haven of yours. You had laughed and kissed me, telling me that I would have been the one that you would have dragged here with you.

I look over at the pond, watching the mouths of the fish break the surface, searching for food. I had dug that pond, built it with my own hands, toiling over it on my free time and on the weekends. You had complained that I spent more time on it than you. What you didn't know was that I had hoped to finish it in time for your twenty-eighth birthday. I had reluctantly covered everything with a tarp and put it aside. Everything was done. The only thing left was the water, the plants, the last minute things. We spent that night cuddled up on the couch, watching "You've Got Mail", featuring Meg Ryan, one of our favorites.

Then, a few days later, I came home to find you waiting at the door for me. You told me that you had something you wanted to show me. You asked me to follow you, after you had blindfolded me with a black silk bandana. Followed you I did. I would have followed you to the ends of the earth, bound, blinded and gagged if you had asked. I still would if you did.

You stopped me when we got wherever you wanted me to be. I took the blindfold off to find lime green leaves rustling in the wind. You had somehow set up dinner with candles and everything in your grove. After dinner, you had led me out of the curtain, to gesture at what I had been working on.

You had finished the pond, had lit Japanese lanterns around the outside edge, had started the waterfall, and had added all the plants that I had marveled over in that pond shop that we had gone to that afternoon off. You took my hand and led me to the edge, and pointed at the colorful shadows. The pond was teeming with fish, koi and cat, little water lilies and even a soft-shelled turtle. I asked why after I had properly thanked you. You just laughed and drew up the comforter to your chin and said because.

Looking back, my life would have been so dull, so empty, had it not been for you. Life before you had been fun, elating, sad. I had my friends, watched them fall in and out of love, knowing that that could never be for me. Who in their right mind would love someone like me? I was a messed up person, lived an insane life, came from a screwed up family. My quirks, pet peeves, and selective anal retentiveness could have only been handled by my friends, people who I have known since high school. And that was because they didn't live with me.

Then, I had met my destiny that day at the Starbucks on the corner. You were so endearing as you apologized for spilling your beverage all over me. We had headed to the door, me to enter, you to exit, when we had literally bumped into each other. One look and I had completely forgotten about the scorching heat of your grande latte, forgotten about the spreading brown stains on my white shirt, forgotten about the stares and looks we were drawing.

I had told you that it was all right, that it had been an accident. You were apoplectic, patting me down with your limp, soaked napkin. Then your boyfriend showed up, wondering why you had taken so long. My heart had fallen through the floor when he kissed you right in front of me. I had met my fate, my other half? only to find that you were straight.

I laugh now, when I look back and picture myself gawping, my jaw slack, as you climbed into the passenger seat of that dreaded candy apple red Audi TT. I never did get my coffee that day. In fact, the next time I ever set foot in that place again was when I had driven with you to get a berry turnover and a biscotti before we had headed over to your parents' house.

We probably would have never met again had it not been that fateful day when your sister came in with a cut and pieces of broken glass in her arm. Trauma had been relatively calm, with only a gunshot wound and a motorcycle rider that had been thrown thirty feet at twenty five miles an hour. I was down in the ER when she walked in, with you escorting her. Susan asked me to take it. That woman acted more like my mother than anything else, and I mean that in a good sort of way.

I stitched her back up and was giving her and you instructions on taking care of the healing wound when a rugged man high on meth stormed in through the door. Man, was Harry pissed when he saw the shattered glass later. The high guy pulled out a handgun and started waving it around. It was stupid, I know, but I was damned if he was going to shoot anyone when I was around.

You were very impressive as you stood in front of your sister, protecting your loved one. It only seemed to up the stakes in the game that he and I now played. Everyone must have thought I was insane when I confronted him. They must have thought that everything was all over when he ran at me. The next thing I knew, I was being fussed over by you. You were lecturing me about safety procedures and stupid arrogant people. The staff must have had a heart attack as this tiny woman turned mother hen and ordered me around without me protesting.

It turned out Meth Man was your ex-boyfriend and had been stalking you ever since you broke up. It was hilarious, that look in your face when the cop told you that you were lucky I was able to knock him out, otherwise he would have probably shot you. You were so flabbergasted that you just kept on looking at me. Susan mumbled something about me being irresponsible as she stitched me up. The bullet had gotten a little close and had grazed my arm, leaving a long gash.

You asked me out to dinner when you had finally collected yourself, as a thank you for sending your Meth Man to jail. I was more than happy to agree, I was that far gone. I knew that this was breaking rule number one in the lesbian handbook, but I didn't care. If friends were all we were going to be, then friend it was. Never mind that I was head over heals for a straight girl.

Somehow, we ended up great friends from that dinner. I don't know how that happened, but I guessed it was a good thing. Saturday became the best day of my week because it was the day that you and I had to ourselves. I think that it was on one of those days that I decided I would never date again.

I glance over at the small birdfeeder that stands as the right hand corner, near the stand of apple trees. You had planted the trees because you knew I loved apples. I thought it was the most wonderful gift that I had ever been given not because of the fruit, but because you said that we would always pick them together.

After that bird flew into the windows and broke its wing, you wanted to build a birdhouse from scratch and a bird feeder too. You worked so hard on it, hammering both nails and your fingers, gluing wood and your hands together, sanding, and cutting with meticulous precision. It must have been a disappointment when you finished. You looked so sad that day, worse then that blob of a thing. Then your face lit up when I offered to help. I guess back then, you never thought that I would bother with something so childish. But it wasn't, at least, not to me. It was a gesture, a gift to the birds that sang for you in the garden, a gift to thank them for their unknown institution to your life. We finished the house together, sanded down the wood to a softness that could have rivaled you cheek, or the inside of you thigh. You were so happy when our injured bird decided to stay.

The wind brings the smell of the roses that you had planted to my nose as I write this. Every single living plant in our garden is in the best possible condition. You always surprised me with how green your thumb was. You would always laugh whenever we joked about my black thumb. We agreed that I would leave the plant life alone and you would leave the home improvements to me after I had killed my umpteenth rosebush for the umpteenth time. You never did understand how in the world I managed to kill them, seeing as they were the easiest to take care of. Then again, I never did figure out how in the world you managed to fudge up installing the shingles on our roof. For some strange reason, everything would turn out perfect if we helped each other on our projects. The blasted thing would always turn out just right, but if we tried to get it done on our own, they turned into disasters.

I get up to take a walk. My feet take me to a place that I have not been to in a year. I stare up at the heavens, watching the stars twinkling in the night sky, shadowed occasionally by the bare branches of the trees. I stop at an ancient oak, running my hands along the rough bark. The night is the same as always, chilly, empty, solitary. I had chosen this place that night, in the hopes that I would have been the only one to dwell in my misery should you have given me a no. I remember that day, clear as my own wedding.

We had gone to dinner to that Italian restaurant that you loved. It was Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year. There was no white snow, no merry carolers, no horse drawn sleighs. Nothing but the two of us, together, alone. I had insisted that we go on an evening stroll, you and I. I had a secret that I had kept away from you that was becoming unbearable. It taunted me in my sleep, in my dreams; when I breathed, it was there, tormenting me. You seemed to sense my unease and asked what was wrong. I could never lie to you, so I said not a word. You would not let it go however, and insisted that I tell you. I shamefully asked you to marry me in the stead of my confession. You tearfully agreed and we were wed six months, three weeks, and fifteen days later.

Last night, you imposed a question during our argument that brought forth all my fears, all my doubts, all my guilt. You asked me if this was the way it was supposed to be when we were both old and frail, that I would keep things from you. It shocked me, made me think of the future that we would have together. I said nothing and you left me to sit in the living room, alone and deep in thought.

Images of you and I sitting on this bench seeped into my head, pictures of you, your fair hair as white as snow, and the wrinkles from your smile deepening around your nose. And I, sitting beside you, my hair still as black as the night, my face unchanged from the time that you met me. Both of us watching our grandchildren playing with their pets as our children watched over them, wary of the world and its ways on their children. I thought of the dreaded day that I would have to say goodbye to you forever, the day that I would hold you in my arms one last time, as you took your last breath, our children surrounding us, their eyes angry as I remained on this earth in my own hell. Our children and their children and our great-grandchildren. I would watch all of them grown, prosper, live their lives? then, I would watch them die, just as I had done you as you died. I would bury them, just as I had buried you.

I am a coward, a cringing shadow, for not being by your side when you read this. I have not the strength, nor the courage to be there. I have been a great general, a simple farmer woman, an intellect, practically anything that you can think of, I have been in some point in time. For you see, I am not of your world. I was never meant to be, and I never will be. I am a vampire, cursed to live this immortal life and watch as the world progresses and passes me by.

You will undoubtedly conjure up the myths and superstitions that surrounds my kind. In truth, there are not many of us that survived the hunts for our kind throughout the ages. I have met only a handful these recent years. I am able to walk in the sunlight because I am cursed, a living vampire, if there ever was such a thing. I had bitten the wrong victim once and the witch had cursed me with humanity for the rest of eternity. I still fed amongst the living though, thinking that this curse gave me the advantage of stalking at all hours. I was wrong.

As the years progressed, all my sins in the past came upon me tenfold, the guilt that I felt for my victims weighing me down like a pair of shackles. I buried myself in a deep, dark well of self hatred, a well that bore water for decades. Then, on that fateful day, I fell in love with a mortal, a human, the prey that I had hunted for centuries. I had met you. When we finally confessed our feelings, I was liberated, freed from the self torture that I had imposed on myself. You were my love, my guiding light, my shining beacon. Through you, I began to give back what I had taken. Because of you, I knew that I would continue to give what I could never repay, though I would try till my end.

I was not cheating on you the nights that I was gone. Though it hurt to think that you did not have faith in me that I would keep my vows to you, you were allowed that assumption. I told you nothing and the thoughts of infidelity because of your past experiences were a given. I will say now that I never slept with anyone other than you. You have been the only one for over four centuries. There will never be another, not for me. Those nights that I disappeared were to feed. I had to eat, I needed blood. I could never draw yours, never. I have seen what happened to the vampire addicts in the past and swore that it would never happen to you. Instead, I fed off of willing people on the street, slipping a little monetary repayment for their services to me. Know that I was true to you and always will be. Our separation will not terminate my vows to you, not ever.

By the time you read this, I will have gone away. You will never see me again, but know that I will be watching over you always. I have loved you since the day that these ancient eyes had laid their gaze upon your face. I will always love you, until the end of time, as I know it. I pray that you will forget me and move on, find the one that will complete you, as I regrettably never will. You will need someone to grow old with you and die with you. That can never be me. For that, I will float in my personal hell for all eternity. Goodbye my heart, my soul. I will love you forever.



Khristine blinked and watched as water drops appeared on the aged paper before closing the ancient manuscript as her vision became blurry from her tears. She ran her fingertips along the worn leather binding, inhaling the scent that could only ever be Rayne.

Her sleep had been interrupted when she awoke in the middle of the night to the feel of a familiar touch on her face, only to find herself alone when she opened her eyes. The book had been lying on the pillow next to her, where Rayne should have been. She had panicked and searched the house and the yard to find not a soul but herself. When she had come back to the bedroom that she had shared with her lover for the past five years, the bookmark tucked near the binding caught her eye. It was the bookmark, made of stamped leather that she had marveled over at Barnes and Nobles the other day when they had gone shopping. She had figured that it meant something and opened the book to that last page that she read.

The moon hung high in the sky, casting a yellowish glow on the rumpled sheets and the crying woman on the bed, turning the dark brown cover into a shade of black. Khristine made not a sound as she stared up at the moon, hugging the journal tight to her, wondering absently if Rayne was looking at the same sight as she was, wondering if her lover felt like her heart had been torn asunder like her own.

"Come back. I don't care what's going to happen? just come back." Her whisper was so faint that it never reached the corners of the empty room that she was in.

On the roof of the house, right over Khristine's head, a drop of blood fell and splashed onto the shingles as a pair of silver eyes closed at the words of her beloved. Khristine never did hear the sound of footsteps on her roof over the deafening silence, didn't see the black shadow that leaped off onto the gravel driveway and disappeared into the night.