"So orientation went well?" Mom asked cheerfully as we got inside the car. "How should we celebrate? A movie? Dinner out?"
I bet she'd stop smiling if I told her I'd killed a man.
"I want to go home."
The reflection from the snow hurt my eyes. I shielded my face with one hand.
Once Mom drove through the gates she cleared her throat and asked how it had gone.
"We're not supposed to talk about it, remember?" I hadn't meant to sound so rude, but I wasn't about to apologize either.
"Oh," Mom said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to break any rules."
I snorted.
"How long have I been away?"
Mom's eyes darted sideways then back to the road. "You don't know..." She stopped herself. "I dropped you off yesterday morning."
"Didn't Dad wonder where I was all night?"
"I told him you were spending the night with Denise."
"Denise is in Girdwood." Having a real holiday at the ski lodge.
Mom leaned forward into the steering wheel. "So, that's it for orientation? You're done?"
Yeah, I was done all right. Now I could get onto the training and killing.
I wished my mom would just shut up and drive.
"Yep, I get to spend the next semester being a normal teenage girl."
"That's great, honey."
My sarcasm really wasn't getting through to anyone.
Mom put her blinker on as she approached our neighborhood. Our street still needed plowing, which meant the car had to do the work of pushing through snow. She clicked open the garage door and pulled in. As soon as she turned off the car, Mom turned to me and said, "Tomorrow's New Year's Eve. I think everything will be better once we put this year behind us."
Great, another holiday.
I unclicked my seatbelt. "Wow, a new year."
Mom followed me from the garage into the living room.
"New leaf. New me. I feel some resolutions coming on," I said. "I resolve to break the sixth commandment." I stomped over the linoleum floor between the dining room and kitchen, calling out my resolutions.
"I resolve to live out the rest of my life in this godforsaken state. I resolve to get drunk for the first time. I resolve to finally kiss a boy. No, scratch that. I resolve to lose my virginity!"
Mom's face turned red. "Aurora, stop it."
"Stop what?"
"This isn't you."
"You're right. This isn't me." I turned on my heel and stormed up the stairs to my room, slamming the door behind me. The bang echoed through the walls. I ripped open my top desk drawer and threw a legal pad onto the surface with a thwack.
Aurora's Resolutions
I pressed my pen into the notepad so hard it indented the pages five sheets back.
kill first vampire
get drunk
kiss a boy
lose virginity
I stared at the list then leaned forward and crossed out kill first vampire.
Everything else should be a piece of cake.
I stuffed the notepad back inside the desk drawer then moved onto my dresser and began digging through my scarf drawer, dumping them onto the floor.
One scarf in particular caught my attention.
I snatched the red one out of the tangle of fabric and locked myself inside the bathroom. For a long time I stood in front of the mirror using my peripheral vision to check out the figure reflected in the glass. Whenever I tried to look at her, she was covered in blood and scars.
I focused on the bandage instead and peeled it off slowly. There were teeth marks in my neck rimmed in purple, blue, and red. I dabbed at it with a wad of tissue paper then threw out the bandage.
I wrapped the soft red scarf around my neck and remained in my room until Mom called me down to dinner.
"What's with the scarf?" Dad asked, knife and fork poised several inches off the table on either side of his plate.
"Don't you like it?"
"Why do you have it on inside the house?"
"'Cause I feel like it."
Dad's eyes narrowed a fraction, probably at the snide pitch in my voice. He turned to Mom. "So are you coming to the party tomorrow or not?"
Mom chewed on her lip before answering. "I don't know if I should leave Aurora alone..."
I stabbed a piece of broccoli. "I'm eighteen. Of course you can leave me alone."
"With everything that's happened - " Mom said to Dad as though I'd never spoken.
"It's not like I'm going anywhere. Don't drive anymore, remember? Don't have friends, either. You two should go enjoy yourselves. I promise not to burn down the house."
"That's enough!" Dad said. "I'm not sure I like this new attitude of yours."
I turned to my mom. "Maybe the agents replaced my brain as well and I've inherited someone else's attitude."
"What are you talking about?" Dad asked.
"I'm staying home," Mom said.
"Fine, do whatever you want." The legs on Dad's chair scraped against the floor as he pushed back. He went into the living room, where he turned on the news.
"Aurora," Mom said.
I folded my arms over my chest and waited for the rest, but that was it. Just my name. Mom started down at her plate, tears glazing her eyes.
Aw, hell.
I slipped into the chair beside her. "Look, I know I've been a pain in the neck lately..." I stopped and laughed.
Mom didn't so much as crack a smile.
"Anyway, you should go to the party with Dad. I'll be fine. Promise. I could use a little time to myself."
"I don't think I'll go."
"Why not?"
Mom shook her head. "I don't know anyone at those parties."
"You know Dad."
"Everyone knows your father, and they'll all want to talk to him."
"So go for the free food and drinks."
"I don't know."
"Go."
"I guess I could go. I do every year."
"Right. They'll be expecting you."
As far as attending Dad's holiday function, Mom dragged her heels, literally, right up to the last minute when she shuffled across the carpet in her black pumps. She ended up taking a separate vehicle. Fine, whatever made her more comfortable.
As soon as the garage door closed, I headed down to the wine cellar.
Time to start on the list of resolutions and numero uno was: Get Drunk. It was New Year's Eve, after all. After years of disuse, Dad had converted part of the downstairs into his beloved wine cellar; a walk-in oak enclosure much like a sauna, only this one was cool with long bottles laid across wood planks, mostly reds. At the far corner was a small selection of champagne. I grabbed a bottle of Moet - what the celebs drank during the Oscars.
I set the bottle on the kitchen table and removed the foil around the cork. After the first attempt to twist the metal cap off failed, I studied the cork. How did I get this thing off? Weren't they supposed to pop off on their own? I grabbed the bottle by the neck and pointed it at the wall. I'd already lost a heart, kidney, and lung - I didn't want to add an eye to the list. I pushed my thumb against the cork. It didn't budge. I pushed harder and the cork shot out, hit the wall, and thunked to the floor.
I giggled. "Whoo-ee!"
Foam bubbled up the bottle's neck and spilled over the edges like one of those erupting volcanoes kids made with baking soda and vinegar for the fourth grade science fair. I leaned forward and sucked in a mouthful of foam.
I lifted the bottle in the air. "Happy New Year!"
So I was early. It was midnight somewhere in the world. It was nearly midnight in Massachusetts.
I walked around from room to room drinking straight from the bottle. I paused in front of the framed photos in the family room. I took another swig. "Happy New Year, Dad. Happy New Year, Mom."
I walked upstairs, turned my stereo on, and danced, bottle in hand. I bowed to my dresser. "So this is where the hottest party of the year is being held. Who knew?"
I drank and danced. I used the bottle as a microphone and discarded it when it was empty. There was more downstairs, but the cellar was a long way down, and I was feeling lightheaded. Bed was looking good, but it wasn't even midnight yet.
Finally I collapsed on top of the blankets. I hadn't fallen asleep so heavily since the accident. The moment my head hit the pillow, I was gone. Sweet oblivion until I woke sometime in the middle of the night. My room was shrouded in darkness. I knew I'd left the light on before falling asleep.
What concerned me more was I could hear breathing that wasn't my own.
Two sick yellow eyes glowed from a twisted face. He wore the same dirty flannel shirt. I sat up in bed. "What are you doing here? I killed you."
He grinned and approached slowly.
My hands trembled above the covers. "I'm warning you. Get out of here. You're not real." I covered my head in my hands and rocked myself. "You're not real." I squeezed my eyes shut. When I reopened them his teeth were affixed to my neck. I screamed. I began flailing against the covers all the while screaming to a shattering pitch. "You're not real!"
"Aurora! Aurora, wake up." My mother shook me.
Didn't she get it? I was awake. I'd always been awake. I slapped at her and resumed the fetal position, face in my knees and arms covering my head.
"My God, what's wrong with her?"
There was an edge to my father's voice. I didn't have to look at him to know his jaw bones were clenched around his chin. I listened from the safety of my tight enclosure.
"It's just a nightmare."
"It's more than that. She hasn't been right since the accident."
"We have to give her time, Bill. Bill?"
My parents' voices moved out of my room. They crossed the hall into the master suite, fainter now.
"Bill, what are you doing?"
"I'm packing a bag."
"Where are you going?"
"Somewhere I can get a decent night's sleep."
I smiled inside my cocoon, not because I thought it was funny, not because I was glad, but because I couldn't help it. People reacted so predictably under pressure. Running was the easiest course of action. If only I could run away too.
My father's footsteps moved in a flurry around the room down the hall. It wasn't until he'd zipped his bag that my mother attempted to appeal to him one last time. "Bill, please don't go."
He didn't answer. His feet pounded down the stairs. I heard him grab his set of keys from the hall table. He started his car in the garage just below my bedroom. The garage door went up, and the car pulled out with a roar then took off down the street.
I heard my mother walk inside my room. "Your father needed some time alone," she said weakly.
I kept my head planted in my knees.
Mom rubbed my back. "My poor girl. You need to get better. This needs to stop."
I lifted my head. "Don't you get it? This is who I am now. You signed the contract. It can never be undone."
"You don't have to act this way. We can go back to the way things were. You're just not trying hard enough." She looked at me with pleading eyes.
I sighed. "Get some rest, Mom. I'll try not to bother you with any more of my demonic dreams."
As predicted, my mother didn't ask for details about the aforementioned dreams. She kissed my forehead and shuffled into the empty bed that awaited her. I lay back and stared at the ceiling. I shut my eyes, but he was there looking at me again. He would always be looking at me. No matter what he'd been, I'd killed him. I was a murderer.