This is the end. I'm going now. And I wish you all a very fond...
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The night was yellow.
I kicked her door. Or I kicked a door that I assumed was her door.
“Come in,” she said, her voice mildly scratched; I decided she had been crying.
I turned the doorknob in my sweaty hand, wanting to apologize to its shininess for being such a pathetic human being -- or, more precisely, not a vampire. But as soon as I saw her I forgot the doorknob and closed the door behind me. Her bed was a pale green and the walls were not bare and ugly like mine; she had papered them with newspaper. The window was closed, and the bed opposite hers was white, empty, and looked welcoming, so I threw myself upon it.
“Why are you in my room?” she asked calmly, rubbing her glossy eyes, still bright with tears. I thought she should be angry, or frightened, or at least deeply affronted; but she just stared at me, her legs crossed beneath her in a childish way.
“I wasn’t sure if it was your room,” I said impulsively, knowing that such an answer would probably not help my cause.
“Now are you sure?”
“Not entirely. But I don’t think it matters now.”
“Did it matter before?” she said into her hands; I almost supposed she was laughing.
“Are you laughing?” I said, not as irritated as I sounded. “And I’m not a vampire, by the way. But I promise to go insane if you want. I really do.”
“Can I tell you something?” she said, still much too calm. It was worse that she ignored my absurd proposal.
“Sure.” I sighed and stuffed my head into the pillow.
“I’m kind of afraid that you’re going to kill me.”
This was not working. “Were you crying before I --”
“You see,” she interrupted, but in a way that made me feel like I hadn’t spoken. “You see, I really had something to tell you, but I’ve forgotten it now. And I think something bad will happen if you stay, and I’m sure all of your assumptions concerning me are entirely wrong. Even if you aren’t a vampire. Can I see your hand again?”
Too perplexed to respond with words, I got up and gave her my hand. I could tell now that she had been crying. Her eyelashes were clumped together and there were little red spots around her eyes. It was good because it meant she wasn’t wearing her glasses.
“Could you please make sense?” I said a little weakly as she examined my hand. It hurt.
“It’s not healing all that fast,” she said finally, letting it go. I was still kneeling in front of her though, and I didn’t want to move.
“Can you be in love with me, please?”
There was a short silence where she smiled, and then she broke the silence by laughing into her freckled hand. It was a genuine sort of laugh, and I had to smile too.
“Of course I can’t, silly,” she said, still laughing. “Okay, you’re not a vampire, but you’re also not Ares Heinrich in his first year of college. You’re not the guy whose parents are getting married again for the third time, to each other, and you’re not the guy who fell in love with his skateboard two years ago, and you’re definitely not the guy that I would fall in love with if I could. But you do make me laugh.” And she laughed again, this time to the ceiling, leaving her hand on her knee where it looked lonely.
I wasn’t that surprised that she had caught me. In fact, I knew I hadn’t really tried to prevent her from doing such a thing.
“I didn’t kill Ares, though,” I said, standing up and doing the most dramatic thing I could think of: looking out the window.
“You didn’t?” She sounded authentic in her curiosity. I wished she were afraid.
“No. He looked so much like me that I couldn’t bring myself to do it.” And then I turned around. “But I might kill you. You’re right. I could. You look nothing like me.” Fear looked different on her than the other people.
“You might,” she said, her voice shaking as she got to her feet, standing on the bed like an incongruous statue of stupidity. “But first tell me what you are, and how. Please.”
“No, I won’t,” I sighed, turning away again. Of course I wouldn’t kill her. That would accomplish nothing. But I also didn’t want to tell her that I was nothing more than a con-artist with a knack for magic tricks. I didn’t want to tell her that all her fantasies about me being fantastical were not true. Of course I also didn’t know that my knack for magic tricks was just vaguely more than a knack for magic tricks. No one had ever bothered telling me that I was one of the only ones who actually meant magic tricks when I said magic tricks. Which doesn’t seem fair.
“But that isn’t fair!” she yelled suddenly, jumping off the bed with a vague crash. “After all this being in love with me crap I definitely deserve to know who’s in love with me and what the hell they if they aren’t a vampire!”
I wanted to tell her that she was using the pronoun “they” incorrectly, but I thought it might be bad timing. Honestly, though, I didn’t want to tell her all the truth. If I could even remember what that was. It would ruin all the romance of being someone else and falling in love with someone who thought you were a vampire. Plus she probably wouldn’t believe me if I just told I had decided to steal someone’s identity and go to college. It wasn’t plausible; no one did that. Ever.
“Fine. I’m a vampire,” I said suddenly, turning around and facing her. She backed away, startled. “And I drink blood, and never tell jokes, and always -- nevermind, it’s not even that funny. I’m just bored of all this figuring out stuff. Let’s go back to the part of the story where you haven’t figured out I’m not Ares Heinrich.” I cleared my throat. “Hello, Petra, nice to meet you. My name is --”
“Shut up,” she said dismally, sitting back down on the bed and putting her forehead in her hands. “I don’t fall in love with con-artists. In fact, I don’t fall in love at all. Go back to --”
“Wait, so you don’t think I’m a vampire anymore?” This suddenly seemed like something that would solve all my problems.
“I don’t think you’re a person,” she said acidly.
“Can I do a magic trick for you?” I paused. “I’m really good.”
She looked up, her eyes a shade of brown I did not recognize. Pushing her hair away from her high forehead, she nodded, and then leaned against the wall and stared at me. I had not expected her to be so compliant, and I was starting to think I had forgotten I was in love with her. So, before I proceeded with my astonishing tricks of splendid variety, I said, “I love you.” And she smiled.
Glancing around the room, I found a broken pencil and the contents of a half-empty bag of chips. People liked it when I fixed broken things more than when I changed things into other things, so I decided to do both as opposed to finding out she hated the one I did but would have loved the one I didn’t do. My head started to hurt.
Putting the pencil in my outstretched palm, I searched its soul for its other half, hoping it wasn’t that far off; it was under the bed -- good. Then I put my other hand on top of it (the hand with the gaping hole in it) and called the other half of the pencil back with a sharp whistle. Removing my hand, there was the broken pencil, no longer broken, happy as a clam. Petra’s eyes grew large, and then narrowed, flitting around the room like it might be on fire.
Before she could speak, and I was sure she would say something stupid like they always do, I tossed her the pencil and then held up a finger. Wait. Then I grabbed the bag of chips and held them behind me while I multiplied them. After sealing the bag, I dropped it at my feet and kicked it in her direction; it landed in her lap. She just stared at me. I bowed. She continued to stare.
“You did magic,” she finally said. “Magic exists.” She paused. “Magic exists.” And then she was quiet. I was a little too stunned at first to speak. What was the big deal? Plenty of people did magic, and no one denied that it existed. She was just being ridiculous.
“Can I ask why this surprises you?”
“How long have you been a con-man?” she suddenly asked, shaking off the alarm that my magic had produced.
“I don’t know,” I said impatiently, throwing myself back onto the empty bed. “Eighth grade? Second grade? Something like that.”
“Where are your parents?”
I laughed, rubbing my mouth and then shoving my face into the pillow. “Where are yours, sweetie? Under your bed? Who has parents, anyway?”
“I have parents,” she said, sounding a little hurt. “And I guess you don’t.”
“No, I do,” I said, looking at her with some amount of unoriginal consternation. “And they are getting married again --”
“Oh, shut up,” she muttered, and I began to laugh a little more hysterically. After a good three and a half minutes, I quit the laughing and gazed at her crumpled figure. What the hell was I doing? Why did I always get myself into these stupid situations? Always telling myself that my existence was not capable of interfering with other peoples’ existences, and always finding such a things entirely impossible and absurd. I could see myself in her eyes now: a kid with no purpose, no rules, no heart. How did the picture of me color the rest of her mind? I wanted to see.
“Sorry,” I said finally. “You really think I’m a bastard, don’t you?”
She nodded. The fever in my mind -- maybe the fever that had been the remnants of Ares Heinrich -- had dissipated, it had left me. I felt like the kid who throws himself in front of a train for a thrill, and then laughs about it for an hour and a half before collapsing into tears that he can’t stop.
“I am. Like really.” And then I yawned, the corners of my mind getting frightened of themselves. I could tell I was going to tell some kind of truth that I might regret. I could tell that I was too crazy to do anything good or sensible. And I was sincerely sorry about it.
Luckily, before the chance arose for me to be the kid who almost gets hit by a train, someone knocked on the door.
“Will you get under the bed?” asked Petra, all resignation and fatigue. I nodded and slid under the bed, tempting myself to fall asleep. Then she opened the door.
“Hello, Professor,” she said. Professor Lame?
“I’m sorry to bother you so late” -- it was only eight o’clock -- “but I am searching for information on an Ares Heinrich and I saw you talking to him earlier, so I thought you might --”
Definitely Professor Lame. Spying on pretty girls and then making up reasons to come to their dorm rooms late at night. Not like me at all. Of course it was possible that the police had figured me out again and that I would need to run, but it wasn‘t all that possible.
“You mean the vampire?” she interrupted.
Professor Lame regarded Petra with a mild sort of alarm, almost like he expected her to transform into some kind of strange animal at any minute, but felt thoroughly prepared to deal with such a thing. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he said finally.
“Ares Heinrich. He’s a vampire, didn’t you know?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t.”
She didn’t still think I was a vampire. So she clearly had some other motive.
“Well, what do you want to know about him?” she asked pertly, apparently not appreciating the fact that something so obvious as a vampire had escaped his notice.
“What happened to his hand?”
The abrupt way in which he asked this suggested that it had not been what he had wanted to ask at all, but was rather just an arbitrary question that might get her to tell something that she possibly would not want to tell.
“I stabbed him with a letter opener,” she said calmly.
“Why?”
“To prove he was a -- You know what? never mind it. Anyone could have told you that. Is there anything else…”
“Indeed there is,” he said, a little uncomfortably. “Has he ever… contradicted himself in regards to his family history? For instance, told you he had a sister named Constance, and then later spoke of his only brother Anthony?”
“Has he a sister named Constance?”
I suppressed a snicker of glee.
“No. That was just an --”
“Yes, yes. But I am sorry to say I have not encountered any of the inconsistencies you speak of. Of course he can do real magic, but you wouldn’t be interested in that.” I could tell she was smiling, and that she knew Professor Lame had already decided she was batty.
“No, I don’t suppose I would. Well, thank you very much dear. Enjoy your weekend.” And with that lame farewell, he closed the door softly behind him.
Well, it was now clear that someone thought they had discovered me. I wondered what that meant.
“I’m disappointed that it took me longer to figure you out than it took him,” she said, almost to herself, even though she seemed to address me. I was hesitant to climb from under the bed.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I said in my most melodramatic tones. Of course, being under the bed, my voice was muffled and the effect wasted.
“I wonder where Ares Heinrich is right now.”
“Hopefully in heaven,” I said, drawing in the dust with a dirty finger.
“But you said you didn’t kill him.”
I wondered why she didn’t sound outraged. “I didn’t. But he got killed, nonetheless.”
“Who killed him?”
“Nancy,” I said; “but only after Sykes had gotten the better of --”
“Oh, shut up. Of course you won’t tell me.” There was a short silence where I watched her feet swing over the side of the bed without any rhythm to speak of. “You can come out from under the bed if you want,” she said, not a little sulkily. But I didn’t really want to vacate my now comfortable position under the bed, so I continued to draw in the dust, attempting to make plans for my escape, and every time being dissatisfied with their exclusion of Petra. Not that I couldn’t take her with me. But I didn’t want to take her with me, I wanted to stay with her. I had not just fallen in love with her; I had fallen in love with her sultry, nerdy college life, and the way the buildings always made her stand out like a manikin in a crowd of corpses.
“How did they find me out?” I said angrily, brushing away the drawing I had done of a doll with pins coming out of her eyes.
“I suppose they went to Ares Heinrich’s funeral,” she said sarcastically.
“Even if he would have had one they wouldn’t have gone, you ridiculous thing. You see, I took his soul when he died, so it was easy to go home and tell his parents that I had crashed the car and that I was sorry but I had to leave in the morning for orientation. They barely heard a word I said. As soon as I was done they started gushing about their plans for the wedding and such. I doubt I even needed his stupid soul to fool them. If they wouldn’t have been so self-centered I bet they would have noticed how --”
“How do you take someone’s soul?” she asked, a bored complacency in her voice.
I should have left the soul-taking part out. I ignored her question and rolled onto my back, staring at the rusty springs that held her.
“How did you do those magic tricks?” she asked again. Or maybe she hadn’t asked it before, but her astonishment had served. I wondered why no one else had ever responded to my tricks in such a way. Perhaps because they had all been sure I was a fake, like most magicians, and so they had not been looking for the truth.
Not knowing how I put pencils back together and made chips reappear, I did not respond. One of the springs looked vaguely like the curls always piled on her head, and I wondered if they would serve the same purpose. Or if her curls could get rusty the way these ones could. I bet I could make them if I wanted.
“Should we fall in love now?” I asked, beginning to drag myself out from under the bed.
“Stop saying stupid things,” she sighed, moving her feet so I could escape the rusty springs and too much room for drawing in the dust.
“You have imagined that I’m the good guy,” I said, leaning against the wall under the window, “that’s why you aren’t afraid me.”
“How did you know?” she said, looking pleased. “But you’re half wrong. Because I haven’t imagined it, I’ve found it out.”
“And how have you done that?” I said, not hiding my contemptuous amusement.
“I looked at you,” she said simply, and then she looked away, not finding my contemptuous amusement good to look at.
“If you were the only one who knew I was a faker, would I kill you?”
“No.” She didn’t even hesitate. But she was right. My purpose would not be served by killing her. Assuming I had a purpose. Which was really quite a useless assumption, especially if you considered the fact that even my purposes had no purpose, and even the motives guided by my purpose did not know who they were. It all got very convoluted once you got down to it. Which is why I avoided contemplating it when at all possible.
“I could do something worse than kill you,” I said under my breath.
“Sure,” she said, pulling her feet up off the floor and crossing her legs again.
“You should tell me to leave. I’m not being respectful.”
“Leave,” she said.
“No.” And I laughed, feeling overwhelmed by the fact that I still had not decided to run, or how, or where. “I’m really a good guy,” I told myself. “The worst thing I’ve ever done is steal and cheat. Ares was half-dead when I found him. It was all pure luck that I found him at all. Or maybe it was magic. But not everyone can do magic. Some people pretend to, and I can always tell, but I didn’t know that normal people had forgotten that some of the stupid kids can actually defy all those silly laws they made up in school. I just thought they ignored us because we got in the way of their equations. Of course I’m sort of jumping ahead here, since all you did was stare at me with your mouth open, which could have meant any number of things, but once I put some other odd things together with that, it seems to all make sense.”
I was only stalling. I had no reason to be talking to myself like that, especially when someone else was listening to me talk to myself. It was all thoroughly reprehensible.
“Professor MacMorgan didn’t believe me,” she said.
“Yeah, why did you tell him I was a vampire when you know I’m not?”
She shrugged. We both fell silent.
The wall was scratched in such a way that made me think of people too idiotic to realize that doors have doorknobs, and I couldn’t help but notice that someone had stuck a sticker too high up for a small person like Petra to reach. It said, “She’s hot” in orange letters, and I knew it wasn’t talking about Petra. She wasn’t hot. So I assumed that her roommate was, or that someone who had lived there before was. The thought of this mysterious “hot” person bored me.
“Why do you like me?” she suddenly asked. “I mean, if you cut your hair, you would be almost --”
“Attractive,” I muttered.
“Sort of. And I’m just a nerd who thinks you’re a vampire.”
“Thought. Past tense.” Of course she was just being stupid. If she stopped wearing boys clothes and hiding her face with books and glasses, I wouldn’t be the only guy in her room on a Friday night. But I couldn’t tell her this. It would ruin all the fun. “Yeah, you’re pretty ugly,” I said. And then I laughed. “I can’t help loving someone who stabs me in the hand to prove I am something that I’m not. And it made me laugh really hard that day you broke that graduated cylinder in chemistry and threw the pieces at me because I hadn’t read the instructions correctly. You wouldn’t be my lab partner after that.”
She sort of smiled. “I remember that. And I’m glad that you’re not a vampire. I’m glad that you’re just a stupid con-man who can do real magic and who didn’t kill poor Ares Heinrich.”
“I’m kind of glad,” I offered. “We should be friends.”
“Maybe.”
“I bet I don’t have to run,” I said to myself. “I bet Professor Lame just has some stupid scholarly suspicion that I’m not who I say I am. Because it really doesn’t make sense that anyone could possibly find a hole in my story. I mean, I have his fucking soul, what else can they ask for?” She just looked at me. “In other words, I think I’ll give it a little more time. I can’t leave you all alone here, anyway. It just wouldn’t be right.”
“You should teach me how to do real magic.”
“But you’re a math major,” I said, getting slowly to my feet.
“Magic is mathematical,” she said, not really looking at me.
“Does that mean you’ll stop stabbing me when we hang out?”
She just smiled.
