Morning Light

Venice. It was the place I spent of my time actually. It was beautiful and full of surprises. There were so many vampires, but they seemed to live in harmony. Yeah, every now and then a human went missing, but it didn’t happen often. I spent months there, like four or five. It was my favorite place in the world.

It had so many beautiful buildings. It was like a huge museum. I went all the historic places and museums for the first month I was their. I never grew tired of it. It was all so intriguing. The people were great. They were humorous, at least to me. Their language was beautiful. The only language I knew was Latin, and they didn’t speak that any more.

The hotel I stayed at made a lot of money off of me. Good thing my father was rich. I would go out of the city to get cash. I would go to the northern most part of Italy to get money out of the account, just in case they were looking for me. They would have to search all over Italy for me. I hated not seeing them, but this was better for all of us, especially after what I did.

I made some new friends. A neighborhood girl named Isabella showed me all over Venice and taught me the language. Her brother, Miguel, helped. Another young man called P.T. Why? I have no idea. Then P.T.’s cousin Harmony hung out with me all the time. She was the younger sister I never had. She was a two years younger than me, but she was great. We spent a lot of our time together.

“Hey, you want to go to the flee market today?” Harmony asked as she pranced into my room.

“Sure let me get dressed and blow dry my hair,” I answered from the bathroom. I was coloring my hair dark brown. I was trying to look like I belonged here. I was even getting a tan. I could pass as part Italian now. Ha!

I grabbed a pair of jeans, an orange tank, and a shawl like skirt. I quickly finished blow drying my hair, if by quickly I mean twenty minutes later after already spending fifteen minutes blow drying it before Harmony got here. I got dressed and walked out the bathroom. I almost walked out the room without shoes until Harmony said something.

“Um…no shoes?” she asked.

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” I laughed. I looked under the bed to grab a comfortable pair of very worn out flats. “Ready?” I asked.

“Yep.” she walked out the room. I followed behind.

We walked the streets of Venice, wandering from little shop to little shop. We picked up some really awesome clothes, fresh fruits and vegetables, and cool trinkets. We stopped in front of a henna shop and debated if we wanted a tattoo. I was for it, so we did it. They came out really awesome. I got one on my wrist on my right wrist, and a crescent moon and star on the left one. The right one was a bunch of swirls and lines; it was exquisite.

We ambled all day. I held all the bags, and there were a lot of bags. They were really light, to me anyway. Harmony would bug me about holding some, but the truth is that the girl is so weak though. I moved effortlessly through the crowd on the streets. Harmony would look at me, astonished.

“How can you move look like?” she asked multiple times.

“Trust me, Christmas sales at the mall prepares you well for this,” I would joke. It wasn’t like I could tell her the truth. ‘Oh, it’s because I’m vampire, that’s all. Oh, well, only half technically.’ Yeah, that would be splendid.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” she would reply.

I would just smile back at her and walk ahead. I never grew tired of it, but she did quit asking after a while. We talked sometimes, but otherwise stayed quiet. It wasn’t awkward not to say anything. Harmony grew tired as shadows of the evening started to cover the streets. I was becoming more energized. I had never been out at night in the city; everyone went home around this time to eat with their families.

“We should start heading back, Lynn,” Harmony complained.

“Why?”

“It’s getting late,” she answered.

“Just because the sun is setting doesn’t make it late. It’s only six, Harm,” I reasoned. “One more hour, please.”

She breathed in deeply but said, “Fine.”

I smiled at her and walked on. In that one hour I spent three hundred dollars on things that I found were amazing. It was all useful things, kind of. They were things I could wear or art. Maybe I could send some of these things to everyone back home. I couldn’t do that because then they’ll know where I was. I shook my head as I though this. I missed them so much, and I can’t even send them a token to let them know I was safe. I suddenly really wanted to go back to the hotel.

“Come on, Harm, let’s go,” I mumbled.

“Finally,” she sighed, oblivious to my heart ache.

We were maybe thirty minutes away from the hotel. We walked slowly even though Harmony was in a rush to get home. She would say something about her mother killing her or something, but I would just mutter a sorry. She didn’t realize that my less charismatic self wasn’t from my feeling bad for keeping her out so late.

“It’s okay. My mom isn’t actually going to kill me. I was just joking,” she said as we walked back.

“I know,” I said and ruffled her hair.

“I’m not a kid, geesh,” she joked as she fixed her hair.

I smiled at her. We were almost there. Something in her thoughts stopped me. I turn around to find her twenty feet back, staring at the most gorgeous guy on the planet. Sadly, it wasn’t Edward. I didn’t know anybody could more handsome than him actually, but this man just broke my theory. Pf course, Harmony was infatuated with him by the first look. I walked over to her and tried to drag her, but she wouldn’t budge. I wasn’t going to use my full strength; I would rip her entire arm off. I looked at this man to find him just smiling at her reaction. I sighed. I would have to walk over there and ask him to please stop dazzling my friend.

I walked quickly over there after leaving all my baggage with Harmony, who was still staring at the man. I stepped in front of him, blocking his view. “Hi there. How ya’ doing? Good. That’s great. Now, can you either walk over to her and say hello, so she can squeal and run away. Or just walk off, so she’ll feel discouraged and continue walking with me.”

“And if I don’t?” he asked. His voice was like velvet chocolate.

“I’ll have to hurt you, so you’ll feel discourage because you got beat up by a girl,” I answered, being quite serious.

He thought I was joking and chuckled. It was a beautiful laugh too. “How about I ask you to dinner instead?”

“Tempting, but I don’t think so. That would just hurt her more.” And it was oh so tempting, but I kept my cool.

“I’ll just have to keep asking until temptation takes over then,” he said seriously.

He could have me if he wanted- NO! Get hold of yourself! “That might take a while. You might not live that long.” I walked off.

“Wait! What is your name?” he called out to me as I walked over to Harmony.

“Come on, Harmony,” I shoved.

“But, Lynn, -” she started.

“Shh, walk.” She had to say my name I turned around to find him still looking at me. He mouthed ‘Good-bye, Lynn.’ Stupid vampires and their supersonic hearing.