Are You Sure This Is My Life We Are Talking About?

“Oh Sara, you’re so grown up, going to college now! You’ll love it.” Another one of my 40-something year old cousins told me. I heard the same thing from every one of them. It was either ‘you’ll have so much fun, this is good for you’ or ‘I can’t believe you’re leaving, it seems like you’re too young.’ I was going crazy.

“Yeah, I’m sure I will. It’s a great opportunity and I plan to make the most of it.” This was my mini speech that I said to everyone who told me I was going to love it. I had heard the lecture of ‘don’t have too much fun now, this is a big deal’ and ‘don’t waste it’ so many times now, I had made a line to cut off the speech so I wouldn’t have to hear it again.
“I’m sure you will.”

Insert phony smile here. I thought. I smiled and looked around, hoping to find an escape. Thankfully my mom came to my rescue, hugging me hard.

“Alex and Tara are here, they just walked in,” my mom said, sniffling and drying under her eyes with a tissue.

I walked toward the back door of the house as they were walking out. I used to hang out with Alex and Tara every now and then. They were both nice people, though we all had our differences, and would sometimes get into arguments. I had known them both for a while now, which was why they had been invited to my going away party.

Alex was a cool person to be around, when he wasn't in a mood, but Tara could be down right crazy sometimes. Overall, there wasn't much to miss, espcially when leaving would keep me with my own gorgeous vampire.

“Hey guys!” I said, giving hugs.

“Hi, Ohmygod! I can’t believe you’re leaving, it’s so sad, I’m going to miss you so much!” Tara exclaimed.

Of course you’ll miss me. Especially since we never talk anymore and never had anything in common anyways. I internally rolled my eyes at her. “I know! I’m gonna miss you guys.”

“It’s not like we can’t still talk you know.” Alex said, his deep voice rumbling.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Take a lot of pictures of where you are going and make sure to put them on your myspace or facebook or something, ok?” Tara said.

“Of course,” I said smoothly, wondering if I could do that.

“Cousin!!” I heard yelled at me, the high pitched squealy voice only being able to belong to my favorite cousin, Rachel.

“Cousin!” I exclaimed black, accepting her hug happily. If it was one thing I would truly miss leaving America it would be my mom and Rachel. My mom knew what was in my future though, Rachel didn’t, and couldn’t, unless I could get Dante` to give me permission.

“You can’t leave! What am I going to do without you?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you!” I told her. Thinking about it put tears in my eyes for the first time. Standing there, holding each other, we silently sobbed to each other. I pulled back after a moment, “I’ll be right back, ok?” I said, brushing my tears away.

She nodded, fixing her own makeup.

I walked into the house, locking myself in my bedroom and dialing Dante’s number.

“How is the party?” He answered on the fourth ring.

“Boring. I need to ask you something.” I sniffled my tears back, and wiped at my nose.

“What’s wrong?” Concern in his voice.

“My cousin. I don’t want to leave her behind. We talk about everything and I can’t tell her anything anymore, nothing about my life. I can’t do that Dante`! I can’t.”

He sighed. “Hang on a minute, ok?” He was silent for a few minutes, I could hear him mumbling to himself in a different language, maybe Romanian, I thought to myself.

“Ok, I’m going to drive over to your place, I’ll park where you can’t see my car and I’ll walk in front of your place. I’ll text you when I park. Bring your cousin out in the front of your house then and let me get a sense of her. The vampirism was on both sides of your family. It could be that enough went into her DNA to make her ready to change too.”
“Really? But, what if she doesn’t want to?”

“Remember how you felt beforehand? Like you were missing something, unfulfilled? If she has enough in her bloodstream, she feels the same way. I wouldn’t change her myself, you know how personal it is, but I have older brothers that would. She can go under the pretense of visiting you in England, and undergo the change. She would have to wait a year or so until she could move and we can come up with a good cover story for her, but it could work out very nicely. She could feed like I did, with blood bags, and we have a large vampire community she can date within until she finds her mate, if she is vampire.”

“Ok, get off the phone and drive over here already!” I said, my mind racing with the possibilities of it.

Dante` chuckled at me but hung up and did as he was told. As a good fiancé should. I thought, giggling.