The Poison in Your Blood

The next morning I wake up in my bed alone. I don’t know how I feel about it, because we didn’t go to bed on the best of terms. We were fighting and arguing and it led to a round of really rough sex that left me exhausted, but it didn’t seem like we were really made up yet. So now I’m in this room and its cold and I’m feeling like it’s going to be a hard day.

I smell food cooking so I get out of bed and find my shorts and tank top and I make my way down the stairs, hoping there is coffee to go with breakfast. My hips and legs are so sore I am having a hard time not groaning each time I step down. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said really rough.

Madison is sitting at the breakfast bar and Anna is in the kitchen frying bacon and pancakes. She’s dressed in some Nightmare before Christmas pajama pants and a black ribbed tank top so her bright red hair is standing out pretty brightly. Josh is sitting next to Madison. I make my way into the kitchen, trying to look totally normal, and pour myself a cup of coffee.

“Rough night?” Anna asks as she turns a pancake.

I look at her with narrow eyes and my lips pressed tightly together. She could have pretended like she didn’t notice my hobbling. I mean I know I’m a mess but I’m not that obvious I don’t think. “It wasn’t so bad,” I say and take a sip of my coffee. “Have you seen Austin?”

“He left really early,” she says. “I was up because I had to pee, and he said he had to get some air or something and he’s been gone since then. It was probably around 6 am.”

I glance at the microwave clock and see that it’s 9:30 am now, so he’s been gone for three and a half hours. Long time to go out and get some air. Maybe he needed to feed. I nod and take another sip of coffee. She plates two pancakes and a couple bacon strips for Josh and then another for Madison. She reloads the griddle with bacon and pancakes for us.

Madison seems like she’s still pretty uncomfortable with last night’s revelation but at least she isn’t running away or anything. It occurs to me that my car is still at the club and I need to pick it up. Fuck I need Austin to come home.

We all eat in silence for a little while. It’s kind of an awkward silence and I have a feeling some of our fighting might have been heard by everybody. Hopefully not too many important details were let out, and then you know there was the violent sex. It was pretty loud.

I notice Anna is looking me over very closely as she chews on a strip of bacon. It’s bothering me. “What?” I ask. “Do I have a pimple?”

“No,” she says.

“Am I growing another head?” I ask then with irritation.

She frowns. “Can we talk in private?” she asks. Well this can’t be good.

“Sure,” I say and stand up. “You two are fine?” I ask Madison and Josh. They both give me a nod and I leave the room with Annalise.

We go out into the living room and she looks me over again with concern. “What happened last night?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I say. “We had a fight and we made up,” I add.

“You have bruises,” she says.

“Well, the making up was a little rough,” I say and shrug.

“Lana, you have hand shaped bruises on your arms and throat…that doesn’t seem normal to me,” she says. “I mean, I don’t know what kind of kinky shit you do, but it just doesn’t seem right.”

I frown and look in the mirror I bought for the living room. Sure enough I have finger shaped bruises on the side of my throat. I close my eyes and try and remember last night. I remember a couple times thinking he was hurting me, but I didn’t complain because for the most part it was pretty pleasurable. I never really thought I’d end up looking like a battered wife.

“It’s not a big deal,” I say. “We got a little crazy, some day you’ll experience angry sex.” I give a little shrug to make it seem like less than it is. But the look on her face says she clearly isn’t buying it.

“I just have this feeling like whatever was going on last night wasn’t just angry sex, but dangerous sex,” she says.

“If it was dangerous I’d tell you, I promise,” I say. But her words are there ringing in my head. Like maybe there is some truth to what she’s saying. I reach my arms out and give her a hug to make it seem like I’m really okay. My whole body is starting to feel sore and I’m tired. But I don’t let on while she hugs me back.

The front door opens and Austin comes in. I make eye contact with him and he scans my body as Anna pulls out of our hug. He hasn’t cleaned up yet and I have to look away from him because it’s making my stomach turn.

“We need to talk,” I say to him.

“I’m going to shower,” he says. I don’t protest and he’s up the stairs before I have much of a chance to say anything. Probably better that way since Josh is still here and he’s the only one that doesn’t know the truth.

“I’m going to go and clean up the breakfast dishes,” Anna says.

I give her a little nod. “Okay,” I say. “Tell Madison I’ll take her home in a few minutes.”

“Oh don’t worry about it. Josh is going to take us both to her house. I wanted to go and see Zoe,” she says.

Well this is interesting to me. I find it kind of odd that Madison is perfectly willing to get into a car with a 17 year old boy she’s met like three times. But I guess after you get in a car with a vampire you’re game for anything.

“Oh,” I say. “Well I guess I better say goodbye then,” I say and I go into the kitchen. Madison is finishing a cup of coffee. She looks tired.

“Hey babe,” I say. “Anna said you’re gonna go with Josh?”

“Yea, Anna wants to come and see her puppy,” she says in a cheerful voice. “And it kind of seems like maybe you could use some privacy with your man.” She gives me a quick once over.

“Yea,” I say uncomfortably. I hug her tightly then and I’m so happy when she hugs me back.

“Be careful, Lana,” she whispers in my ear.

“It will work out,” I say. We pull apart and I wait for the three of them to get ready and walk them to the front door. I watch Josh pull his car away from the curb and I sigh before I close the door and head back into the house. I work my way up the stairs, feeling like my legs might fall off and I go into our bedroom.

Austin is sitting on the edge of the bed in a towel when I walk in. It seems like he’s only been out of the shower for a few minutes and he’s just shaved. He looks up when I walk into the room and then he looks down at the ground.

“What’s going on?” I ask. I don’t think I want to waste a lot of time on small talk. I don’t care how he’s doing today, I want to know what the hell is going on between us and why all of the sudden we seem to have hit a fucking wall.

“Lana,” he says and sighs.

“I don’t understand why you are suddenly so closed off? We were doing great,” I say.

“I told you last night,” he says. “This isn’t good, and this isn’t okay. And you don’t seem to understand.”

“There is nothing to understand, Austin! I know you are upset that Madison found out, but honestly she was going to find out eventually. We are getting married. In a few years she’d wonder why you never got any older.”

“This isn’t a joke, or a fucking game, Lana!” he snaps.

“Whoa! Why are you yelling at me again!? I thought we got this figured out last night!”

“You haven’t gotten anything figured out! You just act like it’s perfectly acceptable that all these people know. This isn’t going to work,” he says.

There is that spear through the chest feeling again. “What isn’t going to work?”

“This! You and Me, it can’t work,” he says.

“It was working fine!” I protest, though I can feel tears filling my eyes. “It was all just fucking fine! It’s only recently that you’ve started doubting us!”

“Lana! Look at you! You are covered in bruises, your friend is probably traumatized and it’s a fucking miracle your sister won’t need therapy for the rest of her life! Why do you insist on putting yourself and everybody you love in this kind of…?”

“Don’t,” I say. “Don’t say I’m putting anybody in danger. I’m fucking sick to death of hearing that! This isn’t my fault! None of it is my fault, so stop acting like it is!”

“Fuck me, I never should have brought you home that night,” he says and goes into the closet.

I’m caught somewhere between really hurt and really pissed off so against my better judgment I follow him. He’s half dressed already and looking through his stuff for a shirt. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means I’d be a lot better off if I’d have stayed the hell away from you,” he says. “I’d have saved myself all kinds of trouble.”

“Christ,” I say. The tears are spilling out of my eyes. “You don’t think it would have saved me some fucking trouble too!? You think when I agreed to keep seeing you early on it was with the idea that my boyfriend would be a fucking vampire!?”

“You’re such a victim, Lana,” he snaps.

I shove him then as hard as I can. I manage to get him slammed into the wall behind him, probably only because I caught him off guard, but I could care less. The idea that he was being such a fucking jackass makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something.

“Maybe you should take a fucking Midol before you start calling other people victims,” I snap. “I’ve had it up to my fucking ears, Austin! It is not my fault you are in this situation. It is not my fault, it is not my friend’s fault, nor is it Annalise’s fault! So stop acting like a dick and get it together!”

“See, this is why it can’t work. I don’t know what it is with women,” he says. “Somebody says the slightest little fucking thing to you and you are crying and name calling and shit. Look at this from my perspective for a change! See where I’m coming from!”

“I would if you had made any valid points! But explain to me how my being in your life made you freak the fuck out last night!? Explain to me how I made you threaten my best friend! Because I would so have you hurt the person that has been there for me through everything I’ve ever gone through! Explain to me how my being in your life made you tear Fred’s throat out?! It has nothing to do with me!”

“It has everything to do with you! Everybody involved in all of those scenarios was linked to you!”

“But never once did I tell you to lose your temper and kill somebody! Never once did I tell you to lose control on yourself!”

“Why am I bothering to talk to you about it, Lana? You aren’t going to see that you are wrong. I don’t understand how it is that women assume they are always fucking right about everything.”

Fuck I’m so pissed off I could tear his throat out myself. As it is I slap him, much like I did last night. “I’m not just some fucking stupid woman, Austin. I’m a person with feelings and thoughts and I’m the one who is being logical here. You are the one being a chauvinistic douche bag. I have given you everything! I’ve literally let you take blood out of my body so you could be okay! I moved in here, I’ve given you my entire life! And yet you are acting like all I’ve done is fuck you up. But maybe you are right. Maybe this can’t work,” I say. I pull off my engagement ring. “Because I can’t spend my life with somebody who can’t take responsibility for his own actions. I refuse to spend my time on a man who is so set on making everything he does my fault. You’re 33 years old, fucking act like it,” I say and throw the ring at him.

I storm out of the room then and I curse myself when I realize I still haven’t gone to pick up my car. I end up in the kitchen bawling until my eyes are swollen and I throw a coffee cup against the wall. It shatters and the pieces fall to the floor and spread out over the floor.

I sit on the floor against the cupboards and pull my knees up to my chest. I sit there for a long time, with my arms wrapped around my knees and my head down, sobbing uncontrollable. I don’t know if I’m more upset about the breakup or about not being able to get the hell out of his house.

I know I could call Madison and she’d come and get me. But I don’t think I can get through explaining what happened when I know she’s already so skeptical. She would never bring it up in the middle of it, she knows when I need a little bit of space. But she’d be thinking it and I don’t think I can handle that right now.

Piggy comes and lies next to me, his warm soft fur pressed against my thigh, and I immediately lift his very fat self into my lap. “Oh Piggy,” I cry and stroke him. He starts purring. “What are we going to do? I don’t even have a place to live now. I have to find a place for myself and Annalise, and I haven’t even got a good job.”

Piggy rubs his big head against my chin and licks the tip of my nose with his weird scratchy cat tongue. As strange as it feels it’s terribly comforting and I think for a second maybe it will be better for me to just give up on men all together and live in an apartment with my cat. I can probably stay with Madison until I find a better paying job and get an apartment for me and Anna. So far I’ve had nothing but shitty luck with men, human or otherwise.

Except that isn’t true. This relationship had a lot of promise. He really loved me and I felt like this was the person I truly and honestly belonged with. It’s only been a couple of months but I’m already more emotionally involved with him than I think I ever have been with a man, even Jon, and I loved Jon as whole heartedly as I thought I possibly could.

Finally after sitting on the kitchen floor crying and suffocating my cat for a good hour I get up and clean up the broken coffee cup. I focus all of my attention in making sure every splinter of glass is found and disposed of so that nobody gets any stuck in their foot. Unfortunately that only takes about five minutes and I’m back to nothing.

I hear a car pull up in the driveway and I’m a little uncomfortable. I wasn’t expecting any kind of company and I doubt Anna is done visiting with her dog already. I stand perfectly still in the kitchen for a minute and listen as a car door closes and then all of the sudden the front door opens and Austin comes in. He makes eye contact with me and then he’s standing in front of me. He drops my keys into my hand and he’s gone. I never even knew he left, but it looks like he’s brought back my car.

I look at the keys and it occurs to me that I opened my mouth to say something to him but he disappeared so fast that I didn’t have a chance to let a sound out. This sends a pain into my chest. I wish I understood why he was so upset with me. Well, I mean to begin with. Now, after I told him to stop behaving like a child I could see why he might be upset.

I haul myself up the stairs and go into our…his bedroom and look around. The mirror on the closet door is shattered and I don’t know how I feel about that. I try and ignore it as I go into the closet and pull on a pair of jeans and a bra under my wife beater. I find a suitcase and start packing some of my clothes. Either way I’ve got to get away from here for a little while. I have to figure out how I’m going to handle this whole thing crashing around me over night.

I think back to yesterday for a second. We’d been perfectly fine in the morning, lying together comfortably, talking, even laughing. Everything was fine up until the incident at the club and now suddenly he’s ready to break up our relationship and leave me.

He appears in the door way of the closet as I’m coming out with an arm full of clothes and my heart starts beating faster in my chest. I try and ignore him and I push past him and go to the suitcase and drop the clothes in. When I turn around he’s right behind me. I wish he wasn’t so fast, it makes it hard to get away from him.

“Lana,” he says.

“Don’t,” I say.

“You don’t have to leave, Lana,” he says.

“I do.”

“You don’t have anywhere to go, I wouldn’t feel right if you left with Anna and had nowhere to go.”

“We can stay with Madison,” I say, feeling hurt all over again. It isn’t him apologizing or telling me he wants to work it out. It’s him trying to ease his guilty fucking conscience and let me live here until I can find a better place.

“I’d really rather you stay here,” he says.

I walk past him and start back to the closet. He beats me there and blocks the door. This is pissing me off. Why can’t he just let me leave? A couple hours ago he was all about letting me leave, and now he won’t get the fuck out of my way.

“Austin, please,” I say in as calm a voice as I can manage. Tears are starting to line my eyes again and I’m at the edge of a full breakdown.

“I can leave if you don’t want to be around me. But don’t leave, don’t force Anna out of another house.”

“Fucking really!? Now, after you told me three times this relationship can’t work, you don’t want me to leave!? You are playing the guilt card and making me the bad guy for pulling Anna out of another home?”

“I don’t want to fight anymore, Lana,” he says.

“I can’t stay here,” I say and look down. I wipe my eyes with my fingers and take a breath through my nose. “I can’t stay here and be surrounded by a relationship I wanted so bad but couldn’t have.”

I shove past him and get the last of my clothes and take them and shove them into the suit case. On the dresser the vase he gave me with the flowers on Valentine’s Day is staring at me. My hand feels naked without my engagement ring. Everything feels so strange and surreal.

I start to walk out of the room with the suitcase when he grabs my arm. He grabs me so quickly and harshly that it hurts and I pull away instinctively while letting out a little yelp. “That hurt!” I cry.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It wasn’t supposed to.”

“Please, Austin, just let me go,” I say after a moment of tense silence. “I need some time to think, and if we can work it out I need you to see that this isn’t on me.” I start to walk away again and this time he doesn’t grab hold of me, but to no surprise of mine he’s waiting for me at the front door.

I look down at the floor for a couple of minutes and then he puts his hands on my hips and pulls me towards him. I feel tears in my eyes again and I want nothing more than to pull out of his grip and run away.

“Lana,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “But I can’t live my life always being blamed for things that have nothing to do with me. You are always mad at the wrong person, and I’m sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry you have this problem, but I didn’t do it. I’m not the vampire, I’m not the one with the curse.”

“I love you,” he says.

“This is one of those times when love isn’t enough,” I say. “I love you, believe me when I say that. But just because I love you doesn’t mean I can live here and let you yell at me and make me feel bad every time you lose control on this…this animal,” I say. I take a breath and I put my arms around his waist. “I hope so much you can see what I’m saying, and I’ll be waiting on your call. I want us to work, because I love you so much. But I don’t know how we can with this problem standing in the way.”

“I’m asking you not to leave,” he says.

“I’m asking for you to understand that this isn’t my fault and to apologize. Can you do that?” I ask. The long drawn out pause serves as an answer and I choke on my tears a little. “Okay then,” I say. “If you ever feel like you can, you know where I’ll be.” I stretch up then and I press my mouth against his and finally I walk out the door with my suitcase and Piggy in his carrier. There is a slight sting of pain when he doesn’t follow me.