Learning to Fall

Anderson? Anderson was my mom’s maiden name. I know I was an only child. I was so confused. I started flipping through the photo album and realized that I had never seen this album before. As I flipped through it, I started to see people I had never seen before or well, didn’t recognize as being I hadn’t seen them since I was four.

I saw other pictures of me and Sara together playing. There was one that frightened me. It had my mom, me, Sara, and a man with piercing eyes with a woman beside him. My dad wasn’t in this picture so I assumed he was the one who had taken it.

I flipped over the picture to see mom had scratched out some names but I was still able to read them. The names scratched out said Uncle Jonathon Anderson and Jane Anderson which had to be his wife. So Sara was my cousin. Uncle Jonathon looked dead up like my mother. Could they have been twins and why hasn’t anyone in my family ever mentioned him before? Maybe there is a reason that this album was kept hidden.

I put the thought and image of the picture aside and made me some food. I then grabbed my laptop and started researching anything I could find on my uncle. Since my own parents weren’t here to tell me about him and most of my close family had moved away, I had myself to rely on for finding out any information. I must have been searching for information for a long time for I had fallen asleep on my bed with my laptop still on.

I awoke feeling like someone was watching me. I sat up in bed looking around my room. My alarm clock beside my bed read that it was four a.m.

I started to feel cold. I looked down and turned my laptop off but as I did I noticed my picture of me and Sara was gone where I had sat it beside me earlier. I carefully got up and grabbed my robe off a chair in my room and put it on.

I walked out of my room looking around. I usually kept on a few lights in the house but not many. I made it to my living room and stopped by the front door inspecting it. It was locked tight. I sighed until I remembered something that Martin had once told me.

“I can’t trust myself around you.” These words echoed in my head. What is the cardinal rule for staying safe from vampires? It is to never invite one in. I did. I invited Martin in and now he had free reign to come and go as he pleased. But why now and why tonight if he was so upset at me from earlier? Why would he take the picture of me and Sara?

I didn’t like this secretive Martin. I felt so safe and protected by him but now, just by an invasion of privacy he has me scared. Why wouldn’t Martin have just called to tell me he wanted to come over?

I reached for my neck to find there was no bite marks. That didn’t mean anything. I know he wanted to the night I invited him in. I know Martin has told me in the past to stay away from him but there was something drawing me to him. There was something more then just Sara.