It burned. It felt like my skin was melting off. I clutched it, trying to wipe the feeling away. Eventually, I lost consciousness.
***
I woke up in my bed. I looked down at my arm. I was still pale, but I had grown a little darker. I sat up.
"Easy there, Julius." Emily was sitting on my bed. She put her hand where my heart should've been and pushed me back down.
Her hand lingered there, and then I realized my heart was pounding. I gasped and looked at her. I sat up again. This time, she didn't fight me.
"You did it," she said, giving me the sunshine smile.
I caught her hand in mine and pulled her into my arms. "Do you know what this means?"
"It means you're human again," she answered, returning the hug. "It means you can go on with your life."
"It means I can have you," I said, kissing her.
Emily pulled away, more like pushed me away. "What?" Her eyebrows came together. "Julius, I'm marrying Keegan. We've set the date."
"But I'm human now," I said. "We can be together. We can get married and have children and grow old together."
Emily leaned away from me, pity filling her eyes. "Julius..."
"That's why I went through all this trouble, Emily. For you. So I can have you. I love you. I wasn't about to lose you to a leprechaun."
"He's not a leprechaun," she replied. We'd had that talk so many times it was an automatic answer. Apparently she wouldn't reply to the other more important thing I'd said.
Emily got off the bed and left. Somehow, living without a soul wasn't nearly as empty as how I'd felt at that moment.
I lay there for a while, trying to enjoy the feel of a living body again. I breathed. I could see the veins in my hands. I got up and went into the kitchen. My stomach growled.
I smiled to myself, enjoying the sensation, perverse as it seemed.
My stomach growled again. Food had tasted like ashes while I was a vampire. How would food taste then?
I left my room and looked in the cabinet.
"No, Julius," I heard Emily say behind me. "I'll cook. Sit down."
She pretended like the conversation in my room never happened. She talked about her day and her patients. She didn't bring up Keegan.
She had that too-cheery thing about her again. I sighed, making a decision. "I should probably be looking for an apartment."
She looked at me, finally. "You can carry on the rent after I'm gone."
I wanted to be gone from there. If I couldn't have her, I didn't want to see her.
***
I moved in with Kirk. He gained his soul and mortality back shortly after I gained mine. He didn't ask why I needed to move away from Emily. I was glad because that meant I didn't have to make a total fool of myself by explaining.
Kirk and I met up with Emily and Keegan at the grocery store.
"This is my new roommate." I'm sure any hope of Keegan believing I wasn't gay disappeared when I introduced Kirk. I fancied myself looking somewhat like Antonio Banderas in his best years, and Kirk was still Hamlet to me, and we were grocery shopping together. I doubted I would think we were straight had I seen us.
"You instilled some good values in Emily, Julius," Keegan said. "She won't go anywhere at night. I like that. Makes me feel a lot better."
I smiled.
"We're getting married at Keegan's church on the seventeenth," Emily said quietly. "At noon."
Kirk elbowed me. I understood and smiled. "Thank you, Em."
She gave me the fake sunshine smile. An idiot would've seen how sad she was. I wondered why, and a part of me hoped she missed me.
***
The morning of the wedding dawned bright. I rented a tuxedo and headed off, getting a good luck from Kirk. I decided to surprise Emily, hoping it went better than the last surprise. I highly doubted she had found someone to replace me. If she had, I would sit on her side of the seats and suck up my losses like a man.
When I arrived at the church, nobody was there. No decorations. No gifts. No food. I went to the priest.
"Wasn't there supposed to be a wedding today?" I asked. "Of Keegan Seamus and Emily Kendall?"
The priest gave me a look. "Miss Kendall canceled the wedding two or three weeks ago."
I couldn't believe it. "They're not getting married?"
"That's what Keegan told me last mass."
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I opened them again, trying to understand what I'd just been told "Thank you, sir."
I hailed a cab and took it across town to Emily's apartment. I didn't even bother changing out of my tux.
I knocked on the door, feeling stupid. If she wasn't getting married today, she was probably at work.
But she answered the door, giving me a surprised look. "Julius, you—"
"I went to your wedding, only to find out it was canceled," I said.
She opened her door wider and let me in. She was still in her pajamas.
"I couldn't go through with it," she said as she shut the door. "I couldn't bring myself to tell Keegan you kissed me. Then, I couldn't bring myself to marry him without telling him. Everybody was going to get hurt, I thought it would be better if I just cut my losses and ran. The less damage, the better."
"You're not working today?" I asked. Dumb question, as she obviously wasn't, unless she took her usual late shift.
"No," she answered, shaking her head. "I had taken the next two weeks off for our wedding and honeymoon. I'm going back to work tomorrow, though. I decided not to go in today, though. I wanted to think."
Shame filled me. It was because of me that she had doubted about marrying Keegan. She could've been married to a great guy and starting on the next chapter of her life.
"I really messed things up, didn't I?" I asked. I was good at asking dumb questions that morning.
"You think?" Emily asked. It was the first time I'd ever seen her use sarcasm. Then her shoulders slumped. "Do you know what kind of position you put me in? Here was Keegan, who is a great man and wonderful choice for any woman. But then here's my best friend who became mortal, for me. So we could be together."
I closed my eyes, thinking of something, anything, to say. "I'm sorry, Emily. I'm so sorry."
She made a pointed look at the tuxedo. "You really went?"
I nodded.
"Oh, Julius." She touched my arm, and then hugged me. "You're so sweet."
I didn't let go right away. That was where she belonged, with me.
When she finally pulled away, she smiled up at me. "You really would've given me away? Or were you secretly planning to ruin the wedding?"
"I wanted you to be happy," I said. "I was ready to give you away."
"That was, um, well... That was very big of you."
I felt a bit of hope. I gave her my best well-trained-sexy-Spaniard bow. I even dredged up the accent I hadn't used since I had come to America. I didn’t ask to move back in. I didn't ask if I even had a chance. I didn't have forever anymore. I just had now. I decided to start at the beginning. "Since you're not getting married today, would you come to lunch with me? " I gave her a small smile. "I'll wait for you to change if you don't want to go in the pajamas."
She gave me the sunshine smile. "Yes."
###
About the Author
J. C. Verdin is a college student, currently majoring in Culinary Arts. Her life's been a blur since she started reading as a hobby when she was twelve years old. She's a Goodreads junkie. "My Fair Donor" is her first published story.
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