Feeling proud of myself, I contained the satisfied growl that I wanted to make. I also saved half the drink. Having several more hours of sitting in a room with Clarice, I was pretty sure I'd need a pick-me-up later. Especially when her last comment to me before lunch had been to ask if I'd had all my shots for the rest of the year, like I was a dog or something.
Feeling full and warmed from the liquid in my belly, I nearly skipped back to my office. Excited to tell someone that I'd pulled it off, I texted Teren. 'That was so incredibly amazing! I should have been doing this ages ago. I'm so satisfied right now...'
His response was quick, as usual. 'Stop...you're turning me on.'
Giggling in my joy, my phone beeped at me before I could type back. 'I'm glad you got something to eat. I was a little worried.'
Shaking my head, I reassured him that I was great and that I loved him very much.
By the end of the week, I felt like I'd successfully adjusted to the undead life. Eventually the newness of being deceased wore off, and I truly began to enjoy how alive the world was to me. Colors, sounds, textures, everything was more distinct, clearer. It was like Teren had said once, the senses seemed to swap around with each other. I could hear color in music, I could feel silkiness in sound. It was something unexplainable that only other vampires understood. It was a world I wished I could have shared with my family, but it wasn't a fate I'd wish on them. The constant worry, the never-ending charade. There were sacrifices to being what I was...like dealing with people eating food all the time.
I'd never realized how much eating and drinking is a part of our society until I'd been taken out of the part. It seemed like nearly everything humans did, centered around food somehow. Movies equaled popcorn. Baseball games equaled beer and hotdogs. Even walking through the park involved a stop at the churros stand. It was everywhere. It churned my stomach at first, the sight and smell of so much food, but after awhile the reaction faded. It was like watching people eat dog food. I had to forcefully make myself not cringe.
And I had to come up with ways to not eat myself. Being a girl, I had the "I'm on a diet" thing going for me, and it worked for most places where food wasn't the main attraction. But going out to eat was something else entirely. I avoided it with my friends, but my family and I still got together once a week for meals.
Thankfully I didn't have to hide from them, but the staff had known me for years and brought me my Panini sandwich without me even asking. I discretely gave pieces to my kids and made my sister eat the rest. Because she was the most awesome person in the world, she did, doggy bagging the half of her own meal that she couldn't finish.
While Teren's excuse that he was severely allergic had worked well enough for him that he could sit with nothing and our longtime waitress left him alone, I couldn't exactly develop the same rare problem that he'd suddenly developed. That would have just been weird. So with my family's help, I got through our weekly meals with a sham.
On the third week of faking it, my mom sighed and set her fork down. "This is ridiculous. Half of the table isn't eating?" She indicated where Teren and I were sitting, watching everyone else eat.
I shook my head, holding Teren's hand under the table. "It's fine, Mom. We'll eat later." Since I really didn't want her to think about how we ate, I usually left that topic pretty vague. Mom didn't ask about it either.
"Well, we could do something else when we all get together, something everyone would enjoy?" She tilted her head, looking between Teren, me, Ashley and the twins.
Nika grinned when Mom's eyes swept over her, a chunk of my sandwich hanging out of her mouth. Mom smiled, but then frowned when she looked back at me. "You guys shouldn't have to be bored, just sitting there."
I laughed, leaning into Teren's side. "We're not, Mom. We're here for the conversation...if not the food."
Mom shook her head, picking up her fork again. "Alright, well, if it's okay with you guys, who am I to complain, I guess?"
My sister giggled as she ate my sandwich for me. Glancing over at her, I could see creases in her scars that hadn't been there a few months ago, or maybe my poor form of vision before just hadn't noticed them. Either way, I noticed them now, and smiled at what they were - laugh lines. Crinkles of happiness. The skin so used to the act of smiling that the body had permanently etched the shape of that joy into her young skin. I instantly wondered what the source of her joy was.
Pulling apart the last remaining segments of the meal I didn't eat with my fingers, I tilted my head at her. "Ash?" She looked from Mom to me, her face curious. "What have you been up to lately, Sis?"
She flushed a little as she looked around the table. "Nothing much," she muttered, digging back into the food with a gusto.
Raising an eyebrow, I leaned in "Really? Because I know you're holding something back, I can smell it." I couldn't really, but Ash didn't know that. Her eyes widened as she looked me up and down.
Teren chuckled beside me, shaking his head. Ashley's eyes went to his face, then back to mine. "You cannot, Emma. " She rolled her eyes while I frowned at my fib-busting husband. He shrugged, laughing harder.
Sulking at him destroying my ploy, I dropped his fingers, playing with my meal scraps with both hands. Rolling up a piece of my bread, I handed it to Julian. "Then what's going on? Really?"
Mom looked over at her, eyes curious now too. Ashley looked between us, then sighed. "Okay, but you can't say anything." I smiled and nodded; secrets were sort of my specialty.
Looking around, Ashley leaned in. "Some of the doctors that I know have been doing a lot of work with cultured skin." I gave her a blank look and she smiled. "Skin that's been grown in a lab. Anyway, they've been letting me assist them in my free time, and I just watched them successfully grow skin with hair follicles." Her eyes widened as her face lit up. "It had sebaceous glands and everything! Do you know what that means, Emma?"
I shook my head. "Not really. They grew hairy skin? It sounds kind of creepy."
My sister giggled and shook her head. "It means that they could potentially do skin graphs for patients on areas of the body that grow hair." She pointed to her bare head, as if to emphasize what had just been made startlingly clear to me. "Baldness, burns, cancer? It's a breakthrough."
Growing skin in labs had been too new of a thing to help Ashley, but she'd told me once before that it was being practiced more and more as the science was perfected. Since her accident, numerous patients had avoided having healthy skin sliced off their own bodies and painfully relocated to cover damaged areas. Ashley had had more than a few of those kinds of surgeries. Now she was telling me that they were on the cusp of graphs that could help patients regain their natural head of hair. My eyes watered at just the thought.
Ashley's did too. "Can you imagine what this could do for people? The normalcy, the hope?" Her eyes got dangerously close to overflowing as her smile widened as far as it could go.
My mom threw an arm around her as Teren placed his hand over hers. They each offered support and praise but my senses focused on my sister. Everything about her defied the odds. Her living through the blaze that took our father. Her fighting through the painful battle of recovery. Her ability to ignore the taunts and jabs directed her way, to be able to walk proudly in her own skin. Her desire to turn her setbacks into inspiration, to help others like herself. And even now, hearing of a treatment that could potentially help her too one day, her first thought was how it could help others. Once again, I wanted to be my sister when I grew up.
Sniffling, I could only nod, amazed beyond words.
I was still thinking of my sister's revelation the next day. Sipping my bathroom beverage, trying to ignore the toilet flushing going on around me, I contemplated what her life could be like if her mentors were successful. Having a full set of hair wouldn't make her completely normal looking, but it would cut back the instant stares she received. If just that small thing could be changed, she, and others like her, wouldn't be the instant elephant in the room. Something everyone notices, but most try to ignore talking about.
I wanted that for her, but I'd come to realize that my sister wanted life on her own terms, and hiding her disfigurement had never been something she'd desired. If it were just a matter of hiding herself, she'd have purchased a wig years ago. But she hadn't. While gracious and patient with most people, she sort of had an 'I'm here, deal with it,' approach. Sort of like Halina actually, just on a much, much nicer level.
Teren was all smiles when he greeted me in our driveway when I got home. I felt the lingering joy of our connection completing as he squeezed me into a hug, but I didn't think that was really the cause of his smile. Pulling back to look over his features, I tilted my head. "Something up? Besides being happy to see me?"
Nodding, he pulled my hand. "I have a surprise for you."
Now I was grinning ear to ear. Teren's surprises were usually pretty good. Simultaneously greeting our pet and children, as all three greeted me at the door, I looked around for a big box with a shiny bow or something. Not seeing anything, I frowned.
Teren laughed at my face and started tugging on my hand to get me to follow him, but two excited little bodies were holding me in place. Jumping up and down, they were both animatedly repeating, "It's quiet, Mommy!"
Scrunching my brows at them, I glanced up at Teren. Sighing, he pointed up to our room. "Secret's out, I guess. Gabriel was here, he finished the room."
I blinked at and then smiled. Our sex room was complete. Okay, that wasn't entirely the reason for the soundproofing but still, it was definitely a perk. Teren grinned at seeing my response, then successfully yanked me away from the kids.
All of us laughing a little, we walked upstairs and to the end of the hall, where our bedroom was. Running past us, Julian and Nika darted into the room and started screeching at the top of their lungs. It was loud, I cringed. Then Teren closed the door.
I blinked at it, disbelieving. I couldn't hear them, not a peep. I knew they were still making as much noise as they could, but even whispering, I should have been able to hear them. It was a little disorienting.
Teren opened the door after a second, the sound of screaming instantly filling my ears. Giggling, the twins took turns being the noisemaker and the door shutter. As the sound of Nika yelling her ABCs shifted in and out of my mind while Julian opened and closed the door, I turned to stare at Teren. "Wow, that really is amazing."
Nodding, he pointed to the seal around the door. It was different than before and even though I could hear it swishing across the carpet with each opening and shutting, no sound came past it once it was locked into place. "He installed the seals and changed the insulation in the walls." Chuckling, he added, "He even added several layers of Kevlar, so we're bulletproof now."
I smiled at him; we were already bulletproof.
Shaking my head as I stepped into the room with Julian, who had taken Nika's place as noise maker, I looked around. Everything was picture perfect, just as I'd left it this morning. You'd never know that the walls had been torn up and replaced. The toxic smell of paint was sharp to my sensitive nose, but really, that was the only clue that anything had happened in this room today.