Sun Damage (The Sunshine Series) (40 page)

I looked back to them. “What do we need to do?”

Myles shifts, breaking my concentration. My eyes open again and he’s staring right into me, the blue of his irises reflecting every bit of light in the room. “You don’t have to show me what they did,” he says, his voice hoarse. “Just tell me.”

I take my hand from his face and he holds it in his lap.

“Evan had some blood bags in the drawer,” I say, but I have to pause before continuing. “He filled one with Michael’s blood for you--which he kept safe until I came back--and one with my blood for Ava, so she’d be okay until after--”

“After you’re done with me?” Myles cuts me off. “For when I’ve killed you once again and you’ve come back from the dead so each of them can kill you as well.” It’s not a question.

“You’re mad.”

He squeezes his eyes shut. “You don’t need to cure me,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Not right now,” I whisper. “But you’re infected, Myles. I know how it feels.”

He opens his eyes again, nodding to himself. “You’re okay with this?” His voice is just above a whisper, but it’s strained. “Being passed around and killed like it’s nothing?”

“Don’t get upset,” I say, not knowing what else to do.

Myles stares at the bag of Michael’s blood. “Why?” he asks. “Why now, when everything is okay?”

I didn’t want to wait this long. I wanted time to have a semi-normal life with Myles. Buy a house, live together, have my career. That’s one of the reasons I told him to stay home when we left for tour. I wanted to be distracted from what I had to do. I wanted to forget that I was meant to save everyone.

Then I realized that I was doing what I had always done when things scared me: running away. I couldn’t run forever. I would never get back to normal if I didn’t deal with the aspects of my life that made it abnormal.

“Because one day it won’t be,” I say. “One day...you’ll b
e in the same position I was in and I don’t want it to happen to you.”

“That’s a long time from now,” he says.
“Years and years.”

“But it’s going to happen.” I squeeze his hand. “Why won’t you let me prevent it?”

We stare at each other for a long time. The answer to our problems is now sitting between us on the floor. “If we do this,” he whispers, his cool breath tickling my nose. “If we do this and it
works
,” he corrects. “You’ll still be a vampire, but I’ll be…”

“Human.”

He nods.

“That’s okay,” I tell him. “You can always be turned again, right?”

He lets out a tiny laugh and the way it leaves him tells me that he doesn’t find anything funny. “If I’m ever human again, I don’t think I’ll be able to...go back to this.”

I smile because I know. He’ll
better at being human than I ever was. He would never turn again, even if it meant being with me forever. “That’s okay too.”

Myles shakes his head. “If I’m human, I’ll die,” he says. “The same as if I didn’t kill you. Either way, I’ll die.”

I bring his face closer to mine. “I know.” The thought of losing him chokes off my voice, but the thought of saving him brings it back. “We’ll have a long time together, though. And you’ll be happy and healthy and we’ll be okay.”

He laughs again
and this time, there’s a little humor behind it. “How can you be so sure about all of this?”  

“When people die, they don’t really go away,” I tell him. “I’ll still be able to see you.”

“It’s not the same.”

“No,” I agree. “But it’s worth it.” I glance down at the bag. “I want you to have a normal life. Everyone deserves that.”

There is the longest time that passes between us.

“I’m scared,” he says softly,
as if just realizing it himself.

I wrap an arm around his back, pushing the blood bag aside and bringing his body closer. Now there’s nothing between us. “What are you afraid of?” I whisper into his ear, too scared that if I ask the question out loud, he’ll retreat and keep it a secret.

His head rests against my collarbone. Our mark. “What if I’m not good at it?”

I can’t help laughing softly.
He may be scared of killing me or that this may not work, but what he’s most afraid of is being normal. Go figure. “Are you a perfect vampire?” I ask. “Do you do everything right no matter what, never making any mistakes?”

He laughs too. “No, of course not,” he says. “I just try the best I can.”

“That’s all you have to do,” I say, suddenly aware that I am the one leading Myles back to the shore. I am the one who will bring him back. “No one’s good at being human,” I say, shrugging. “But you still try because that’s what you have to do.”

He seems to take that in and he doesn’t say anything else for a little while. I let him have his contemplation. This is probably the biggest decision he’s ever had to make in his life–making it shorter, becoming human, getting what he’s always wanted.

“No one’s ever done this before,” he finally decides on saying. “What if something goes wrong?” The grip he has around my waist tightens slightly.

“We’ll be okay.” I smile. “Every question you have, I’ve thought about a million times.” I kiss his forehead. “And I still want to do it.”

I smile, knowing that he’ll be happier as a human. Once his lungs start contracting and expanding with oxygen, once his heart begins beating in steady, rhythmic patterns, he’ll be who he’s always wanted to be.

I catch myself thinking for about the millionth time how I love him. That I can barely remember what it was like before him, and I can’t see a future without him fitting into it somewhere. Of course now our future together will now be cut short, but this is a gift only I’m capable of giving. A sacrifice only I can make. Small, considering what we both had to go through in order to reach this point.

Myles straightens himself out. “You’ll help me?” he asks. “You’ll show me how?”

I hug him now, wrapping myself around him, wanting to be closer.
So much closer. “I’ll show you how to be human,” I say. “The best that I know how, which isn’t that good.” I laugh. “I honestly think I make a better vampire.”

He strokes the back of my head with his hand. “Vampire or human, it doesn’t matter what you are to me,” he says, giving voice to my exact thoughts.
“As long as you’re still you.”

“Exactly,” I tell him. I gesture to the bag. “So are you going to take the damn thing or not?”

He laughs the littlest bit, curling his fingers gently around the plastic. “Are you sure you’ll still want me?” he asks, half-joking.

I wrap my arms around him again. “Forever,” I tell him.
“Forever and ever.”

When we separate, he takes my hand until we’re both standing.

“I want to show you something first,” he says, leading me toward the painting, still holding onto the blood bag, but he places it gently on his work table.

“Close your eyes,” he says before we’re in front of the other side of the canvas.

I listen to him with my eyes shut as he moves the easel closer to me and I also hear the way his heart is jumping excitedly in his chest. I start to think about all of the sounds I’ll hear from him when he’s human again. His heart and breath. How both of them will speed up when he’s scared or excited. How both of them will slow down when I’m there to hold him.

“Okay,” he says, right next to me. “You can open them now.”

The figure I once saw by herself is now in an illuminated space, light still emanating from her chest, pushing all of the other colors outward until they fade into a dark night. Behind me is my piano, lit up the same as my painted face.

“I see you like this all the time now,” he says. “Not just when you play.”

My fingers trace the edge of the frame, just in case the paint is still wet. “Happy birthday,” he says into my ear, hugging me from behind. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” I say. “Thank you.”

We stare at it together for a long time, picking out each detail of every color.

“Does it get hard?” Myles asks. “I mean, outside forces will always make it harder, but...” he seems to be searching for the right way to word things.
 “Is just being
alive
hard? Harder than being undead?” He laughs a little, noting the absurdity of the question.

“Yeah,” I say.
“All the time.” I bury my head against his chest, listening to that cold, out of tune sound. I think I’m really going to miss it but I know that even this isn’t him. It’s just a part, one small piece that can be made new again. “But nothing
has
to be hard,” I say, because it took dying twice to finally figure all of that out. “It’s easy when you don’t worry about trying to be anything.”

Myles’ hand trails up and down my spine before placing it on the side of my head. It starts to tingle there and the bitters
weet realization occurs to me: he won’t ever touch me this way again. He won’t see me the way he sees me in the painting ever again.

From now on
when he touches me, he’ll be warm all the time without having to drink blood. When he touches me once he’s human, it’ll be different. But it’ll still be him. He’ll still be here, no matter what form he takes.

My monsters will always be with me, no matter how many years I’m alive or how many times I try to cover them up, push them out, or destroy them. Myles will have his too, hanging in the back of his mind and waiting to come out when he least expects. That’s how monsters work. They always hide in the places you’ve already checked.

But together, we can beat them.

“Sophie?” Myles whispers into my ear, just as I’ve become lost.

“Hmm?” I can’t even keep my eyes open now.

What I expect him to say is that he’s afraid. That maybe he’s changed his mind. Wh
at he does tell me surprises me even though it probably shouldn’t anymore. “I love you.”

From the tone of his voice, I can tell he’s trying to hold back tears. I’m too distracted to see if they’re because he’s happy or terrified, but I think it’s probably both.

“I love you too, Myles.” For some reason, it’s hard to keep my own tears from struggling their way out from beneath my closed eyelids.

We kiss, cool lips against cold skin, and Myles sinks his teeth into my chest.

The world around us may be complicated, scary, and even evil sometimes. But when we’re locked together, it all fades away into one mass of color. I float into a sea of timelessness, looking for the waves that took me under when he turned me the first time, knowing that when I return from swimming, I’ll be here with Myles on the shore and we’ll anchor each other.

The End