Chapter 1: The Glow

I remember. We were sitting at one of the dark wooden tables, with the little lamps on them. However I wasn't sitting several chairs away anymore, like usually, at another table. No, I was sitting at your table. Opposite to you. And perhaps it was only a little thing, but for me it was everything. During the past couple of days I had learnt, how much I needed your closeness. I proverbially needed it to survive, and sometimes also almost literally. I was leaned back in my chair and I didn't know, when I had last been so relaxed and calm. My eyes were resting on you. Yours were resting on another book. "Fangs and their Nature" - by a person called George McHarwelson. I don't know what it is, but something about vampires always seemed to have fascinated you. You were downright obsessed with them and with hunting them. Something in your eyes always starts glowing, even alone when you hear that word. And something in them always seems satisfied, whenever you can chop one of their heads off.

"As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once."

(John Green, "The Fault in Our Stars")

Your eyes slid over the pages and every now and then, when I was lucky, they briefly swept to me, accompanied by a little smile. I didn't know, what we were or where we were going, but I knew, what we had. It's not that I can put it in words, because in the end one barely ever can, but I could feel it. In the air we were breathing, in the wood of the tables we were sitting at, in the Scotch we were drinking together, every night from here and now, and not least in all the eye contacts we were sharing. And in your eyes, and maybe you could see it in mine, too. It was within our grasp and still not graspable. As if it existed without ever being caught. A Something one cannot comprehend, not understand and also not really see. But then I could still see it, every now and then, in your face, in mine, and in us. In everything we did and everything we shared. A Something that could exist without any evidence for its actualness. And it was as if I had finally understood, what love really meant, and did I really, I would say it is you.

Your phone rang and our peaceful silence was disturbed. Your attention wasn't directed at half the book and half me any longer, but only at that thing and its call. For a moment you eyeballed the glowing display, until you seemed to have decided to answer the call. I found the for me senseless noise of the phone-distorted voice of a caller and I almost tried to hear with my eyes. After far too many minutes your look finally met me again and a smile spread in your face. But it wasn't directed at me and mine, but that, which the caller seemed to tell you. And I smiled back, because even when I didn't like to be in the unknown, I knew you would explain it to me. You hung up and there it was. The glow in your eyes and the anticipation inside you. Your small smile became a wide smirk and infected me like fire.

"What is it?" I asked, even though I actually rather wanted to know, who had dared to disturb our silence.

"We have a job," you announced with so much cheerfulness in your voice, one could have almost believed you meant something nice. Then again, I could see the glow and knew it probably was nice for you.

"That was Rick," you said, as if I was supposed to know, who that was, when really, I had no idea, "he told me about a vampire nest outside Wisconsin a couple of days ago already. We're in"

And didn't I know you like nobody knew you, I would have just now understood. Your vampire madness had method. After all. You closed the book and almost ran away, not away from me, only towards your brother. You had to announce it, the merry message. And wasn't I so busy having a bad feeling about it, I would have been happy for you. For your glow and your joy and your future satisfaction by vampire the word, vampire the hunt and vampire the head chopping.

Rick. Who is Rick? I searched my head for any memories of that name, but found none. And something about that bothered me. I wanted to stay here, not alone, but with you. Here in our air, at our wood, in our room, where I watched you read and where the peaceful silence hovered above us like a protective glass cover. And I didn't want to have to share you, not even a bit. It was already hard to share you with a book, but people are worse. People talk and do things and say things that distract you, from me and from what we indeed didn't know, but feel. People put lies in your head and fables and lead you onto ways you shouldn't walk on, and ways, where I didn't exist on. At least not this version of me. And even when I also lied to you every now and then, not gladly, but necessarily, it wasn't the same thing. Because I lied to you to protect you and to hide all I did to protect you. People lied to you to get something from you, or to get you somewhere. And everything inside me hoped that wouldn't happen, and everything inside me knew I would prevent it.

"True love will triumph in the end - which may or may not be a lie, but if it is a lie, it's the most beautiful lie we have."

(John Green)