you'll just do it all again
by Sandrine Shaw
He should be over haughty mean girls who hide their insecurities behind cruelty and pretend they're better than everyone around them while secretly believing that they'll never measure up to anyone's expectations.
Rebekah reminds him of Blair, and that should be reason enough to stay away.
(It's not.)
She tells herself that she's done falling in love with everyone who's willing to offer her a friendly smile and some of their time.
If she's learned anything over the past few months (years, decades, centuries), it's that people aren't kind without a reason. They always want something, and when they have it, they will walk away or stab you in the back, and you're left all alone again.
She knows she can't trust anyone but herself.
(Doesn't mean she won't, over and over again, because no matter how often her heart gets broken and pierced by daggers, it never stops beating.)
When she makes her entrance to the high society of New York's Upper East Side, she fits in like the missing piece of a puzzle. She's sophisticated and filthy rich and she acts like she owns the world. Everyone loves her, or at least they pretend to.
As she escapes the clutches of the fawning host, thanking her profoundly for her contribution to tonight's charity, there's this man (a boy, really, despite the expensive suit and the hit of a stubble) watching her with an amused smile.
"Careful, they will eat you alive," he says.
Rebekah purses her lips. She doesn't need anyone's advice or protection. "Thanks, but I can take care of myself. Believe me, my teeth are sharper than theirs."
He shrugs and walks away, but their eyes keep meeting as the night progresses.
They run into each other in a fancy coffee shop around the corner of Park Avenue.
He offers to buy her a latte. She lets him.
She tells him about herself, about who (what) she is, the morning after they first slept together.
She just wants to get it out of the way. If he reacts badly - if it scares him off or if he decides to grab the first pencil he finds to stake her, she'd rather it be now than in a month or a year when she's too invested in their relationship for it not to hurt. (As if it isn't already too late. She likes him, and if Nik was right about one thing, it's that she falls too fast and too easily.)
If he doesn't take it well, she can always compel him to forget and they can start all over again. (Except she wouldn't - not because of silly moral reasons, but because even if he forgot, she would always remember and the knowledge would spoil everything.)
He watches her transform and stares at her. To his credit, he only flinches back a little.
"Please tell me that you don't sparkle in the sunlight," he says with a straight face. "I don't think I could handle that."
She hits him in the face with a pillow. He laughs. They'll be alright.
"You can't tell anyone," she warns him.
He rolls his eyes. "I'm a writer, Rebekah. Who would believe me?"
They fight.
They fight about stupid things, like what tie he should wear to a ball she hosts or if Fitzgerald is better than Hemingway or if they should spend the summer in the countryside or go to Paris.
She throws things at him and he grows silent and slams doors.
One time, she loses control and vamps out on him. She doesn't hurt him, but she knows she could have. He's so breakable. It would be easy to snap him neck or tear out his heart in a fit of anger. It scares her.
She locks herself in the bathroom and cries, while he spends an hour hamming at the door and telling her to open. When she finally does, he holds her tighter than he ever has.
"Don't shut me out," he says. "I can handle anything, as long as you let me be part of it."
He writes a novel about her.
It's the story of a mysterious stranger who flees from her past and takes New York's society by storm, turning their double standards back on them and winning the heart of a jaded journalist. It's not the most original story, but Dan's writing touches her in places within her heart that she thought were long frozen, and his love for her shines through every word.
"You didn't mention the whole vampire thing," she says.
The corners of Dan's lift curl upwards. "Yeah, well. I think the genre is kind of dead. No pun intended."
"And romance isn't?" she teases.
"Romance will never be dead," he replies with a smile and leans in to steal a kiss.
End.