I'd stay in my shed during the day, and then at night, I'd watch Santana. I'd watch her do her homework, or fight with her mom, or cry, or sleep. Every few days, when I couldn't take it anymore, I would run out of Lima, somewhere far away, until I found somebody delicious walking in the street.

I figured out pretty quickly that what Santana had said was a lie. It made the anger fade away. In its place was curiosity. Why would she say that? Why would she lie when the truth was obviously that she did still love me? I noticed it during her getting ready for bed routine. She wore my friendship bracelet every day. She took it off and put it on her bedside table. Her finger would linger on it too long. Sometimes, her eyebrows would push themselves together, and the corners of her mouth turned. I could tell she was thinking about me.

Other times, I could really tell she was thinking about me. I wished I could see it all. I'd never watched her do it before. She'd put on her nightshirt and crawl in under the covers. I might not have even noticed it, but I could hear her heart speed up. Her breathing hitched. I leaned forward on the branch, suddenly intent.

I wished I could see. I mean, I wished I could touch, but if I couldn't touch, I wished I could at least see. We hadn't done that, but the thought of it now was irresistible. What if instead of watching Santana through the window, watching her roll her body under her sheets, I was watching her from between her legs? It would be like going down on her, but with my eyes.

Her breaths and desperately hidden noises served as a soundtrack to what I thought. I imagined spreading her legs, her knees warm against my hands. At first she'd be shy, cause she's always shy the first time we do something new. I'd take one finger and stroke it along her left lip, then her right. Then I'd dip my fingers in the place where she was wettest and slide it up to her clit. That's it, three touches. Then slowly, I'd take her wrist and slide it over her stomach, down her body.

"Touch yourself, Santana," I'd say. "I want to watch you come."

Maybe that's what Santana thought about too. I'd watch as her body bent into a half-moon when she came around her fingers. Quick breaths and a tiny moan that she always tried to swallow. Only I could hear it. Well, me and Santana.

If I imagined really hard, that last breath out always sounded like my name.

Every time Santana did that, somewhere outside of Lima, sometimes outside of Ohio, they'd find somebody in the morning, pale and dead.

Sorry. It's what I had to do. You can't just watch something like that and do nothing.

Since I had heard Santana say that she was planning on breaking up with me, I felt different. I wanted to watch her all the time. For so long, I'd thought about life with Santana by my side. I mean, that's what worked about us. We could do our own thing, but. I was there for her when the commercial aired. She was there for me when I ran for president. But it's not like I was in the commercial, or she was running for vice president. It's just that, with her, I felt like we could each do anything. Like I was full of this fire that could take me anywhere.

I knew though, that Santana was different. I mean, it was the same feeling but she just thought of it differently. She needed me. Now I knew how that felt. Needing a person.

I needed Santana. I needed her.

I didn't like it. It made me feel...not full of possibility. Like I just had two possibilities: Santana and not-Santana.

I needed it to be the first one.

There was a party. It was probably for seniors. That seemed so far away from me now. Graduation. It had only been a month since I had died, maybe. I wasn't keeping track of time too closely.

It was at Kori Kaplan's house. She was on the basketball team. I thought that was pretty funny, she'd always seemed too short to play basketball. She was like, the same height as Santana. But she was strong. I kind of wished she'd been a Cheerio. Then I could have put my hand on her skirt every once in a while. I heard her, periodically, telling people to stay in certain rooms, so her parents wouldn't be able to tell she'd thrown a party. I stood outside, in the shadows. I had to be careful not to be seen, because everyone here knew I was dead. It was cold out, so most people were inside, except for a few kids who were smoking joints in the backyard. The smoke smelled sweet. I like that smell.

It smelled like high school every time somebody opened a door. Well, like I imagined high school smelled anyway. I couldn't go to McKinley during the day, when it was filled with students. But I could tell. It smelled like body odor and musk and heat and acidity. It was a thing teenagers had that grown-ups didn't. It wasn't bad. More like a Sour Patch than a gummy bear.

None of the Glee kids was there. But Santana was. Her heart always sang to me the loudest. I'd memorized its patter, after all the nights of watching her sleep.

Over the course of the night, she drank. I couldn't tease out her smell compared to everyone else's. But I could hear the voices and I could hear her breathing.

Even though we used to drink a lot, we kind of stopped after Mr. Schu made us sign that contract. Santana made a fuss about it, but I think she was secretly glad to stop. It had started as an excuse to be outgoing, and make friends, and then turned into an excuse to kiss people, and then into an excuse to kiss me, and finally, into an excuse to let me part her legs and her folds and push one, then two fingers inside of her. But then we didn't need it as an excuse any more.

But she was drinking now. I couldn't blame her.

She didn't say much. I think she probably just wanted the drinks and the people. But since she'd come out, Santana wasn't really sure where she fit in. She didn't have much to say to them. And they didn't have much to say to her. The boys looked at her. The girls giggled at her. I heard them talking about her. It wasn't nice.

Finally, Santana came outside. Oh, Santana. You smell so good. Even when you smell like alcohol. She stumbled as she walked down the stairs. She stopped. Closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. It hitched at the last second. I knew she was trying not to cry.

She started walking down the street.

I followed.

After a half block, she stopped. "Who's there?" she whispered. If it had been anyone other than me, they wouldn't have heard. But I did.

"Me." She shivered. But I knew she hadn't really heard me. Maybe she heard it somewhere in her brain, but it must have been in one of the parts that people don't really use. If she had heard me, her heart would've sped up and she would've started shaking uncontrollably. That happened a minute or two later. Cause she got to her car, unlocked it, and put her hand on the door.

"Santana. I hope you're not going to get in your car after you've been drinking."

She dropped her keys.

I hadn't really meant to say anything. But I wasn't going to let her just get in a car and drive it. She knew better than that. I didn't always know better than that. I wasn't very good at telling the difference between a drink and five drinks, but that's why Quinn was usually the driver.

I stayed some ways away from her. It kind of helped me control myself. Kind of.

Santana turned around. She started shaking and her knees started to buckle. If I weren't so afraid of what would happen if I did, I would have gone to her, kneeled, and stroked her hair back from her face. Her lips trembled. Her heart raced. Oh, sweet girl. I couldn't. I watched her, like I had been doing for all those nights. This time she watched me back.

"Brittany." It barely came out. Her tongue licked her lips, and they parted. She tried to control her breathing. Her hand went to her chest.

I stood and held my hands together in front of me. "Just...don't drive, Santana."

"You're dead." She said it like she was making sure it was real. "I saw your body. I went to your funeral. You're dead. I saw it. You're dead. You're dead." She stopped talking, but kept shaking. I decided that she was asking me a question without a question mark. I nodded, once.

"Brittany." She swallowed. "Are you an angel?"

I looked at her, real serious. I didn't say anything. She shook her head, as if to clear it, like she couldn't believe she'd said something so ridiculous. Her right hand reached to her left wrist, and touched her friendship bracelet lightly. The heart charm wiggled. "I was so sure that I'd...left this with you." Her voice was thick. "And then...I heard about your house getting broken into. And only your clothes being stolen. And all your sister would say was that it wasn't you."

My face tightened. I didn't like to think of that night. It was me. "Don't drive, Santana."

I walked away.

She didn't know what I was. Sometimes I felt like talking to her again. Sometimes I felt like watching her, silently. Sometimes, when I'd sit alone by the pond, I'd lose myself in a fantasy. We'd see each other on the street, alone, at nighttime, and I'd give her a look, and she'd know it meant "Come here." I'd skim my fingers up the sides of her, nice and slow, not even barely touching. She'd rock back and forth, from all the wanting.

"Santana," I'd say, "Do you want it?"

Her eyes would screw shut. "So bad."

"You want it, huh? You want that feeling? Of me inside you? Or you inside me? You want me to taste you, sweet girl? You want that?" With every question, I'd move from stroking with just the tips of my fingers, to my fingers, to my palms, till I was holding her.

Then when she said, "Yes, please,", I'd imagine doing it. I'd imagine going all the way.

In the aftermath of that fantasy, Santana would rest, dead and bloodless, next to me, while I flushed and heaved and curled with all that blood magic running through me. Then some minutes later, after my high had faded, she would flutter her eyes, shake her head, sit up, and say, "Again."

I needed to learn how to do that. I needed to learn how to stop myself so that I could have Santana once, and then again and again. I knew it felt good for the people I did it to. I could feel the women grind their hips against the air while I held them tight to me. I could feel the men get hard and put their hands around my waist. Once, with a cute one, I had sucked him super slow, while I unbuttoned his pants and put my hand around him. I'd stroked him while I swallowed him. He died before he came but I don't think he was upset about it. Nobody ever said "Don't stop," but I heard it all the same.

I went to a bar. I could inhale people smells, feel their heat from being in that room with them, but I probably wouldn't snap and bite. Everyone would notice. I didn't know what would happen if they did notice - I could overpower them, probably - but I felt like vampires weren't supposed to be real and it was best to keep everyone thinking that way. They might try to stop me from eating, and I liked eating. Besides, I'd noticed that my hunger wasn't so overwhelming now that some weeks had gone by. So everyone was probably safe.

I needed to go somewhere far away, where no one would recognize me. I also needed an id. That part was easy. I just found someone who looked like me and took her id when I was done. And her money. Her name was "Jennifer Lofton", and now so was mine. I repeated it to myself ten times to memorize it. Then I repeated it with her birthday.

I didn't even know what day of the week it was, but I knew my name was Jennifer Lofton, and that I was 24 years old. I put on jeans, and a shirt. I tried to look like I didn't want to be bothered. It's hard to look like you don't want to be bothered when you look like an 18 year old blond girl. Most people assume you want to be talked to when you look like that. But I wasn't sure what would happen to my resolve if somebody started talking to me.

The Feeling was there, curling at the sides of my brain, but I didn't have to listen to it. I didn't even get carded. I sat in a bar and watched the people there, and ordered a drink, and felt very grown-up. It turns out most people were there to watch other people and see how their self-control fared among a crowd too. Only one person talked to me and I said, "Don't bother me." and then when he said, "Hey now...", I looked him right in the eyes and said, "Don't talk to me," and he shut up right quick.

I watched him leave the bar, put down the beer I hadn't been drinking anyway, then followed. When he turned the corner to the parking lot, I pounced. He seemed surprised to see me but started to say, "Didn't think you were up for talking." with a low chuckle and a casual hand on his belt buckle. I guess he thought he recognized the hunger in my eyes.

"I'm not." Without much fanfare, I took him against the hood of the car. But only for a little bit. Instead of going all the way, I listened to his heart. And something wonderful inside me, that I hadn't bothered to listen to before, told me, "Stop". I let that feeling wash over me. I wasn't going to keep killing people forever, every time I needed it. I could stop.

I didn't like him, though, so I didn't bother.

Then, because I knew I could listen to that voice - if I wanted to - the next night, I went to Santana's window and did something crazy. I knocked.