Onyxx: Time to introduce the latest characters! Drumroll, please? … (silence) … No? Well, then, we'll just have to do without. This is Nemo—

Nemo: 'Sup.

Onyxx: and Tryniti.

Tryniti: Hey, guys!

Onyxx: In this chapter, I'm afraid we've had to fast-forward a few years …

Nemo: A few? Almost a decade, Nyx.

Onyxx: Hush, Mo.

Nemo: I told you not to call me Mo. I'm not a stooge.

Onyxx: I told you not to call me Nyx.

Nemo: Stop calling me Mo and I won't call you Nyx.

Tryniti: You're both stooges, in my opinion.

Nemo: Shut it, Tryn.

Tryniti: What did I tell you about calling me Tryn?

Nemo: You called me a stooge!

Onyxx: Stop fighting!

Nemo and Tryniti: NO!

Onyxx: Okay, fine …

Chapter Nine:

I raised an eyebrow at the huge cake Nemo carried into the living room. His long hair looked like it was about to catch fire, the candles making his lip ring glint.

He placed it on the card table we had set up in the middle of the room and stood back to admire his handiwork.

I smiled, shrugging. "I have to say, I'm impressed, Nemo." He grinned with appreciation as I took another look at the cake that had taken him six painful hours to create. I actually still saw a bit of white icing on his nose and in his dyed black hair, made more prominent by its opaque shade.

The cake's lower layer of icing was white, and looked as though it had been spritzed with gray. There were a row of headstones, one he had personally gotten engraved with my name.

He shrugged, smirking and blushing at the same time, an oxymoron of pride and bashfullness that only Nemo Stein could pull off. "Well, you only turn thirty once," he mumbled, sitting down beside me and rubbing my back in a friendly way as Tryniti bounced in.

"Make a wish!" she commanded joyfully, clapping her gloved hands together.

I closed my eyes as I wished, leaning forward, and blew out the tombstone candles.

Nemo and Tryniti whooped joyfully, then popped in Black Veil Brides' first album, turning it to "Children Surrender" and blasting it until I was sure the neighbors could hear it.

The front door opened and shut, and Cole walked in, apologizing for being late while carrying in the Mountain Dew.

About a year after Dracula left, Cole and I had tried dating—I didn't get more than my toes in the water before I was ready to jump out. He said (and I quote) "It's like kissing my sister."

He still hadn't found anyone else, and neither had I.

"What'd you wish for?" Nemo asked, jerking his head to get his bangs out of his eye.

I grinned, crying on the inside. "I wished you would shut up for once," I teased, punching him lightly in the arm.

Cole and Tryniti laughed, before Nemo flipped his hand under my plate, shoving cake into my face.

I wrestled him to the ground, laughing and picking up his piece of cake from off the table before smearing it all over his nose, cheeks, and in his hair. Tryniti shrugged and threw some at Cole, whose shocked expression made my night.

Soon, we were all in the midst of a food-fight and covered in black and white icing, before finally settling down and deciding to play board games.

Maybe it was weird, but we were a bunch of straight-edge kids who happened to like playing chess.

I beat Cole three times before Nemo finally found the courage to try me.

He failed epically.

Twice.

Tryniti dug all my birthday cards out of the mail. I had at least seventy—none quite so elaborate as the one from the Butler family.

Onyxx, it read:

I know you're going through a hard time right now. Trust me, I was that way when Erik left the first time. Just know that if you-know-who ever does come back, you'll be the first to know.

So go out, have fun. I know you don't drink, but do me a favor: go to some goth club and find a guy for Chrissake. Dance your heart out, eat your weight in funfetti cake (Yep, Nemo, I know your signature), and remember that me, Em, and the kids are always here for you.

Oh, yeah, one more thing:

HAPPY FUCKING BIRTHDAY!

Your Scottish bud,

Gerry

I died laughing at the end. Somehow, I knew he'd fit his favorite word in there, one way or another.

After a few more games of chess, Cole's caffeine high wore off and he decided he wanted to go home before he "fell asleep and got raped by Tryniti," to which Tryniti, we all knew, would be more than happy to do.

Then Tryniti went upstairs to her room, and Nemo went to take a shower and try to get all the glop out of his hair.

I lay on the couch and replayed my wish over and over in my mind until I'd memorized it.

I wish I could just see him one more time, just one more kiss.

I hugged a pillow as the familiar lump lodged itself in my throat, and tears spilled out of my eyes, dampening the couch.

I barely noticed when arms circled my shoulders and dragged me up, Nemo pulling me into his warm, still-damp chest, smelling like Old Spice.

He held me as I cried, making soothing noises as he rocked back and forth, stroking my hair.

"Hey, Nyx, it's okay. Shh. Shh, Nyx, baby, it's okay. I'm here. Nemo's here, baby. Sweetheart, shh. It's okay." He pulled me closer, and I was halfway on his lap, sobbing painfully.

"It hurts, Nemo, it hurts so much," I whispered, clutching his shirt in my fists. "There's this hole in my chest and it feels like my heart was ripped out and fed through a woodchipper."

He stroked my hair, still rocking back and forth. "I know how it feels. Like you're in pain and it won't let up. Trust me, baby, I know."

I spent the rest of the night in Nemo's arms, actually feeling that, for once, the huge hole in my heart was (partially) filled.

But it still didn't feel right.