Life was a continuous Sunday. I no longer looked at the calendar, the days of the week. The months were obvious. Life was no longer pivotal and I no longer had the satisfying twisting ache of eluding danger. I knew just what was around each corner. The days brought me little magic or variation. This was what I had wanted. I sighed. This was what I had wanted?

What I had not wanted was the attitude I was receiving tonight from Sam Merlotte. We had parted ways 5 months after we hard started dating, after Eric had left. That unceremonious breakup had been three weeks ago. I did not feel heartbroken. I felt annoyed. I just wanted him back on the fray of my life where he had always been. Our dance had been unfulfilling. I hadn't noticed it all at once. It was the little things that didn't happen. He didn't make my face flush. He didn't make my heart jump manically in my rib cage so that I felt like I was about to run a marathon. He definitely didn't surprise me, but I supposed that was a good thing. Gone were the days of coups and kidnappings. I was plain old Sookie Stackhouse, Bon Temps barmaid. Sookie Stackhouse, telepath, wife of a vampire and granddaughter of a fae prince was as much a ghost to me as anyone else who had known her.

I had not wanted to hurt the man, I just couldn't make it work. I tried to let him down easy but I was positive it came out more aggressively annoyed than it should have. I couldn't blame Sam for any of it. He had just been being himself. I was to blame. I was the one who had been so willfully ignorant of my own desires that I had run into the arms of a man I had felt lukewarm towards at best. So I dealt with his shitty attitude post-breakup with a grain of salt. I dealt with his angry glares and pointed passive aggressiveness. I dealt with the way I suddenly was no longer treated as part owner anymore, I was back to being 'the staff'. I dealt with it all. But tonight I was at the end of my rope.

It was a warm night and I leaned against the front door jamb which someone had propped open to let the breeze in. The cicadas were humming contentedly, the whippoorwills were crooning hauntingly under a beautiful, pink grapefruit moon. The world was moving and changing and there was life out there. And I was in here... doing what? Suffering chains I had once been only too happy to drape on myself. I wasn't happy anymore. I wasn't happy.

"Sookie!" Sam snapped at me from across the bar. "A little less standing, a little more workin'?"

Now that just got my mad up. I was so blindingly angry I didn't even move. The restaurant was well tended and taken care of and I was having a simple moment to myself. He was so desperate to strike back at me for the perceived slight of me not being interested in a relationship with him that he was watching me like a hawk. Just waiting for a good moment to get a jab in. I smiled. The crazy Sookie smile. I did not move, and when he bellowed my name again, I turned around, just as collected as you please and I took my apron off.

"Sam Merlotte, you can go fuck yourself." I took out my pen and pad and threw them on the table and laid my apron across the back of the booth nearest me. I could hear the shocked murmur of unrest started to bubble from around me like ripples on a pond. I was skipping stones tonight. Sam looked outraged and confused all at once.

"What the hell's gotten into you?" He demanded. My smile barely faltered, although my eyes held a concentrated disinterest layered on disgust that I was sure he couldn't miss.

"I think you know the answer to that. I 'm done with this."

He shrugged negligently with a look around the room as to get approval from everyone else. "I suppose that's your choice, then."

I rolled my eyes. I knew what was expected from me now from him and the crowd gathered for this spectacle. A fit of rage or tears of indignation as I made my exit. I found I could not summon either. I advanced on him with a straight back and my head held high. I did not need to remind Sam of all I'd done for him and Merlotte's. I wouldn't sink that low, but I sure as hell hoped my eyes contained what I would not say.

"You can have your lawyer contact me about buying me out." That's right, his lawyer could contact me. I wasn't going to pay my lawyer to do it. I stalked back to his office to grab my purse out of the lockers that we had installed back there. I spared a glance to the table that held Tara and JB. It was their date night. They both cast their eyes down and away. Well, they could get fucked too. I was tired of the fair-weather graces of my townsfolk. No one knew a thing about loyalty and I had clung to them pathetically for long enough. As I strode out the back door of Merlotte's for what I perceived might very well be the final time, I didn't feel sadness. I felt free.

The drive home was uneventful. I didn't care. Tonight would be my new beginning. I pulled onto Hummingbird Road and saw the quick pale flash dart through the woods that I had come to know well. Karin. She would be following my car up the drive barely out of sight, as usual. I had hardly talked to her the last six months and now I felt shame for it. I had shunned her as part and parcel of Eric and all that hate and sadness that came with him and all that I had parted ways with. It had been easy to disregard her, and all this time she had been living like a vagabond on my property. It was reprehensible. I came to a stop before I reached the house and called her name.

"Good evening, Sookie." She was at my window before I could track her movements.

"Hi Karin. Want to come inside for a blood?" She eyed me dubiously.

"Is everything alright?" I shrugged negligently and pasted a bright smile on my face.

"Right as rain." She nodded sagely at this and seemed to look around and beyond me, probably smelling and listening for things I couldn't even begin to interpret. I cast my mind out and found myself surprised to find another void not far from us.

"There's another vampire in the woods."

"Thalia. She keeps me company some nights." Oh. Well, I didn't want to be rude, so I figured the more the merrier, even if Thalia was absolutely frightening. In fact the only instance I had spent any significant amount of time with her was when we killed Victor Madden, and she had been positively lusty for blood.

"Tell her she can come too, if she likes." Karin seemed to look at me with a more discerning eye now. I looked back at her, remembering the first time I had ever met her. She had been crouched in the dark in my room guarding me with no shame. I had thought then that her face was perfectly lovely and perfectly terrifying. She wore not a trace of makeup. Her hair was pale and wavy and long and tied demurely at the nape of her neck. In black yoga pants, a red t-shirt, and a leather jacket, I thought she looked more like a yoga instructor who listened to the Dead Kennedy's on her drive home than a vampire mercenary. She had a glowing, earthy energy. And yet there was no mistaking how deadly she was.

"The demon was here earlier. There's a letter for you."

"Mr. Cataliades?"

"No, the younger one." Diantha. What could Mr. Cataliades have for me that warranted a hand courier service?

"I'll just meet y'all inside, then." I smiled at her again and rolled around to the back of the house, murmuring invitations for them both quietly and unlocking the door and letting myself in. I kicked my shoes off out back near the washer and let my hair down, massaging my scalp and moaning slightly at the relief. I was this close to taking my bra off, too, but I was going to have guests and even if I didn't mind they might. Probably not, but they might.

I spotted the cream colored envelope on the counter immediately and picked it up when I heard a curt knock at the front door. It was then I realized that I didn't have any TrueBlood for Thalia and Karin. God, how embarrassing. I called for them to come in just as I was picking up my keys and apologizing and telling them I was going to run to the liquor store right quick and be back. I would grab myself a bottle of wine tonight. I did not drink often, but tonight, the relief of oblivion was calling to me. They gave each other a meaningful glance and then looked back at me.

"What is this about, Sookie? You are acting strangely." Karin asked. I sighed.

"I quit my job tonight." I started to laugh at this, which quickly turned into slight manic hysterics. Thalia was looking at me with distaste. If Karin looked deadly, she had nothing on Thalia. The small woman practically radiated with it.

"Is she unhinged?" Thalia asked Karin as if I weren't there.

"No, she's not." I answered for myself. "Really, I am just going to run to the liquor store. I'll be right back." I grabbed my keys and my cardigan but before I could get out the door I found myself drawn to the envelope on the counter. I picked it up, glancing back over my shoulder at the girls. I saw Thalia wandering around looking at everything with no shame at all and she disappeared around the corner into the living room, presumably to look over the rest of my house. Probably looking for exits. She seemed militant like that. Karin had leaned on the dining table, crossing her booted feet and staring at me.

I opened the envelope and my heart started to beat a frantic refrain. I would have recognized that handwriting anywhere. Adrenaline flushed through me and I could feel the heat in my face as my cheeks painted themselves an extraordinarily rosy hue. He wasn't supposed to be writing to me. He wasn't supposed to be talking to me at all. My hands shook as I opened the letter fully. Perhaps it was a warning and we were all in great danger...

But no. Nothing was ever that simple with Eric. He was always knocking the wind out of me, coming from left field.

Doubt that the stars are fire

Doubt that the sun doth move

Doubt truth to be a liar

But never doubt I love.

That was it. That was all, and oh, how much could a few short words mean. Words that were not even his own, but he had stolen them and now they would never belong to another human being in my mind. Words that I needed to hear, today on this day, more than any day at all. The thought startled me. Was Eric having me watched? I bit my lip, feeling a few bitter, painful tears start to escape and beat sluggish paths down my cheek. I did not want to cry.

Karin was behind me and I turned towards her like a small fury. "What do you know about this? Is he having me watched? Are you reporting to him?" I knew as soon as I said the words that my theory made absolutely no sense, and Karin managed to control her rage as she spoke back bitterly to me, snatching the card from my hand and reading it with an unnecessary huff.

"I have not spoken to Eric since he's left. I do not expect to in the next 200 years, unless you die under my charge. I suppose I would have to report that." She said it like she was casually explaining the intricacies of admin work. My eyes bulged as I snatched the card back. Karin was eyeing me again and I felt like an insect she had caught in her backyard. Like she might start to pull off legs and wings for amusement and curiosity's sake. "It is better that you are parted. You make each other weak. He should not have sent you anything. He puts you both at great risk."

I held the note back up again, going over the words and the whimsical, arduous rise and fall of his handwriting. How would I ever fall in love again after him?

"You need to burn that." Karin told me. It was unnecessary. So was Eric's note. He could write me sweet nothings til kingdom come, but it did not change the circumstance. Our dance was done. It had been good and bad, and it had been exhilarating, but it had always had an expiration date. It hadn't been the end I had envisioned for us, but our options had been limited. I wasn't going to become vampire. He was not going to break his contract. I certainly wasn't going to let him stay with me while I aged and he didn't, even if he had wanted to, which I doubted. I was still pissed, but I was no longer smarting with pain.

"I know, I will. Ya'll just make yourselves comfortable, I'll be right back." I made my way out to the car and eyed the burn barrel not far off from me. I stuck the letter in my purse instead.

I did not come back home with a bottle of wine. I came back with a bottle of whiskey.

Thalia and Karin seemed to find my foray into drunkeness amusing. I was glad they did since I knew I was about as sloppy as anyone had ever seen me. Thalia bitched about Fangtasia. I came to understand that she often spent nights here with Karin to get out of enthralling the vermin. Thalia hated humans on principle. Karin pulled out her smart phone and put on music. I cackled when she started us off with The Clash. It felt good to peg someone and be right about it. Thalia and Karin argued the merits of Norwegian death metal (what?). Karin talked about Madrid, which is where she had just come from when Eric had called her, which she was none too happy about. Eric seemed to be a sore subject for her. I realized that she and Pam were just as angry and hurt as I was. He had tossed them aside completely for 200 years. I wondered if they would be able to hold a grudge that long. I would not have to worry about such subtleties. At some point Thalia and Karin started talking politics and I had judiciously put a halt to it since they seemed to disagree on some very large subjects. Besides, Gran's teaching that politics were never good guest talk was too ingrained in me to ignore.

I do not remember what we talked about the rest of the night and I don't know when I fell asleep on the couch. I had woken up once to the sound of sniggering and I opened one eye (since two caused me a bout of double vision I was not worthy to contend with) and saw Karin and Thalia leaning over me. I was like a puppy they had taken in for the night.

"She is drunk." Thalia cackled. Karin smiled and sighed. The light from the kitchen illuminated them and it was hard to miss how pristine they were, their skin milky and smooth, their eyes bright and luminescent.

"I do miss that feeling." She said longingly, like a 14 year old watching her friends ride off down the street without them while they sat inside doing homework. Thalia rolled her eyes at this.

"You would, you degenerate."

"Fuck you." Karin tossed, bouncing her perfect pale hair off her shoulder.

"What shall we do with her? Should we call one of her humans to look after her? We must go to ground soon." Thalia queried. It was her best guess.

"Just roll her onto her side in case she vomits. She will be fine." Jeeze Karin, thanks. She seemed to have a great knowledge of drunkeness. How late was it?

I woke the next day in the late afternoon. My head was pounding and my mouth was dry and all those wonderful inescapable things you get to look forward to after a night of drowning in a bottle. I was lazy and mostly delving into creature comforts to the exclusion of all else. I still felt off kilter since yesterday. I was glad to be going in a different direction, but I realized now that I had no earthly idea what that direction was. I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life and I could feel myself floundering each time I thought of it. I knew only that I could not bear to keep on as I had been. A change was inevitable. It was painful, to look in the mirror and realize I had never really been honest with myself. I had never really dove beneath the surface of my identity and the identity that society had placed on me. Even when I had the opportunity to do so, I had shied away from it. Now I was going to make that plunge myself, and I had no idea where to start. I was scared but I was hopeful. There was no other way forward.

I found myself genuinely pleased to see Karin when she knocked on my door later that night, a few hours after sundown. She was carrying three books in her arms and she handed them to me almost as soon as I greeted her. I could not miss the happy gleam and the bounce in her step.

I arched an eyebrow as I shuffled through them. Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman. How Nonviolence Protects the State by Peter Gelderloos. Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell. I was confused, but the last book sparked a memory in me from my whiskey-filled haze the night before. Politics. Karin was a devout anarchist.

"You do not remember." She said, and came as close to a frown as I had ever seen someone come without it being comical.

"I was really drunk, I'm sorry. I do remember now." I held up the George Orwell book. "You were here, right? In Spain during their civil war."

"I was." Her eyes twinkled merrily and she rocked back on her heels with her hands clasped behind her back. "It was a beautiful time." I supposed Karin was just about the only person who could truly say war was beautiful and mean it.

I had never met anybody who actually knew about anarchism in a complete way, let alone someone who whole-hearteldy supported it. It was a little overwhelming, even if the word felt sharp and lovely on my tongue. But Karin seemed so genuinely happy to share this part of herself. I felt a bit honored. A vampire like Karin didn't seem like she shared often. Most vampires don't. Clearly I had been interested last night and her happiness was rubbing off on me. Perhaps Karin was lonely.

"You can read them and then we can discuss them. Like a book club." She offered.

"Usually people read the same thing in a book club, and it's new to all of them." I caught myself saying before I could stop myself. Karin did a lifty shoulder shrug and quirked her mouth. For all that she was beautiful, she was not very feminine. There was just something decidedly masculine about her.

"I have perfect recall, I do not need to read them again. Besides, I have firsthand knowledge of that one. I can tell you about it." She tapped Homage to Catalonia and smiled at me again.

"I'd like that." I returned her smile, and it was genuine.

I had something to look forward to.