What followed was six months of subtle, carefully designed put-downs detailing my many failures. Oh, sure, I found wildly inappropriate e-mails from his undergrad students that he’d printed out and left on his desk. But I forgot to pick up his dry cleaning that time. Did I have any idea how that made him feel? Knowing that I didn’t care enough to retrieve his precious pleated slacks? I didn’t keep the apartment clean enough. I didn’t read the right books or listen to the right music. I didn’t eat the iron-rich (disgusting) foods that made my blood tasty for him. He couldn’t take me to faculty gatherings because my conversational skills—or lack thereof—embarrassed him.
With each new criticism, I twisted myself into knots trying to improve myself, to mold myself into the sort of girlfriend who would make Mathias proud. But he kept raising the bar. I spent too much time around my silly human friends, he said, so I withdrew from those circles and spent more time at the apartment with Mathias. My food expenses were too much for his budget, and besides, I was getting a little too “hippy,” anyway, so I limited myself to the blood-enriching diet Mathias recommended.
He kept finding faults until I’d changed so much I barely recognized myself. And then Mathias found fresher, younger sources, and suddenly I wasn’t needed anymore.
By the time I found my stuff neatly packed into boxes outside of what was no longer my apartment, I was a hollowed-out husk of a person. He’d taken everything from me—my blood, my love, my time. I had given him what I believed was most precious, and he had thrown it away like it was nothing.
Also, I had no savings, no job, no housing, no car, no credit. I tried to think of it as a blank canvas upon which to paint my brand-new life, but mostly, I was just broke and homeless.
I couldn’t go home to my parents. Over the previous years, I’d tried to reach out to them. I’d sent Christmas letters and cards for their birthdays, which they’d sent back marked “Return to Sender.” Eventually, I gave up and skipped my usual Father’s Day card. They took this opportunity to contact me and tell me how disappointed they were that I was no longer groveling as expected. That was the last I’d heard from them.
I crashed on the couch of the last human friend I had, or rather, a former roommate of that last human friend I had. Terri stopped talking to me after I canceled a third brunch date with her. (I’d overslept.) But Julie was super-nice and willing to accept dog walking in exchange for short-term rent. I went online, pouring my heart out in a support group chat room for women who’d survived abusive relationships with men, both undead and living.
I was reminded by several of the chat room members that I shouldn’t close myself off from the world of vampires. Mathias Northon was not a dick because he was a vampire. He was just a dick. They referred me to a counselor and suggested a number of ways I might be able to support myself using my familiarity with vampire culture, such as providing my services as a blood surrogate. It turned out to be a career choice that fulfilled me and healed a little bit of the pain I associated with the undead. I followed my clients on their migration to the Hollow. And my online friends may have exacted some revenge on Mathias that I never spoke of publicly, in order to prevent my being called as a witness for the prosecution. I was happy and settled, but if you guessed that this story ends with “And she never relationship-ed again,” you’d be correct.
It’d be fair to say that my heart still felt as if it had been run through a meat grinder. I wasn’t ready to let someone get close to me. I wasn’t ready to trust. I wasn’t ready to share so much as a stick of gum with someone else. I turned down any man who approached me, living or dead. And I maintained what I knew to be a doomed and superficial crush on unattainable vampire Gabriel Nightengale because I could tell myself my life wasn’t sad and weird if I was waiting for someone.
To be fair, it turned out he was attainable for Jane. He liked his women unruly and a little disaster-prone.
Still, I was happy with my choices. Solitude simplified my life considerably. I made meaningful connections with my clients. I made new friends. I joined a book club and took Bikram yoga classes, both of which I promptly quit because I was not good at balancing while sweating or talking about books I didn’t finish. I was able to volunteer for a network that supported victims of abusive relationships. I was alone, but I assured myself that didn’t mean I was lonely. I was calm. I was in control.
And then I met Dick Cheney.
The carefully constructed walls I’d built around my heart cracked with each single-entendre he sent my way. Yeah, he was a criminal and a bit of a pervert, but he made me want to be wanted again. I found myself looking forward to every little interaction with him as an indulgence. It was like ice cream. I knew it wasn’t good for me, but it always made me feel better. As long as he stayed in his little box marked “Nope!” I was safe.