Children of Van Helsing

Chapter Forty-seven - Deal or No Deal

Lily

When I kissed Jessica for the first time all those years ago, I would have never imagined in how much trouble it would bring me. And when I had said goodbye, I would have never imagined how much I would regret it.

After Jessica had left, I had packed my stuff and told the owner of the apartment building I had to leave urgently. I had handed in my keys, and for the first time in what seemed forever, called my mother. She had picked up immediately, but her tone had been cold and distant.

"Hello, Lily."

No 'sweetie', no 'darling', no 'how have you been'. I could almost imagine her, clutching her hand around the little golden cross around her neck, internally cursing me for being such a disappointment. I had asked if I could come home. She had been surprised and asked me why — I told her I had broken up with Jessica. It hurt me to hear the triumph in her tone when she said that had to be horrible for me. She asked me if I still preferred girls and I lied — I told her I had made a mistake and wanted to turn my life around. The wayward daughter would come home, defeated and miserable, and she would mould me into the shape she preferred; Straight, obedient, a good Christian.

It had been strange to be home again. Good memories came back to me, but also bad memories: me screaming at my mother, her backing away from me as if I was some kind of monster. Her kicking me out of the house and denying my existence. And now I was back and I had to see her smug, content face all the time. My father had hugged me, but his embrace was cold.

I hadn't lasted a week. They had turned me crazy, all that talk about how great my siblings were doing, all those triumphant looks. They showed me pictures of local boys, asked if I wanted to meet them. I hadn't been home for a few days and they had already been trying to get me a partner. A decent one, in their eyes.

But I only wanted Jessica.

I had left after that week, my already shattered heart crushed, but filled with disappointment towards my family.

Not hatred. Never hatred. They were still my family and I couldn't hate them, no matter how much they despised me. And foolishly enough I had missed them. They were the people who had raised me, with whom I had grown up, and before they knew I was a lesbian they had been the best family one could wish for.

And even though they had stopped calling me their daughter, sister, niece, anything family-related, abandoning them was the hardest thing I ever had to do.

And now I had done it again.

But, being back there with my family, I had realised that the Van Helsings had been more of a family than my own had been the past years. And I missed Jessica.

Jessica. The woman who could make me laugh even when I felt like never smiling again, the woman who could make silence pleasant — she had been more than just my friend; she had been my best friend, my playmate, my guardian, the caretaker of my mind. And I missed her.

Still, I didn't regret leaving her behind, simply because I was unable to love her if we lived the way we had been. I was just going back to my apartment to escape my mother's hurtful words and my father's disappointed looks. And maybe, just maybe, when the whole uprising business was over, we could start over.

The drive back home to my little apartment had been long and lonely. When I had arrived, it had been past midnight and London's ambiance was spooky and dark.

I arranged that I could move back in and dumped my suitcases on the floor without unpacking them. I undressed and went to sleep immediately.

Nothing happened for days. It almost got boring — so I went to the library, the cinema, forced myself to go out and get coffee or tea or anything else at least once a day, even though it was ludicrously cold and I didn't feel like it. I had just told myself I couldn't hang around in my apartment in self-pity.