The Vacant House

Six months had gone by, but time never made it any easier.

Night after night I still stood at my bedroom window, gazing at the unoccupied house across the street.

The house where Grace lived.

The house where she vanished.

One day I was hopeful she would return and it was all a simple misunderstanding. Yet, as the days went on, so did the optimism that she would be found. That her sudden disappearance could be explained.

I never gave up. Maybe I should, just as her mum, Melissa, had.

Three months into Grace's disappearance, Melissa made the decision to move closer to family living in the South as she couldn't continue living in limbo. It was no secret she desired to live by the coast, and now she was.

While I was stuck here, living my nightmare of the unknown.

Sometimes I loathed being alone, it gave me too much time to think when I just wanted to block everything out.

Beverly, my mum, was working the night shift at the hospital. Originally I wanted to follow in her footsteps as a paediatric nurse, but I found another calling - family law. Earlier, I graduated and it was the first time I felt... joy.

Then guilt.

Guilt swept me up in its wave of remorse. How could I be proud of what I had achieved when Grace wasn't there to share it with me? How could I be happy knowing that Grace never got to graduate herself?

Where was she?

My mind didn't get to wander down the rabbit hole of questions for long.

A flicker of light illuminating from Grace's house caught my attention.

Could it be?

I rapidly threw on my slipper boots onto my feet, thrust my arms into my fleece hooded jacket and darted out of the house as fast as my sized six feet could carry me.

But then I came to a halt, a realisation dawning.

I couldn't very well just waltz up to the front door and let myself in. The nosy neighbours on our street had exceedingly twitchy fingers, always peeping through their curtains to eagerly know all the goings-on.

Someone would no doubt report me for trespassing.

The back gate.

Yes, I could go through the back way. It was fringed by large fencing, perfectly private; no prying eyes to be concerned about.

I carefully lifted the latch and opened the gate. Darkness mantled the back garden in black, making it somewhat difficult to see if it wasn't for the glimpse of luminosity reflecting through the patio doors and onto the decking.

It was then I saw the patio door was gaping a smidgen.

Someone was in Grace's house.

My mind did not veer to the obvious; a burglar casing out the joint, seeing what little trinkets had been left behind that would be worth stealing or a squatter seeking a place to sleep. My mind immediately came up with the conclusion that Grace had come home.

And I was right.

As soon as I stepped inside, I saw her. She was standing in the centre of what used to be the dining room, facing me. Even in the cloak of dark, I could see how much she had changed in the six months I hadn't seen her.

Grace's frame was sculpted into fine muscles, her skin was more sun kissed than it usually was and her glossy wavy ebony hair glistened as though it had been bathed in a dust of diamonds.

"Grace," I breathed, beginning to take a hurried step toward her, eager to take her in my arms.

"No," she said. I stopped. "Please don't come any closer, Jodie. I don't want to hurt you."

"Hurt me? What... What are you talking about? You would never hurt me."

Physically, she wouldn't, but in other ways Grace had unconsciously done so. My elation at seeing her again, when I was starting to believe it wouldn't be possible, had eclipsed the indignation that was humming in the corners of my mind. Simmering under my skin.

"You have no idea what I'm capable of... not now." She warned me.

The small laugh I let out was tinged with nerves. "Grace, stop talking like that. I know you. I love you..."

She shook her head vigorously, interrupting me she said, "you don't know me. You never did, because I never told you what I am."

What she is.

Before I could respond, Grace continued. "Six months ago I discovered something... something about my heritage. When I found out, I didn't handle it very well. I'm still not handling it, but I've had to accept it. It's why I left, I needed to get it under control before ever seeing you again. I never wanted to leave, but mum thought it was best I headed down South."

"Wait... your mum knew where you were all this time?" She nodded. Wow. "I can't believe it." I paused, allowing the information to sink in. "She reported you missing. The police scoured the lakes, the woodlands in search of you and all this time you were living it up with your family."

The muted anger was on the verge of exploding. But I could not let it erupt just yet. I needed further clarification.

"Mum thought it was the only way to avoid suspicion." Grace admitted. "In time, the plan was for me to come back and pretend I had gone off in a strop after an argument. That I needed time to cool off and then I'd come home with my tail between my legs."

I arched my brow, finding a flaw in what she just said. "Hang on... if that was the plan, then why has your mum up sticks and gone?"

Her sudden quietness had me filled with dread. I was infused with the sense that she was holding something back and the need to run struck me like a wild bolt of lightning.

"The plan changed." Grace eventually confessed. "I was never meant to come back home."

Unwanted tears surged, but I quickly blinked them away.

I will not cry. I will not let her see me cry.

I gulped, then exhaled. "So... why have you come back?"

"To say goodbye. Properly."

Goodbye.

That one word was draped in so much finality.

"Jodie, I love you. I will never stop loving you, you have to know that." Grace shifts her feet slightly. "But I have to tell you, I have responsibilities back in the South. The truth about my heritage means I am to be promised to another... to the daughter of an Alpha from a rival pack." She went against her earlier caution and took a vague step forward, keeping a safe amount of distance and added, "I'm a werewolf, Jodie. This union I have engaged myself in will put an end to the territorial wars between my pack and hers..." Her words trailed off. "Huh... it feels weird saying 'my pack'".

"Yeah, well it's even weirder actually hearing this bullshit you're trying to get me to believe." I huffed.

"It's the truth."

I sniggered, enunciating every word with heavy sarcasm as I answered, "and I'm a vampire who has a horde of victims stacked in the basement."

"Jodie, please."

"You were my first love." I cut her off, my voice trembling, betraying me in my act of bravado, "but you know what the great things are about first loves... they are never the last." I wrinkled my nose and sneered. "I never want to see you... again."

I swivelled around at high speed and was hit with a head rush. I darted out of the house without a care of who would see me. Not once did I dare glance back at the girl who stole my heart three years ago, but broke it in one day.

Back inside my own house, I once again stood at my bedroom window.

Once again staring at Grace's house. And again it was shrouded in blackness, like she was never there to begin with.

Just me, my thoughts and the vacant house across the street.