Bright Lights and Dark Blood (On Hold)

Chapter 16

♪Never let me go by Florence + The Machine♪

The sun is hitting Ella’s skin as it sinks into the sea’s horizon. She’s doing her best to give her fiercest look not just for the camera or the photographer but to her visitor with the sunglasses. Every single time she tries to go over the edge the past few weeks, Nicholas would kiss her on the forehead and give a lame excuse. Every single time.  On the week after the ‘carrot incident’, she did everything to jump into his bones even ‘innocently’ asking his opinion on a lacey corset this lingerie company courting her sent. He just said “You look beautiful as always, love” and left the room so she can change. Seriously? Who does that? It doesn’t help that he has steamy scenes with his costars on the show that Libby and her are now hooked on. After breaking a few bowls of popcorn and hours of ranting to a very amused Libby, she decided to give up. But here she is in a Brazilian bikini trying to kill two birds in one stone.

Libby said its pathetic for a vampire to be doing what she’s doing. “Just stop tormenting yourself and find someone else”  Libby flippantly concluded her rant. The speech started with “What’s wrong with him?” to “Is he gay?” then “Is it an actor thing?” finally to “What’s wrong with me?”. Which sounds very desperate, so she stopped giving a damn.  He wants this in slowmo then fine! But it kinda got hard when he keeps surprising her with really romantic dates and deep conversations. She doesn’t swoon instantly but if its Nicholas, swoon she does.

Three days ago made it tick.

Nicholas dragged her down the beach outside her house. She asked Libby to make sure no one would disturb them even if it means hypnotizing everyone in a two-mile radius. They reached a rock formation where they could be alone. She sat there in the sand after a long walk with Nicholas, her chin on her knees and laughing. Laughing feels so good, true laughter. Something she’s been faking for so long. This time, no interviewers, cameras, vampires, strangers she needed to act human to. Now its just the sand, breeze, Nicholas lying beside her and something about a six-year-old Nicholas wanting to be an astronaut.

“I literally took a fishbowl and put it over my head and walked around our house like there’s no gravity”— he laughed looking up at the night sky with his hands behind his head—“and then I almost suffocated when I put on my father’s jacket figured if I’d turn blue then the aliens wouldn’t know I’m not one of them”. He laughed some more before Ella hits her on the leg. “That is not funny.” she turned around with a face. “I was six” Nicholas smirked “All I wanted was to see stars up close, but I kinda got that when I entered showbiz. Anyway, I’ll still always look up and remember that fishbowl.” his eyes went back up. Ella watched him as he smiles in nostalgia. She laid down next to him and he scoots her closer so her head was on his chest.

The waves crashed in familiar rhythm as his heart seem to echo the sea. She finally looks up, seeing the tiny dots and the moon Nicholas was staring. “hmm. . .” she whispered. The skies are not like it used to be, its barren now and barely any stars. “Penny for your thoughts?” he whispered against her hair. “the sky. it-its not the same. It used to be brighter and peppered with stars and the moon is bigger then. I didn’t notice it before” it felt like someone robbed the sky of its diamonds. “When was the last time you wished upon a star, love?” he is stroking her hair now in steady breathing. She just did notice it. Ella couldn’t remember the last time she looked up and absorbed the night around her. You look up to the stars to find comfort in the present, like they are a silent witnesses ready to grant your wish, ready to hand the future.

For a vampire, the future is always certain; they exist, they feed and do so for a century more and she’s not different from the others.  Ella merely existed. Even with her claims of keeping her humanity, she knew that she is just drifting by with no dreams, aspirations and a certain but grim future and no wishing to a star could help her. Nicholas’ heartbeat became a steady background to Ella’s silence. She tightened her grip to his sides and his scent intensified but she didn’t feel compelled to feed but she wanted to stay like this. What if he could help her? Would it be wrong for her to try and wish to those pockets of light to keep things this way? Would they grant her wish?