I shoved a heavy chair under the doorknob, wedging it tight.
My stomach growled. I hadn’t finished my cereal. Perfect. Trapped in a haunted house, tethered to a vampire, and still hungry.
I scanned the room for holy water. Nothing. No crosses either. I grabbed the nearest substitutes: a bottle of hairspray and a pair of scissors.
“Try me, Nosferatu,” I whispered, even though part of me—the traitorous part—was already aware of the pull in my chest, that strange, invisible thread humming toward him.
I didn’t want to feel it. I didn’t want any of this.
But when I closed my eyes, the tether thrummed once, low and steady, like it was laughing at me.
Motherfucker.
Chapter 5
Nadia
Iwoke up determined.
Notcalm—never calm—but determined. I refused to let one grumpy, naked, centuries-old vampire derail my summer of healing. This was supposed to be restful. Restorative. A mental health retreat, but with more yarn and fewer blood-drinking incidents.
Sitting up, I pushed my hair out of my face and grabbed my therapy notebook from the nightstand. It was pink, spiral-bound, and covered in doodles of stars and lemons. Inside: my handwritten pep talks, courtesy of Dr. Meadows, who had the patience of a saint.
Page one, top corner, underlined three times:
Regulate before you ruminate.
“Copy that.”
Page two:
Don’t catastrophize before coffee.
Solid advice. I flipped through more pages, reading the things I’d written in her office when I wasn’t crying into a tissue. I’d highlighted an entire section labeled
Affirmations That Don’t Make Me Cringe (Mostly).
I stood, found my stack of neon sticky notes, and started copying them down in loopy handwriting. My plan: Operation Emotional Stability.
This was essential to my survival. My therapist had been helping me train my brain to slow down—something about “externalizing reminders” and “building visual cues.” Which, in regular-person terms, meant covering every flat surface in the house with encouraging graffiti until I remembered who I was.
And now? With a vampire currently throwing a four-century-large wrench in my self-improvement era, I needed every reminder I could get. My brain didn’t do quiet; it did sprinting thoughts and emotional fireworks. Sticky notes were the only way I could think of at the moment to keep myself grounded long enough to breathe, focus, and not spiral into a full meltdown.
Cristian wasn’t around when I left my room, and while my brain was relieved, the rest of me seemed to be suffering from disappointment. Within minutes, I was in the kitchen with my sticky notes (definitely not looking for my—ahem—a vampire), and it looked like a motivational crime scene.
I am not too much. I am simply me.
I can take up space at work.
I do not audition for cliques.
I don’t translate myself for bullies.
My weird is welcome in my own life.
I choose rest without earning it.
I set the volume on my day.
