12
VINCENT
My hunger always started the same—not in my stomach but in my skin. It was a fever that spiked when I caught a scent in the air. Blood or perspiration, a sweat-soaked shirt or a whiff of perfumed skin. A fury of heat would overtake me, rushing through my veins and making my body throb from the marrow of my bones to the surface of my skin. And when the craving passed—if it passed—it left me with an emptiness nothing else could fill.
I was so, so hungry.
I’d doubled my intake of blood bags, but even when my stomach was full, my hunger lingered. I’d begun sneaking raw steaks into my bedroom and biting into them over and over until they were unrecognizable, bloody pulps. Then I’d sit in a secluded corner of the yard and feed them to my cats. I never actually ate the meat; I just needed to feel it against my teeth. Still, it felt wrong, like I’d further desecrated the animal by abusing its flesh.
My hunger made me irritable too. I blew up at my dad all the time—he was such a pain in my ass—and a couple of times, I think I even scared Papa. Mater was getting fed up with my bad attitude. Valentina got a boyfriend who was a total dick, so I didn’t see as much of her either. I was even bored with my powers. I’d been seducing my friends and classmates since middle school. The novelty was wearing off.
There was no escape, not even in my dreams, where more often than not, I wasn’t even myself, but a dancer named Orlando, the man you’d loved so dearly, the one who’d ruined you for me. And why was I having so many sex dreams about my father? I considered asking to see a therapist—or at least telling Papa—but I was too embarrassed to confess.
The only time I felt at peace was lying in the grass with Spooky purring on my chest and my other cats surrounding me.
Your calls came every Sunday and were about as interesting as a standardized test. You asked the same set of questions—how was school, how were my parents, was I getting enough to eat? When I asked when you were coming home, there was always some excuse for the delay.
So, I started sending you pictures—a kissy face here, a shirtless selfie there. Whenever I tried to get something real out of you, you texted things like, “looks like fun” and “don’t forget the sunscreen.”
Ugh.
Your absence stretched on. I didn’t care to listen to anecdotes about your travels or the customs of whatever country you happened to be visiting in your quest to avoid me indefinitely. You never talked about your work—still a lie, Henri, even by omission—and you made sure all of our topics were “safe.”
“I’m bored,” I finally said to you one day. You’d been gone four months. “I don’t care about Chilean wine or the capital’s jazz roots. Your stories bore me, Henri, and so do these conversations.”
There was a long pause. I was being an ass, but I didn’t care. I waited so long for you to speak, I thought you must have hung up on me.
“I’d prefer to hear what’s going on in your life, Vincent, if you’d care to tell me.”
You were forever the diplomat. Why wouldn’t you just fight back for once? Put me in my place, tell me I was being rude. Something. Anything.
“School sucks, Dad’s a dick, Papa’s mad at me, and you were supposed to be back two months ago.” I’d set a calendar alert on my phone. I got a daily reminder that our appointment needed to be rescheduled.
“I’m sorry, Vincent.”
Sure, you are.
“Listen,” I said quietly. “What if I stopped asking questions? What if I… behaved myself? Would you come back then?”
A long sigh and then, “It’s complicated, cucciolo.”
“It doesn’t have to be. I can follow the rules. Boundaries, like you said.” It’d be hard, but I was willing to try.
“I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
My anger flared at your dismissal. Was I not even worthy of an argument? “I believed you the first few times, Henri. Now I think it’s bullshit. Look, I’ve got to go. Stuff, etcetera.” I ended the call before I lost it completely.
When you told me during our next conversation that you wouldn’t make it back for Christmas, I stopped answering your calls altogether. It was too painful to hear your excuses. No more texting either. If you wanted to keep up with me, you could follow me on Insta.
Or come the fuck home.
In the spring, I learned I’d been accepted to the University of Miami, which felt like another step away from you. Dad said that if I wasn’t going to keep up with my extracurriculars, I needed to get a job. I found one at the Papa John’s near my school. I figured I could at least learn how to make a proper pizza dough. As it turned out, the dough came already prepared, but it was a paycheck, and it gave me less time to mope about you. Plus, several of my classmates worked there, including Carter Fitzpatrick, who was a nice distraction.
Since elementary school, Carter and I had been like two wolves circling each other with the occasional explosive encounter that was this weird mix of violence and affection. I never told you this, but during my freshman year he’d tried to come at me, so I laid him down in the middle of the hallway with an Aikido move. Later that week he grabbed me from behind while I was walking to the bus ramp and dragged me between two buildings at our school. I thought he was going to kick my ass, but he just sat on top of me, pinning me between his knees, so that I couldn’t move. It was similar to what he’d done to me in elementary school. We just stared at each other. I wasn’t even trying to seduce him, but maybe that was what happened, because after that, there were a few times when I’d turn my head and catch him looking away.
The manager of Papa Johns was sexist as fuck and put the girls on registers and the guys on the line. “The girls” somehow included me, either because I was gay or because I spoke in complete sentences. Whatever. It meant I got to flirt with the customers and make homophobes super uncomfortable.
It also meant I didn’t have to smell Carter sweating all over the sausage and pepperoni as he pulled pies out of the oven.
