Coleen: Forever (Waking Forever Series Book 5) Read online

  She took several deep breaths in through her nose, reveling in the fragrant bouquet that surrounded her. “Ms. Andrade, I am finished in the house, but I really think you should let me go pick up some groceries for you.” Rosa stood over Coleen, her thick brown hair pulled back in a bun.

  Coleen opened her eyes, an exasperated sigh escaping her lips. “I’m fine, Rosa.”

  Rosa was in her late fifties, and barely five feet tall, with a round, plump figure. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans, white Adidas tennis shoes, and an ill-fitting polo shirt with the cleaning company’s logo on the front. “No, no ma’am. You misunderstand. I will get a few basics. Milk, eggs, cheese, maybe some –”

  “Rosa, stop.” Coleen sat up, resentful the woman had interrupted her. “If I need something I will go get it. Now, please, if you’re done cleaning – go.”

  Rosa nodded as Coleen spoke. “I’ll bring some groceries when I come next week. Very good.” The woman turned and walked away, leaving Coleen utterly perplexed that a person she paid was completely disinterested in doing what she asked of her. Which, in this case, was nothing.

  Coleen waved her hand in the air. “Fine, fine, Rosa. Buy out the whole goddamn market for all I care.” She laid back down on the bed. “It will all rot anyway.” Coleen muttered.

  Just as Coleen’s thoughts began to wander again, her phone buzzed next to her. Irritated by yet another interruption, Coleen glanced at the caller ID before pressing the accept icon. “Hello.”

  “Hi Coleen, this is Julian Esparza.” Coleen smiled at the boy’s use of his full name.

  “Hello Julian. How are you?” It had been nearly two weeks since she had dinner with Julian and his sister Isla. If Coleen were honest, she was disappointed Isla hadn’t reached out to her on her own. Usually if a woman said she was going to call Coleen, she did. Then again, Coleen knew it was possible the call from Julian today was actually a call on behalf of his sister.

  “I’m good. How are you?” The boy’s enthusiasm was endearing, and Coleen struggled not to match his volume and rate of speech.

  “I’m doing well.” Coleen waited for several seconds, but when Julian didn’t say anything, she thought a gentle nudge couldn’t hurt. “Did you need something, Julian?”

  “Yes. I have a play at school and want you to come.” Julian’s energy from earlier had given way to nervousness. “It’s not a play really. I won an astronomy contest, and I get to participate in a presentation. I’m Saturn, and there will be actual astronomers from A&M University. It’s about the solar system, and I get to be Saturn.”

  Coleen smirked at the boy’s scattered train of thought, but thought she should take the opportunity to see Isla again. She still wasn’t sure if the woman was worth pursuing long term; so the additional interaction couldn’t hurt.

  “Sounds – ah – neat.” Coleen cringed.

  “Awesome! It’s Friday night at my school. Isla said if you accepted, we could just text you the information. Okay?”

  “That would be fine. Give my best to your sister.” Coleen sat up and put her legs over the side of the bed.

  “O – okay. Bye.”

  The phone went silent, and Coleen dropped it on the daybed. It occurred to her the only person to ask her out on a date in over a hundred years was a ten year old boy. It was depressing enough that if she weren’t already dead, Coleen might consider hanging herself.

  Still, if she looked on the bright side, the outing would give her another opportunity to size up Isla. Coleen walked through the garden, and into the kitchen. She retrieved an old fashioned glass from the cabinet and poured herself a glass of Basil Hayden whiskey.

  As she strolled through the house, sipping the whiskey, and enjoying the hints of pepper accented by honey, a feeling of dread began to creep over her. It was not a feeling Coleen had very much experience with, but the tightening of her chest, and the clenching of her stomach were telltale signs of anxiety.

  Walking into the library, Coleen sat down on the sofa, a frown distorting her otherwise perfect features. Julian will be alone.

  The single thought replayed in her head as she imagined how the boy would cope with the loss of his sister. It doesn’t matter to me. He’ll manage.

  Coleen sat the half full glass of whiskey on the end table, and leaned back on the couch. Julian will be alone.

  Running her fingers through her hair, she pulled her legs up onto the sofa, and tucked them under her. These things can’t be helped. He’ll go live with an aunt or cousin. She can’t be all the family he has.

  Coleen didn’t know how she had allowed this to happen, this low burning ember of empathy that was threatening to flare up into a full on fire. She had to stop it. A vampire doesn’t live nearly three millennia without meticulously wrapping their heart up in an airless, motionless tomb.

  She had slipped with Emma and allowed herself to be vulnerable – to love. She could not be so concerned with others as to put them above her own wants, needs, and desires.

  ***

  Rawlinson Middle School was located less than ten minutes from Coleen’s house. It was a set of three, non-descript beige brick buildings connected by a central corridor. As Coleen wound her way toward the auditorium, through the maze of halls and past gaggles of parents and children, she was shocked at the amount of sanitizer hovering in the air.

  What the hell do they think these kids are infected with?

  “Coleen.” Isla was standing in front of a set of two, large metal doors. Coleen couldn’t help but admire the flare of her hips and backside in her jeans, and the swell of her breasts under the slim fit, purple, V-neck sweater she was wearing.

  As humans went, Isla wasn’t difficult to look at. It didn’t hurt that even with the stench of industrial strength disinfectant pervading the air, Coleen could still smell Isla’s natural citrus and floral scent.

  “Hello.” Coleen smiled warmly.

  Isla returned the smile. “You look nice.”

  Coleen hadn’t been sure what to wear to a ten year old’s solar system extravaganza, but a pair of dark jeans, a black wrap blouse, and a pair of black heels seemed like a safe bet.

  “Thank you. I like what you’re wearing too.” Coleen winked, and was immediately rewarded as Isla’s neck and cheeks turned a bright red.

  “So, we’re in here.” Isla nervously turned and held the door open for Coleen. The auditorium was relatively small, with seating for less than a hundred people. The stage was narrow, and flanked on either side by the United States and Texas State flags.

  “Do you have a preference on where you sit?” Isla asked.

  Coleen scanned the room. “I would prefer to sit next to you.” She smiled without looking at Isla.

  “That’s a given.” Isla shook her head, and then pointed toward two seats near the back of the auditorium. “There.”

  “After you.” Coleen followed Isla through the crowd, and took the seat next to her.

  “They get quite a turn out for these things.” Coleen commented as she crossed her legs and laid her hand bag in her lap.

  “You should see the holiday pageant.” Isla leaned toward Coleen so she didn’t have to shout over the hum of the crowd.

  Enjoying the warmth of Isla’s arm against hers, Coleen leaned in as well. “What’s the contest Julian won?”

  Isla grinned, clearly proud of her brother. “It was an essay on the future of space exploration. The title of his paper was Space Traveling in a Bad Mood.”

  Coleen chuckled. “Clever.”

  Isla smiled, but there was a hint of sadness in her brown eyes. “Yes, Julian is very smart, but the paper was about how lonely it would be to travel through space.”

  Coleen’s brow furrowed. “And you worry he’s lonely?”

  Isla nodded. “He misses our parents. He and our father were very close.”

  “Do you have any other family?” If Coleen hadn’t already been holding her breath, she would have at that moment. She wanted Isla to regale her with thei
r expansive family tree so Coleen would know turning Isla wouldn’t leave Julian an orphan.

  “No. Both our parents were only children, and our grandparents died years ago.” Isla sighed. “It’s just the two of us.”

  Coleen felt a whirl of emotion in that moment. She was irrationally angry with Isla and Julian’s grandparents for not spitting out twenty children each, and she was pissed that their parents didn’t give Isla and Julian five brothers and sisters. Mostly though, she felt pity, and feared it might turn into the most useless of emotions - guilt.

  “I’m sure he’s going to be fine. He always seems very upbeat when we talk.” Coleen said the words, but did not feel them.

  “Well, he thinks you’re funny, and kind, and pretty, and the greatest person ever.” Isla shifted in her seat, and Coleen felt a pang of loss as their arms were no longer touching.

  “He just doesn’t know me very well.” Coleen joked. “Otherwise, he would add brilliant to that list.”

  Isla laughed, and Coleen realized it was the first time she had heard that sound from her. Coleen rather liked it.

  “I thought you would call me.” Coleen leaned over the arm rest, and practically whispered the words in Isla’s ear.

  Isla didn’t look at Coleen as she spoke, but kept her eyes focused on the stage. Coleen noted a rise in her pulse. “I’ve been very busy getting ready for my thesis defense, and my comprehensive exams.”

  For the sake of continuing her conversation with Isla, Coleen knew to feign interest in what otherwise seemed like the dull details of the living. “How is that going?”

  Isla turned her attention to Coleen. “Fine.”

  Coleen was growing wary of Isla’s seemingly uninterested attitude toward her. It was highly unlikely she didn’t find Coleen attractive, and she had participated in enough innuendo at dinner that Coleen felt safe assuming Isla was attracted to her.

  “Have I offended you?” Coleen asked frankly. Isla’s eyes widened, but before she could speak the lights dimmed and the curtain rose.

  Feeling annoyed by the lack of momentum between her and Isla, Coleen struggled to focus on the performance. A young woman in her early thirties, with shoulder length brown hair and a lean athletic build, walked onto the stage.

  “Good evening. I’m Regan Andrews, and I’m with the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University in College Station.” The woman smiled warmly at the crowd as two men in their early twenties rolled several large boxes onto the stage behind and to the side of her.

  “Every year, the University sponsors a series of planetarium road shows, and middle school children from across the state are encouraged to write an essay about an Astronomy topic that interests them.” Regan paused as one of the men handed her a small pen size laser pointer. “Rawlinson Middle School had five winners this year.”

  Regan paused between each child’s introduction, for what Coleen thought was overly exuberant clapping by the attendees. Afterwards, she informed the audience all five essays could be read on the Texas A&M University website, or the Rawlinson Middle School website.

  Ten more children were introduced for a number of alleged accomplishments Coleen couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to, and then finally the presentation began.

  The large boxes opened, and the entire auditorium was transformed into a planetarium. Projections of comets, planets, stars, and moons began rotating across the ceiling and walls. The five essay winners were each given flat, circular lighted signs as Regan explained to each of them the role they were going to play in the manmade constellations.

  “Julian, you’re Saturn, which means you are over eight hundred and eighty six million miles from the Sun.” Regan pointed to the larger of the projectors. “So you have to go way out to the edge of the stage, past your friend Olivia.” Julian nodded, a broad smile on his face as he walked toward the edge of the stage holding a large, round, lighted version of Saturn high over his head.

  For the next twenty minutes, Regan, with help from the fifteen children, demonstrated the various planets’ orbits and rotations in comparison to the Earth’s. Coleen felt a pang of pity for the presenter when several of the supposedly gifted students were struggling to remember how to turn clockwise, and one girl nearly fell off the end of the stage because she didn’t follow directions.

  Finally, the lights went up. Coleen was confused as to why all of the attendees, including Isla, stood and applauded vigorously. Coleen could appreciate the sentimentality of seeing your child not completely humiliate themselves in front of a room full of people, but she hardly thought it warranted a standing ovation.

  Not wanting to further cool things off with Isla, Coleen begrudgingly stood, and managed to clap. She scanned the crowded room, listening to the human heartbeats pounding and overlapping with the applause. In that moment Coleen felt further away from humanity than she had in centuries.

  “Is everything okay?” Isla asked, a concerned expression on her face.

  Coleen realized she had stopped clapping and was standing with her hands clasped in front of her. “Yes.” The truth was she worried she had lost the ability to relate to humans at all. Maybe that was why Isla wasn’t warming to her. It was possible the only thing Coleen had going for her were her looks. Otherwise, she was nothing more than a cold, well spoken, slightly eccentric woman.

  The realization that, in spite of centuries of isolating herself from humans, Coleen did in fact need them, was startling. She feared the very world she had shunned now wanted nothing to do with her. Humans were more than a food source, and something to mock and ridicule. Humanity was where she had started all those thousands of years ago, and now that she was needing to find her way back for a very inhumane reason, Coleen was lost.

  “I’m actually not feeling well.” Coleen tucked her hand bag under her arm. “Please give my apologies to Julian.” The urgency to put space between not just Isla and her, but the hundred other people was overwhelming. Coleen was reminded of what she could not get back, and could not fake. Coleen pushed her way out of the aisle and auditorium before a surprised Isla could respond.

  Coleen resisted the urge to sprint to her car. She unlocked her car, but stopped short of getting in when she heard Isla’s voice coming from behind her.

  “Hey, wait up!” A slightly out of breath Isla trotted up to Coleen. “Don’t do that.”

  Coleen cocked her head to the side. “Do what?”

  “Really? You just leave. And don’t tell me you’re sick.” Isla’s tone was emphatic and certain. “I know you’re getting tired of my mixed signals, but don’t punish Julian.” She took a deep breath. “He thinks the world of you.”

  “He’ll have to manage disappointment his entire life.” Coleen opened the car door. “He may as well get used to it.” Coleen slid into the driver’s seat, and accelerated out of the parking lot without looking back.

  ***

  “Ms. Andrade, I’m here!” Rosa’s voice boomed through the house, and Coleen hunched her shoulders against the onslaught.

  Short of two outings to hunt, Coleen hadn’t left her house in over a month. She had turned down three invitations from Rachel and Sara, and had rejected two calls from Isla knowing they were more than likely to reprimand her. Worse, she imagined the calls were Julian asking why she had run away from him.

  Since Emma left, and she had made that fateful decision to intervene instead of letting Isla and Julian die in dark, Coleen had not been comfortable in her own skin. If she were honest with herself – something she was struggling with as of late – Emma leaving and the feelings her departure evoked, had been catalysts.

  Sitting on the sofa in her library, Coleen knew remembering her human life had lingered with her. She now felt covered in the residue of who she had been, and who she was. Now more than ever, she understood the value of forgetting when you are turned.

  She wanted to simply turn Isla, and be done with it. Isla’s feelings and memories of Julian would fade quickly once she was a va
mpire, and life would move Julian on regardless of whether his sister were with him. Coleen laid down on the sofa, crossed her ankles, and closed her eyes.

  “Ms. Andrade.” Rosa was standing over Coleen. “Good morning, ma’am.” The woman had a pair of yellow rubber gloves on.

  Coleen forced herself into a sitting position. “Yes, Rosa?”

  “I know you kept insisting I should not get groceries, but I did buy some essentials.” Rosa nodded.

  Coleen wanted to be alone more than she wanted to have a pointless back-and-forth with her cleaning lady. “Fine. How much do I owe you?”

  Rosa held one of her gloved hands up. “No, ma’am. It’s no problem.”

  Coleen was watching Rosa walk out of the library when something occurred to her. “Rosa?”

  The woman turned. “Yes, Ms. Andrade.”

  Coleen patted the spot on the sofa next to her. “Come sit with me.” She saw the hesitation in the woman’s posture, and forced a broad smile. “Please, sit with me.”

  Rosa pulled the rubber gloves off, and sat down next to Coleen, her back and shoulders stiff. Coleen shifted so she was facing the clearly nervous woman.

  “Rosa, do you have children?” Coleen thought it would be foolish to not take advantage of a human’s point of view. Rosa was, oddly, the human she interacted with the most.

  “Oh, yes ma’am.” The woman practically gushed. “I have three. Miguel, Grace, and Javier.”

  Coleen smiled at Rosa’s obvious pride. “You’re very proud of them?”

  “Yes, of course. They are my children.” Rosa spoke as if it was a foregone conclusion that a parent would always be proud of their child. Coleen struggled with that in principle, having invested so much of her value system in what people did, regardless of whether she personally liked them.

  She remembered when Rachel first told her about Sara. Coleen cared for Rachel, but her actions had felt like a betrayal not only to Coleen, but to the entire vampire way of life. Coleen had never told Rachel how close she had come to killing Sara before Rachel ultimately turned her.

  “And your husband?” Coleen continued her line of questioning, not sure where she expected to get with it.