I'll Be Here All Life | ✓ | ONC 2021

[3] She's a Furry... Friend

After my date/hang-out with Fred, we texted for a bit and made loose plans to meet again soon, but he's unavailable this weekend. Besides, we've been acting more like friends than anything else through our messages over the past week. So, when the weekend finally arrives, I open LINGR again from the comfort of my cushioned coffin and start swiping.

Huh, this nonbinary human looks cute. Up for yes. Ugh, no, I'm not into zombies... well, at least not that zombie, with their jaw hanging halfway off their head. Down for no.

After a while, I get bored like I would with Tinder. No one has messaged me, so I decide to finally get out of my coffin now that it's nighttime and stroll to my kitchen in my underwear to get a blood packet to suck on. As if in anticipation, my fangs quiver. They're thirstier than my sex drive, honestly.

By the time I stroll back to my coffin, my screen is lit up with two notifications: a text and a message on LINGR. I raise an eyebrow and lower the blood packet from my stained lips. Damn technology. Damn social media. You've got your hand squeezed around my heart because you know how fucking lonely I am.

I put my thumb on the sensor, and my phone unlocks. I open LINGR first, seeing a message from someone named Martha.

Martha: You seem cute. Plans tonight?

Vick: Not into hookups rn. Sorry.

Martha: You're pretty forward, jeez! No, I'm at a speakeasy not far from wherever you're at, according to LINGR's GPS feature.

Vick: Oh, sorry! I didn't understand what you meant.

Martha: That's okay! I'm just here by myself and looking for someone to hang out with. You seem cool. :)

I always wonder how people can tell from a simple profile how or who someone is. Eh, whatever. I have nothing else to do tonight... but if I tell Martha that she might think I'm desperate. Then again, she's the one who just said she's alone and looking for someone to hang out with...

Something that never disappears, even if you become an undead vampire like me: anxiety.

Vick: Thanks! Yeah, I'd love to meet up

Too excited. Come on, self, act cool and suave and whatever! Or is that too heteronormative? I have to pull myself together.

Vick: Thanks! It would be fun to meet up. What's the name of the speakeasy?

Martha responds quickly, and I open it in Apple Maps. Huh, it's really just a few blocks from my apartment. Dope. I scroll out of that and see the icon for a text message.

Abby: hey hot stuff, what are you up to tonight? ;)

I smirk. Abby's too flirtatious for her own good, even toward her friends. It's a wonder she even approached me that night those few months ago... It had been a week since I was turned. I was lost and had no one. I didn't trust myself to be around my family, and the world was still so chaotic after the revelation of the Underworld. Not knowing what else to do, I stumbled into an Underworld Irish pub, desperately seeking a thick Guinness to cancel out the rest of the world and the throbbing taste for blood in my palates.

Abby was there, bartending. Slowly—and sadly, as I got drunker—I revealed all to her, and I won't forget what she said: "Damn, this is pathetic," she said. "You're putting your number into my phone, and I'm calling you tomorrow." And she did, and I suppose that's the end of that. At first, I was really confused if she was flirting with me by insult or insulting me by flirt, but we're still friends, I guess, so that's something.