"You like silver piercings?"

"Well, actually they're for my boyfriend, but yeah, I do enjoy them," I replied. The salesgirl was so sweet. Maybe I would give her my number so we could hang out.

"My girlfriend has the most beautiful dark skin, and she wears gold piercings all the time. She looks gorgeous in them," she adds in to our obvious queerness.

"Oh my god! She must look incredible. Dark skin tones do look good with gold."

She smiled and nodded. "Anything else?"

I shook my head "Thank you so so much for helping me!"

"Sure, anytime."

I thanked her again when she rung me up at the cash register. She was such a nice girl. Sometimes I wish I was bi, then I would like girls. And girls are more emotionally present than boys are. I've been with some pretty emotionally absent people. I guess I should try to work on being emotionally invested myself.

I gave her my number if she ever needed a friend, and she called me right there so I could have hers. She waved as I walked out.

I drove all the way home, giggling with anticipation. I already looked pretty badass, and I was ecstatic: I could get vengeance on Heath for all the times that he had to cancel on me, and I had a new friend who thought that my boyfriend loved silver.

When I got home, I parked my car in the basement parking lot of the apartment complex and headed upstairs with forty dollars worth of vengeance. And I giggled as I put in the silver lip ring, silver tongue stud, tiny silver hoop in my ear piercing, and put on three different rings that were all silver. The silver was coloured black for the rings and the earring, but it was classic silver for the lip and tongue piercings. I giggled with anticipation for the next day, and hardly got to sleep.

...

"Hey, Caleb. You're looking extra emo today—ahh, what is that?"

"What?" I asked innocently, walking inside. It was sunny today, too, so I lowkey felt a little bad, you know, hitting one bird with two stones. Wait, no, that's not right. But before I had time to process it, he talked again.

"I don't know... that extra magnetic kind of feeling..." he trailed off. I shrugged in response.

"I don't know these vampire feelings you know."

"I... I know. Do you want something to drink?"

"Sure. I'd love something to drink. Oh, wait, I forgot something in my car, I'll be right back, actually." I'd actually gotten him something that he liked, just to make up for the ambush that I was carrying out at the moment. The only thing that vampires and humans could both consume (as far as I knew) was alcohol, and I bought him a six pack of his favourite apple cider. I really hoped that he didn't take the prank that I was playing with my jewellery too seriously.

I really did love him, but the past three months had just proved that he might not love me back. I took off my rings for good measure. I think they were the ones that were the heaviest. I left the rings in my car and walked back up his garden to his house. I took a deep breath and opened his door, walking inside again, this time with six bottles of apple cider in my hand, all in one of the cardboard boxes that they were sold in.

"Thank you! You're the absolute best, darling." His eyes lit up as he took the box from me, then cringed. "I feel the magnetism thing again. I think you might be wearing silver."

His eyes—that had just lit up because I'd given him a gift—dimmed down. "You're... wearing it on purpose... aren't you?"

"I-I—"

"No, I don't blame you. You don't have to be here if you don't want to be. I've been a terrible boyfriend for the past... what two and a half months?"

"Three..." I whispered, but I knew it wouldn't make anything better. "It feels like you've been ignoring me."

His hand flew to his mouth, and he looked down at his feet, ashamed. The silver wasn't supposed to make him feel so terrible. It wasn't supposed to make me feel this guilty. I swallowed. It was all just supposed to be a fucking joke that I may have taken too seriously.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "You don't have to accept my apology, but do you want to sit down and talk it out or something? There was something I wanted to tell you anyway."

"Yeah, sure, lemme just take these out. Where should I put them?"

"I can't touch them or else they'll burn me, so..."

"In my car. I'll be right back, don't worry, Heath," I whispered, and went into my car, exchanging the tongue and lip piercings for stainless steel ones, so that it wouldn't affect him, and took out the rest of the jewellery. Sighing, I went back inside. But when I saw Heath, looking at his hands on the sofa, looking genuinely disgusted with himself, I broke.

I couldn't hold back the tears any longer. I let out a sob and pressed my back against the door, sliding down, and curling into a ball, sobbing the ugliest sob I've ever heard. I felt a pair of arms scoop me up and knew that it was Heath, but I didn't fight it. It felt so good to be in his arms again, to be carried by him again. He sat down on the sofa with me on his lap, crying into his chest.

He stroked my back, my hair, and when my tears slowed down, he stroked my face, which after he did so, I buried my face in his neck again out of shame for what I'd done.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, but he only drew me closer.

"It isn't you who should be sorry. I've spent so long away from you, and all for nothing. Trust me, I missed you like hell. That's why I was watching our movie with my sister so that I could remember you, so I could pretend you were there and I was sitting in between the two of you. And I was cuddling when you came in because I was crying at one point, and Cynthia did what any good sister should do, and she comforted me, hugged me. I'm sorry. You misread that big time, and I don't blame you. A vampire family is all adoptive so she doesn't look like me but she's never going to be anything but a sister to me."

I swallowed. "I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions." I slid off his lap, and bit my lip, looking at him as if waiting for an explanation. Heath took a deep breath.

"Caleb, I'm really sorry that I did that to you for three months. I hope I can make it up to you, because I love you, and in my three hundred years of life, I have never loved someone more deeply than you."

"Yeah, I've never felt this way about someone else either. But if you feel that way why did you ghost for three months? Three whole fucking agonising months, Heath." I almost started crying again, but I swallowed before any tears could come out.

"Because Julie and Andrew said..." he muttered.

"W-what? What did your parents say?"

"They said it was unhealthy that I was in a relationship with a human. They want me to stop being with you. I tried to tell them it wasn't as easy as that, but they don't understand. I-I-I wish they would remember w-what it was like w-when they were in love like that. They still are. After five hundred years they're still deeply in love, but they were both vampires when they fell in love. It just happens that you're not."

I swallowed. "Yeah, unfortunately not."

"Unfortunately?" He asks, then taking a deep breath—an unnecessary breath, but a deep one all the same—looks down at his hands. "Would you, well... would you like to change that?"

I look up at him, shocked. My hand flew to my lips, and my eyes were stuck open. My breath was shaky, but my hand was hiding my smile. I let gravity do its thing, and I fell into Heath's chest, my head in the curve between his shoulder and neck. I felt his arms come up and wrap around me and I struggled to keep the smile off of my face.

Heath finally cupped my cheek and drew me slightly away.

"So what do you say? You don't have to give me an answer right away..."

I looked at him, his gorgeous eyes, pale skin, dark hair, defined jaw, one hand holding mine, the other holding my cheek, and I remembered the reason I fell in love with him. It wasn't because of his looks, it wasn't because he was charming, it wasn't because he was sexy, not even because of his expansive vocabulary. It was because of his pure and genuine kindness.

So my hand came up to cup his cheek as well, and lightly, ever so gently, I pressed my lips to his, savouring every last moment of it. And when he kissed me back, it felt like flowers bloomed inside of me, metaphorical paint splattered in my head, blood raced through my veins, and the sun's heat didn't compare to the heat I felt in my cheeks.

"So..." Heath murmured hesitantly after we'd broken away, "is that a yes?"

I opened my mouth to say yes, but then I remembered why I was here in the first place, and what I'd brought to spite Heath for his three-month abandonment of me. So I looked at him, and I think my eyes were somewhat kind when I said, "Not before you tell me where you were for three months."

"I-I... I should tell you."

"Communication is the basis of a strong relationship."

"Oh my god, you're so perfect, I'm just..."

I raised my eyebrow, and he swallowed.

"Okay. You're not going to like this.  My parents dragged me to Europe for two and a half months. I didn't want to tell you early because I didn't want it to be such a big deal, but I forgot I wouldn't have time for connectivity because it was kind of a thing to get away from our lives here, so that's why I didn't tell you. Looking back, it was one of the most stupid decisions I've ever made. But since I was going to Europe, I thought I'd leave early because I knew I had to get this particular thing for someone. I haven't given it to them yet, though, and I need—"

"You need some help on how to give it to them. Okay, what is the gift and where did you get it?"

"I got it in Switzerland, but I can't tell you what the gift itself is."

"W-why not?" He didn't respond to me for a few moments, and I started to process his silence. He'd just confirmed that he wasn't cheating on me. But everyone lied. "Did you buy a ring?"

"I'm not cheating on you."

I blushed quickly. Why did I always jump to the worst conclusions? Why did my brain assume the worst? And even if he was, he wouldn't ask me for advice on how to present it to this hypothetical lover.Again, I looked down at my hands. "Sorry, I'm just scared that because you're a vampire, you'll get bored of me for one reason or another and you'll just be too kind to tell me."

He drew me to his chest, and I hugged back, the both of us just basking in the closeness of our friendship and the honesty of our relationship. "So, I answered your question, will you answer mine?"

"If it lets me be with you, yes, I want you to 'turn' me."

He grinned and kissed my forehead. "Oh, and to answer your question, I did buy a ring, and it's up to you whether you want it or not," he whispered in my ear, barely audible.

I drew my face back from his chest sharply and looked down at his hands, which were reaching into his pocket for a ring, a gorgeous one, which he'd had inscribed (on the inside) with our initials. I smiled, tears in my eyes, and looked at him as though he was offering me the world.

"Do you want to be married?"

The question drifted into my ears, and filled my brain, echoing and bouncing off the inner walls of my head, but before I could even think about what he'd just asked, I did what I would never—not in a million lifetimes—take back.

"Yes," I whispered, and our lips crashed together, and only then did he slip the ring onto my finger, the wrong finger, but at least he didn't miss completely. And happiness wasn't only found in the simplicity and beauty of this ring, but in the euphoria that we were soaring through only minutes later on his bed.