My Roommate Is a Vampire(28)

His familiar blood-red wax seal held the envelope closed.

    FJF



Before meeting Frederick I hadn’t known wax seals still existed. Everything about that man was an anachronism, I realized. Out of place. From a different time altogether.

Just how many clues about who and what he truly was had I missed?

Sam pretended to turn his attention back to his oatmeal, but I could feel his eyes on me as I slid my finger beneath the seal and broke it. Sam was curious about this letter—but I still hadn’t found the courage to tell him the truth about either Frederick or why I was staying in his apartment. I just didn’t have the energy to get into any of it with him.

Bracing myself, I slid out the single folded sheet of stiff, off-white paper from the envelope and began to read.

    Dear Cassie,

I hope this letter finds you well.

I write to let you know that your belongings are right where you left them. When you fled, you said I could dispose of anything you left behind. That said, I suspect that what remains in my home constitutes the bulk of your material possessions. I further suspect that you said what you did only out of fear and in the heat of the moment—and that you do, in fact, wish to have your things returned to you.

If I do not get a response to this letter within a week, I will assume you truly do not wish to have your things back and I will arrange with Gerald to have them donated to charity. (Gerald handles recycling for our building. I spoke with him for the first time yesterday. Do you know he has worked for the city’s sanitation department for twenty-two years, and has two grown children? I did not. But you probably already do, as you took out the recycling several times in the two weeks we lived together and you are so warm and friendly with everyone.) Please let me know at your earliest convenience if you would like your things returned to you. I can even arrange it so that you can collect them without having to interact with me, if that’s what you want.

Despite how we left things, I want you to know it was truly a pleasure to have made your acquaintance and to have been your roommate for the short time we were together. I am so sorry to have upset and frightened you through my lack of full disclosure and my actions.

Yours,

Frederick



I swallowed the lump in my throat, then read Frederick’s letter a second time.

Yours, Frederick.

He was just so . . . earnest.

And thoughtful. Beyond the compliment he paid me—you are so warm and friendly with everyone—he’d understood me well enough to know that after my panic had subsided, I’d likely want my stuff back.

Without him hanging around.

The vulnerability Frederick must be feeling all but jumped from the page. Yet I could tell he had taken great pains to try and hide it. I thought back to the evening he’d tried so hard to understand my art. In hindsight, of course my art made no sense to him. The man was hundreds of years old! But he’d tried anyway, listening attentively as I explained it to him—all because it was important to me.

Maybe Frederick was telling the truth when he said he never wanted to hurt me. It was seeming increasingly likely. He might not technically be alive—and yes, he was a vampire—but he was also . . .

Kind.

And thoughtful.

It’s possible he’d been faking all that just to lure me in, but with some distance from the events of the other night, I didn’t think that he’d been pretending.

“You planning to fill me in on what’s going on?” Sam’s sharp voice cut into my musings.

I bit my lip, looking away. “What do you mean?”

Sam set his bowl of oatmeal down on the coffee table and assumed what Scott and I secretly called his Sam the Lawyer posture: leaning forward in his chair, elbows on knees. I’d become so familiar with it over the years I had a feeling I knew what I was in for.

“You showed up at our apartment the other night with none of your stuff, no warning, and no explanation,” he started. “You looked like you’d just seen a ghost. You look that way right now, too, reading and rereading a letter that looks like it was written with a feather and quill.”

I pressed the letter against my chest reflexively. “This is my private mail.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “You’re literally in my living room, Cass. My question stands. What is going on?”

I paused, trying to think through how to answer that question without raising any more red flags in Sam’s mind.

“This letter is from Frederick,” I said, very carefully. “He wants to return my stuff, but I . . .” I trailed off. Took a deep breath. “I think I need to talk with him. I might have been too hasty when I moved out.”

Sam stood up abruptly. “What are you talking about?”

“You heard me.”

“Cassie,” Sam said. “You were so terrified of him the other night you ran here. Now he sends you one letter and you want to go back?” He shook his head. “This feels like a hypothetical they might use to train lawyers on how to file protective orders against abusive partners.”

My heart leapt into my throat. “It’s not like that.”

“No?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Frederick hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s been a great roommate. We just . . .” God. How could I possibly explain this situation to Sam in a way that made sense?