I’m back in LA. The ball was already a week ago. Vance and I have been texting, but we haven’t seen each other as he’s been in Detroit visiting his uncle. His IG hasn’t shown him there. The recent posts have all been from the San Francisco ball. Since I’ve been back, I’ve been texting with Silviu too. We all went out as a group to midnight bowling in Little Tokyo with a pact that no one capable could use telekinetics to steer the bowling ball or make the pins fall over. We snuck in drinks. The girls had hard seltzers but Silviu and I passed a pint of whiskey back and forth. Indirect kisses! Rosanna ended up beating everyone with a score of 183. I came in fourth, but Ruxandra remarked that I’m “pretty down to earth for an imparateasa.” As it got closer to 2 a.m. I began to want ramen and so we left the bowling alley in a hurry and all ran around the block, almost half a mile, laughing, to the one ramen place I knew would still be open. Silviu sat next to me, but it could’ve just worked out that way. But probably not, right? He meant to? Sonya sat on the other side of me and let me taste the shrimp omelette in her ramen. When the bill came, it was almost $400 because of all the shōchū we drank. Silviu and I fought over the bill which ultimately led to me charming him to pay the bill with my money. He snapped out of it with the recollection of paying the tab and didn’t understand what everyone was laughing about. After we left the ramen place, we walked back to the parking structure to get Rosanna’s car and then we drove around aimlessly with the top down, speeding and changing freeways, until we wound up in some city that smelled like cow poop, where they fed and I burned the bodies. All in all, it was a fun night.

  But anyhow, I suppose I should at least finish writing about what happened after I exited the ballroom in San Francisco before it becomes so distant that I no longer care to write it down. On the way to the elevator, Corinne said she didn’t like the way “I had barked at them that we had to leave” even if I’m an empress because they’re Ketsuen and not Cob?lcescu. Grace quickly said I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. And then I apologized if it sounded some certain way because I didn’t mean it to.

  In the elevator I told them what was being whispered about me and Vance. They had all observed us, but none of them thought much of it because they know I’m twenty-four. They understood how it would look differently to everyone else who didn’t have that knowledge, but Corinne was so pissed that “these imitation vampires have the audacity to run their fake fanged redwinged mouths about real vampires.” She thought we should go back down there and “start tearing throats open until they shut the fuck up.” I told her I appreciated her standing up for me but that she was drunk and that most everyone downstairs didn’t even know there are real vampires and because of that, they couldn’t conceive the possibility that I’m actually an adult, so of course they’re gonna gossip when they see Vance and me being intimate. “Why are you defending mortals?” Darcy asked. I said that was a good question and then replied that I think the answer lies somewhere between Vance being one of those mortals and Vance still having to live his life among those mortals. Darcy said that “this somewhere sounds made up.” They then agreed we were all drunk. But I didn’t feel drunk. We all took the elevator to the top floor and they all came into the suite but when I said I was gonna lie down they all, including Rosanna, went back downstairs and left the hotel to prowl the city. A party of drunk dimes. I imagined some guy out there was gonna think it was the luckiest night of his life.

  It was nearly 4 a.m. when Vance stumbled out of the elevator. I was lying on the bed, still in my gown, but I had removed my tiara hours earlier and left it on the desk beside my journal. This time, I got out of bed and walked to the door to let him in. His eyes were glazed, he was off balance, and I could smell the alcohol on him.

  “You’re drunk, Vance. Vance who rarely drinks.”

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  “I need a cigarette.”

  I scooped him up easily, one arm under his back, the other under his knees, and carried him into my bedroom and lay him down on the bed, with his head on the pillow. It was a role reversal from how I would’ve imagined it based on movies. I pulled his shoes off and dropped them on the floor.

  “Thank you, Empress,” he mumbled. “Hisato sure can drink. I was stupid to try to keep up.”

  I climbed in bed beside him. We were like we were before the ball, in bed facing each other, above the covers in our clothes, except this time it was formal wear.

  “Did I ruin you?” I asked.

  “It felt…the crowd felt awkward for a little while, but the night went on. It’ll be fine. People like to talk, but they’ll get over it. Getting drunk with Hisato probably actually helped since people knew he was with you and since he was sitting drinking with me and he said people started whispering that they must have had it wrong about us and that things must be okay or whatever. It must be nice to be able to hear so much.”

  “Not always.”

  “Yeah. I guess not. One person said something like but maybe you were being trafficked by Hisato.”

  “See what I mean?”

  “Someone else said maybe you were a real life Claudia and people laughed but then they argued both ways whether or not me being with you was appropriate if you really were an of age real Claudia.” (Claudia as in the Anne Rice Interview with the Vampire character who’s also doomed to live eternally in the body of a child.)

  “What was the verdict?”

  A tear slipped from his eye.

  “Vance? What’s wrong?”

  He couldn’t immediately speak.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t see it myself. I just kept drinking. I mean, I saw it. I saw it before, but I was so fascinated with you and everything that I didn’t think about it enough. I didn’t think about it actually being your reality. Not until they called you Claudia. Your tragedy. It’s even your IG name. My Darling Tragedy. Someone called you that, huh? Someone who fucking understood without being told. Who was it? Was it Yelena?”

  “No. Someone else. It was Mirela, actually.”

  “It didn’t sink in. I’m sorry. It didn’t sink in until now.”

  “It’s okay.” Another tear fell and I wiped it away. “Don’t cry. You’re gonna make me cry.”

  “I don’t want you to turn me.”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to love you anyway.”

  “Did Hisato say something?”

  “No.”

  “About using me? What did he say?”

  “He didn’t say anything. He mostly just said, ‘Have another drink.’”

  “Did Vanessa?”

  “Vanessa? Why would she? What would she have to do with it? But I’m not using you.”

  “What about your dream?”

  “Maybe someone else will turn me someday. But if not, so what? And if not, I’ll feed you.”

  “You’re drunk. You can’t mean this.”

  “My Darling Tragedy.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Remember what you said about charming me and making me forget?”

  “Yeah, and I said I wouldn’t do that.”

  “But haven’t vampires been charming mortals for centuries?”

  “I told you, I don’t want it like that.”

  “Then don’t make me forget. I’ll know it’s you.”

  “What are you doing? Trying to join the tragedy?”

  “But you have to go first.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  He closed his eyes as if waiting for me to kiss him. I didn’t kiss him. I lay there looking at him. His closed eyelids. His lips. His messy hair. His round nose. And so I noticed when his breathing changed, telling me he had fallen asleep. I lay there, watching Vance sleep, wondering if he did, in fact, understand me better, relating finally by seeing me as he did a character in a book. Did he really mean it when he said he didn’t want me to turn him anymore? “I’m going to love you anyway.” That’s what he said but was he talking like this just because he was drunk?

  Reading through this entry, looking back, comparing the nights, bowling and ramen was actually more fun than the ball. It was less complicated for sure. But is it being less complicated a sign that I care more about the guy in San Francisco than the one in Little Tokyo?

  I’m thinking back to what Viorica said…it may feel less thrilling but it’s more stable (or something like that). That points to Silviu of course. But is it fair to compare the ball with Vance to a group date with Silviu? Maybe it was more fun because it was a group date? Maybe one-on-one it would’ve been less fun and more complicated.

  Again, reading through this entry, I see everyone I mentioned was drunk at some point. I’m gonna close this now and join them as transcribed.

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