JESSIE
Elsa and Sofia have noticed that I'm staring at someone, and when they look behind them to see who I'm staring at, they excuse themselves.
"We'll go have our seats now." Says Sofia.
"Yeah, we'll see you later, Jessie," Elsa says, and the two of them walk away from me. Leaving me to become a huge magnet for Sebastian De La Rosa to just gravitate toward. I don't make the move toward him; he's the one who's walking toward me.
And God, he looks so fucking handsome. He's so hot I can't look away, and I wish I could.
"Hey, handsome." He says, and I put on an awkward smile, which is weird because I never smile awkwardly when it comes to Sebby; I always have a bright smile on.
"Hey, you look good."
"I always look good," he winks, and this time the awkwardness disappears because, of course, I can never be awkward when it comes to Sebastian De La Rosa.
"Hey, about-"
"I'm sorry I lashed out," I say. "I know you probably weren't supposed to tell me you were a…" I stop talking, and I just sigh because looking at Sebby right now, he doesn't look or feel different. Knowing that he's not human and he's some supernatural creature. He'll always be Sebby to me.
"Look, can we talk about this after we bury my dad. Believe me, I have a lot of questions."
"Yes, sure sure. No pressure."
"Okay, I'll see you later," I say, backing away from him.
"Yeah," he says, and I turn around to find my mom in the front seat. I sit next to her, and she takes my hand. I squeeze hers tightly. I look behind me at Sebby, and he's sitting out back with his mother and his sister. He shoots me a glance, and he puts on a brief smile on his face.
So handsome, God.
Hours go by, and people are saying such wonderful things about my dad, his friends most especially. It's harsh to know that your father was nice to everyone else but a horrible person to you and your mom.
It was like he regretted having a family in the first place. Well, I'm not the one who told him to have a family, so I don't give a fuck if he regrets it or not.
I spent years wishing I were dead or had ceased to exist because I knew that my dad hated me. I knew he wished he were doing something else with his time and not being stuck with his family. The family he created by accident.
While others say good things about my dad, flashbacks of him beating me up and calling me a faggot simply because I told him I didn't want to join the school's football team. I didn't care about his threats; I wasn't going to join the football team, and I didn't like sports. I still don't.
Sports were Sebastian's thing.
And only if he knew that there are gay guys who are into sports.
But anyway, that's all in the past; my dad isn't alive to hurt me or my mom anymore. And I'm pretty sure my mom feels the same way after hearing all these people say nice things about him, like he was the father of the year.
Oscar Wilson, Derek Wilson's dad (Derek was my mortal enemy in school; I hated him with passion), I still do. He had the guts to say he was the perfect husband for my mom and a great father to me. like he would know.
I can feel my mom move uncomfortably, and I just want to go up there and scratch his eyes out with my claws.
I should calm down, because I have a feeling that if I show too much anger, my claws are going to pop out and my eyes will change colour. So I'm not going to let Oscar Wilson ragebait me. No sir.
He's left the podium, and it's Pastor Reece who's there now.
"Thank you for your kind words, Oscar," he says, and then he turns his head in our direction. "Would you like to say something, Fiona?" He says, and Mom turns over to me.
"I can't do it," she whispers to me, and I don't blame her. She was abused by him the most.
Those constant nights of hearing my mom cry heavily. Hearing him yell at her like she wasn't a human being. Thinking about him right now makes me so angry. I feel like raising hell right here, right now.
I get up and I head straight for the podium.
It's crazy, when I was younger, I struggled with public speaking. It was a whole thing, and I hated it. But when I became a best seller, I had to eradicate all shyness; I didn't become the most confident person.
But right now it feels like I'm more confident than yesterday.
Pastor Reece leaves the podium, but he gives me a stare before walking away. He looks concerned; he shouldn't be.
I'm face-to-face with the people who came to my dad's funeral. Some of them know how violent my dad is, some don't. Some do, but they still came up here to say stupid shit.
I'm so fucking angry right now, it feels like my heart is going to jump out of my chest. I want to feel this anger; I'm tired of holding it back. Anger is an emotion, and one should feel all their emotions.
I try my best not to look at Sebby because I know if I look at him, he's going to make the anger I have right now disappear.
So I just look at the faces of the people who came up here to praise the mother fucker.
"Hello, it's nice of you all to come here to pay your respects. It really is, it shows that you care, and that's saying something." I say then I sniff and I wiggle my nose. I look at the man in the casket, and I just want to jump in there and give him the beating of his life. Kill him over and over again.
I look away from his stupid, lifeless body.
"It's a shame that he's gone, it really is. I don't think anyone deserves to die."
"Jezzy, what are you about to do?" I hear him in my head. And what is that? Is it a part of the Nytheri lifestyle? Can we see and get into each other's heads?
"What I should have done a long time ago," I say to him.
"Good, let them know who's boss," he says, and I'm surprised… actually, no, I'm not. It's Sebastian De La Rosa we're talking about here.
"My father was an abusive asshole." I finally say, and people gasp, and they whisper among themselves.
"Uh…" Father Reece probably wants to tell me it's not good to swear in church. But I don't care, I came back from the dead, I'm basically Jesus now.
"I bet some of you were probably wondering why I left and didn't come back for Christmas or Thanksgiving. Well, that's because I had to escape the man. Leaving my mom and the people I loved was the hardest thing I've ever done. But I had to leave because I knew if I stayed, he would have killed me. Or I would have killed myself.
So I'm sorry if I just don't have anything nice to say about a man who made my life a living hell for years. And I've been angry for the longest time. Sure, therapy works, but I was scarred by my own father, for that matter. So am I happy that he died? Like I said, no one deserves to die, but am I sad, nope, I'm not. So I'm not going to stand here and pretend like I'm heartbroken about his death because I'm not. Honestly, when I was younger, I wished he'd just die. Huh, I got my wish, but at what cost? Why don't I feel happy? Why do I feel so indifferent?"
And where did I get this confidence from? I don't care about people's reactions at all. I really don't. It's like I mastered the skill of not giving a fuck overnight.
I continue my rant about how selfish people are, but something stops me. I watch a woman leave the room, and then there's a man who has darkness all around him, following the woman to wherever he's going. It seems like something is about to go down. It feels like that man intends to harm that woman.
Something in me is pushing me to go and save her. But I don't know, just because I was told I have superhuman strength and flexibility, I think I'm a superhero, no way I'm just a fraud.
But something is going on here, and I have to go and see.
"I- I need a fucking moment." People gasp, and some are giggling silently because I dropped the F bomb in church. I drop the mic on the floor, and I go chasing after that man.
Something in me is saying that that man is not to be trusted, and I should go and save that woman before it's too late.
I don't even care who looks at me or if my mom or anyone else is going to follow me because I have this urge to save that woman. I'm thinking of one thing and one thing only.
I look for her, and my instincts guide me to the women's bathroom. I hesitate, but I go in anyway. And I open the stalls one by one, until I get to the second-to-last one. That's when I see blood everywhere, and the man is drinking from her.
"What the fuck?" I say, and the man looks up and I stumble at what is revealed to me.
The vampire lets out a loud hiss.