A Taste of Normal

 

As the day wore on, I couldn’t help but feel like I was making a mistake. Surrounded by humans, drowning in the scent of their blood, the beating of their hearts pounding in my ears. It was getting increasingly difficult to keep the intrusive thoughts at bay. The impulse to just sink my teeth into unsuspecting flesh and feed. I wasn’t even hungry, but still my eyes were drawn to every exposed neck I saw. It was the middle of summer and the first day of O-week; there were a lot of people, a lot of exposed necks. My self control was fraying and a headache from the overwhelming cacophony of scents and sounds and sights was growing.

Amaranth had said it would be a good idea. He said I should go, pick a degree that sounded interesting, and experience a splash of normality after all the things I’d been through the last five years. I should’ve known that things were never that simple.

It had been only a few months since I’d been turned. Vampirism was still new to me, and I still struggled to control my Thirst. It was why I had a large thermos flask filled with blood where I could easily reach if I needed it. If people asked, I was to tell them it was tomato soup, and apparently the veil would take care of the rest. It seemed laughable.

People weren’t that naive. Not unless– no, best to cut that train of thought short.

Ruminating on past mistakes wasn’t productive.

At least there were only two things left to do today; collect my room key and unpack the suitcase I’d been lugging around with me all afternoon. Then I could finally relax. I’d already got my photo taken for my student ID, signed up for the student union, the health centre, the gym, and checked in with the academic skills centre. I’d skipped the campus tour for sanity reasons. There were just too many people, too many distractions, and too many temptations. Better to keep away from the crowds as much as it was possible.

I probably should’ve grabbed my key earlier to save having to lug around my suitcase like an idiot, but the crowd when I first got there was more than I wanted to deal with. A press of young adults and their accompanying families all there to help carry their boxes of things. Thankfully, it had died down by the time I made it back to my dorm building.

Wagner Hall was a tall, relatively new addition to St. Albert’s University. Concrete and metal and glass all twisted into something that appeared artful despite still being little more than a rectangular brick sitting next to a too-small car park. The ground floor was part reception, part common room with a couple of couches, TVs, and an open plan kitchenette. Everything new and shiny. The crowd from earlier had mostly dispersed, but there were a few people scattered around chatting and breaking in the pool table.

Just inside the main door there was a table with different pamphlets, and a tall man with dirty blond hair and a charismatic smile waved me over. “Hi, I’m Thomas and I’ll be your RA this year,” he introduced himself and held out a hand.

I warily took it, careful to use a normal amount of pressure. “Leigh, uh, Morrigan,” I added quickly at his expectant gaze. The new last name still felt strange to use.

Thomas glanced back to the trestle table beside him and scanned through the names. “You’ll be in room 3-11; that's the third floor right at the end. This folder here should have all the info you need about the facilities and such, and it has my number if you need to get in touch.” He handed me a packet with various fliers and info sheets. “Though, if you’ve got any problems after 11pm, I’ll ask that you contact security instead. I would like to get some sleep this year.” He smiled at his joke.

I took the packet, but didn’t return the smile. Between the headache that this afternoon had been and the ache of my fangs in my gums, I wasn’t feeling it.

Room 3-11, third floor. I took the elevator only because it would look weird if I tried to drag my suitcase up the stairs, and breathed a sigh of relief when nobody else entered with me. Solace wasn’t far away.

Except, as I strode down the hallways, I knew it wasn’t.

There was someone already there. I could hear them pottering on the other side of the door. I held in a sigh and let out a silent prayer that it was just housekeeping. Deep down, however, I knew I wasn’t that lucky. I swiped my card and nudged the door open.

Inside was a girl with mousy brown hair stretching to hang a pride flag in pink and orange over a bed. She turned and smiled at me. “Oh, hey, you must be my roommate. I’m Eliza.”

I glanced to the side and saw that there were indeed two beds in the spacious room; two beds, two desks, two nightstands, two wardrobes. Another door presumably led to the private bathroom that I knew came with the room and was the sole reason I picked Wagner Hall over the other options available to me. I just missed the part where they were shared rooms. Fuck. I closed my eyes briefly and fought back a sigh.

Eliza’s smile dropped a few centimetres as the moments ticked by without a response. For a second I considered seeing if it wasn’t too late to switch to another hall of residence. Living in such close proximity to a human was a terrible idea, especially since it meant I wouldn’t have anywhere I could escape to. Nowhere to get away from the scent of blood and sweat and humanity that I’d spent the last few hours choking on. Today was bad, but it was just orientation day, it wasn’t a packed lecture hall on a sweltering afternoon.

In the end, though, I decided I’d just have to deal with it.

The whole point of coming to university was to make friends and have a chance to be normal. I couldn’t make friends if I kept going out of my way to avoid human interaction, and if I started now, I wouldn’t stop. So I gave her a weak smile and closed the door behind me. “Sorry, it’s been a long day and I’m kinda out of it. I’m Leigh.”

Eliza sat on her bed and glanced at me shyly, I could almost taste her anxiety. “I was worried the flag was a bit much. It’s not going to be a problem, is it?”

I glanced blankly between her and what I vaguely recognised as the lesbian pride flag. “Why would it be a problem?”

The tension in her shoulders relaxed and she started to babble nervously, “I mean, it shouldn’t. But sometimes people are weird. Like I might be a lesbian but that doesn’t mean I’m going to hit on my roommate.” She laughed anxiously, and I got the feeling that it was probably something she’d had to deal with before. I certainly wasn’t a stranger to how terrible people could be.

“Yeah,” I agreed absent-mindedly. It wasn’t until I’d already set my suitcase down and started unpacking that I realised why she thought I might’ve had a problem rooming with a lesbian.

I was still getting used to the idea that people saw me as a girl. Of my two transitions, the vampiric one usually took the majority of my attention. It was so easy to forget that I had changed in other ways too.

Unpacking took all of five minutes. It was a little depressing how little I had in the way of belongings, how it all fit in a singular suitcase. A half-dozen changes of clothes, the five textbooks I’d need for first year, a stack of notebooks and a box of pens, a laptop, and a bag with my toiletries. My side of the room was bare compared to Eliza’s and most of my things were recent purchases. Almost none of them were things I’d owned before meeting Amaranth. My silver shortsword I left in the suitcase and slid under the bed where it would be out of sight and out of mind. Bringing it had been part precaution and part safety blanket. I knew I wouldn’t need it, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave it behind.

“So, what are you studying?” Eliza asked as she finished unpacking her boxes. “I’m just taking a bunch of science papers and seeing what sticks out. Can’t decide on what I actually want to do, might end up doing a double major in maths and psych or something.”

“Uh, philosophy.” IAnother suggestion from Amaranth.

Dropping out of high school at fifteen didn’t really leave me with a lot of options despite the strings he pulled, and it was embarrassing to admit that my first semester courses were mostly so I could play catch-up. Foundation mathematics, essay writing, introductory sciences. And a single philosophy paper at my sire’s insistence; Philosophy and Human Nature. The irony was painful. 

“Oh cool, I think my friend Maddy is doing philosophy too,” Eliza said cheerily but I could still feel her anxiety. It seemed like she talked when she was nervous, which was probably for the best; I wasn’t good at talking to people. “So, uh, we should probably figure out some ground rules right? Since we’re sharing a room and everything.”

“Sure,” I said. It made sense, but I didn’t know where to begin. Amaranth had set the rules since he’d taken me in, and before that I hadn’t really had a say in things. “What did you have in mind?”

“Um, the dorm already has a rule about noise after ten…” She trailed off. “I’m not really a party person and I’d appreciate some warning if you’re bringing friends around. I hope you don’t mind, but I get up pretty early to go for a run, I’ll try to be quiet but I might wake you up if you’re a light sleeper.”

I waved her off, “that’s fine, I don’t really sleep much anyway.” One of the many perks of being a vampire; staying up all night so you don’t have to deal with nightmares, just intrusive thoughts.

“Oh, cool,” she said awkwardly. “Was there anything you had in mind?”

“Not really, I’m pretty easy.” I had needed to be flexible like that in order to survive and old habits die hard. “Uh, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go through my stuff,” I added quickly. I didn’t know how I’d handle a random human stumbling across my blood supply for the week.

“Definitely, I kinda figured that would be a given,” Eliza nodded along before getting distracted by a text.

Being alone in the room with her wasn’t quite as bad as I’d thought. I could still hear her nervous heartbeat and her scent was thick in the air, but it was nothing like the crowds I’d dealt with earlier in the day. It certainly helped that she was wearing a turtleneck top despite the warm weather. Honestly, she looked like a school librarian with that and her glasses, but she made it work.

My eyes flicked to my thermos, which I’d left on my desk. I wasn’t hungry, not yet, but it was probably a good idea to play it safe. I just didn’t know if it was safe to open it with her there in the room. Blood had a rather distinctive smell. Amaranth had said that humans tended to look over things like that, even if it was staring them in the face, but I wasn’t so sure.

Eliza broke me off my train of thought with another question. “Oh, I was going to ask; are you local or from out of town?”

“I’m from Portsmouth,” and didn’t that feel like a lifetime ago. “What about you?” I asked. It was the polite thing to do, I remembered that much.

“Local,” Eliza said sheepishly, “but my parents didn’t want me to go flatting in my first year. So I guess if you want someone to show you around sometime, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Sure, I’ll let you know,” I said. Maybe I’d take her up on that sometime. Brookworth wasn’t a huge city, but I’d come straight to campus from the train station and hadn’t had a chance to explore.

There wasn’t anything else I needed to do today, and it was almost a week before classes started. I laid back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. It was strange not having any obligations. Eliza would probably be happy to chat the rest of the afternoon, but there wasn’t anything she needed from me other than to be a good roommate. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Was this what normal was like? It was weird.

I’d drink my blood when she went to dinner, or maybe when she was asleep. I could go out for a walk. Figure out where things were on campus, or check out the nearby places to eat. Amaranth had given me the address of a dispensary where I could get a top up when I needed one without needing to hunt so I should probably look that up, too.

Eliza was hovering on her side of the room and I got the feeling she was working up the courage to ask something. I sat up and gave her my attention. “Um, I’m going to go grab coffee with some friends, would you like to come with?”

It was a simple question, and we didn’t know each other well enough for there to be any extra nuance to dance around. No obligations I needed to fulfil except perhaps the expectation that I should be friendly. Roommates were supposed to be friends with each other, and not being friends would make things awkward at the very least.

I was clearly taking too long to decide because Eliza hurried to add, “you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” But there was a note of disappointment in her voice that almost made me flinch. Another perk of vampirism; being able to catch your reactions before regular people noticed.

“Coffee sounds good,” I said. Coffee was what normal people did, though I hadn’t really tried it before but what was university for if not experiencing new things?