“I occupied the apartment next to you because I wanted to be close to you.”
My brows knitted. “But why? You didn’t have to adjust so much just to get close to me. Besides, the morning I woke up with a hangover and found you in my apartment, you said that you were already my neighbor at that time so why were you talking like that?” I glanced around. “I also don’t see anyone. Are you living here alone? Where are your parents?”
“I have friends who are on vacation. They are staying here at the moment. But they had to go somewhere so you wouldn’t meet them today.” He pointed the long, elegant, black couch. “Please sit for a while. Make yourself at home. I’ll just go get us something to drink in the wine bar.”
When Ingram returned, he was now carrying two goblets with wine in them. He handed me one before sitting beside me.
“Where are your parents?” I asked again while drinking the wine.
He suddenly looked wounded. “My parents and Indigo, my only sibling, were already gone. They were found dead in a river back in Springfield, Illinois.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I said, filled with sympathy. “Now I know you’re from Illinois. If you don’t mind me asking, when did they die?”
“They died in sixteen-eighty-one, exactly three hundred and forty years today.”
I spilled my drink and looked at Ingram, still dumbstruck. His face was dead serious. I waited for him to laugh or say, ‘got you there!’ but he remained quiet. I was the one who laughed to break the ice between us. I pulled out my hanky from my purse and wiped my mouth. “I remember telling you to quit kidding around during crucial moments.”
I casually put the goblet on the center table although I was beginning to get nervous. Here was Ingram again and his crazy words. “We are talking about your family’s death here. You shouldn’t joke around like that. Be serious.”
He stared at me. “I’m already serious, Brianna. You once told me to tell you things about myself so you’d know whether you can trust me or not. Here I am. I’m exposing myself to you now. My family really died more than three centuries ago. I’m a three hundred-and fifty-four-year-old Vampire. I’m in this country to search for you.”
It took me a while to recover. I stood up. My head refused to accept what he just told me. “I’m familiar with this, you know. I’ve written something like this before. I’ve already heard this story. When a guy doesn’t want a girl anymore, he will tell her things to make her leave him first. Some even go as far as saying that they’re alien. Ingram,” I turned to him with a heavy heart. “I won’t chase after you. You don’t need to invent those stories to push me away. You didn’t even need to bring me here. You just got my hopes up.” My eyes welled up as I took my purse. “You know what? I’ll just leave and-“
“Wait-“
“What is it this time? Since your lies didn’t work on me, did you change your mind and now, you wanted to say something else? Are you going to say that you are not actually a Vampire but a Werewolf?” I was stunned when Ingram stood up and jumped from the ground floor to the fourth floor. I wouldn’t even notice where he was if he didn’t call my name.
I clutched my chest. And then he bit his wrist. I saw blood dripping from it but seconds later and the wound disappeared, even the blood. The only evidence left was the blood stain on his shirt. I looked at his mouth which still had some blood on it.
“I’m really a Vampire, Brianna.”
Oh, God. I wasn’t able to respond. I still remembered how Ingram jumped towards me before I fainted.

“BEFORE, I can just choose to show which face I want the world to see. I can show them the human that I once had been, the beast inside me, or the angel straight from my soul that had been screaming to be saved. But I couldn’t choose when it comes to you, Brianna. It was hard to think logically when you’re beside me. That’s why you can be assured that everything I’ve shown you from the beginning was real. Because during those times, I was showing you, my heart.” Ingram drew a deep breath. “And I’m showing you all of me now. I know that this won’t be easy for you to accept. Waking up one day to find out that Vampires exist, that’s really hard to take.”
I opened my eyes and pressed my forehead as Ingram’s confession flashed my mind.
“I didn’t change my name including my friends who are Vampires, too. We value our names so much because it was our only remaining connection to our families and to where we came from.” Ingram looked at me with sad eyes. “We transfer from one country to another so that people won’t doubt and discover about our real identities. And when I told you I’m a businessman, it was true. I have businesses almost all over the world. From real estate, food industry, outsourcing, farming, catering, franchising, you name it. That’s the thing with living for an extremely long period of time. You get to learn the tricks about business,” he added without a slightest hint of arrogance as if he was only talking about something so mundane. “I’ve learned quite a few out of boredom.
“The Black Swans manage my properties and businesses. They are the humans who support the Vampire Community. I lead a very simple life, you see. I’m just a Vampire who killed time through venturing in different businesses while waiting for you. That was how I lived for the past centuries.”

I’d been thinking about those things for days now. Until now, I still don’t know what to do.