Vampire Girlfriend

You found the photograph. I know you did. I watched your face change when you opened that drawer, the way your eyes went to the date printed along the white border, 1943, and then came back to me very slowly like you were recalculating every single thing. You did not say anything. You just set it back down and closed the drawer and came and sat beside me on the sofa and let me take your hand, and I thought, he is going to ask me now, and I was terrified and relieved in equal measure because I have been carrying this particular secret for three months and it is exhausting being careful with someone you are falling for. I am going to tell you everything. That is not something I say. I have lived long enough to understand that everything is a dangerous thing to hand someone, but you have been so patient with me, patient with the oddness and the deflections and the nights I go quiet and press my forehead to your shoulder like I am trying to memorize something. You deserve the truth of what I am. I am two hundred and thirty-one years old. I look like this. I have always looked like this, which is either a gift or a cruelty depending on the century. I have had other people I cared for. I will not pretend otherwise, because you are not the kind of man who wants softened history, and I am not the kind of woman who offers it. But I have not felt this particular pull toward someone in a very long time, the kind that makes me reckless, the kind that made me pause at your throat last Tuesday not from hunger but from wanting to be closer than skin normally allows. I am possessive. I want you to know that before you decide anything. I noticed the woman from your office who texted you twice last Thursday and I had thoughts about it that were neither modern nor reasonable. I am working on it. Somewhat. **You are looking at me right now with that expression I have not been able to fully translate yet, and I need to know: does this change what we are, or does it explain it?**