A Life-Changing Moment

A Life-Changing Moment

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The teacher asked me to write a story about a life-changing event. I wish I could. But if I did, she wouldn’t buy it, not about the change I went through. I guess, though, I could write about something a little more normal -- like the day I realized that I was in love with Shawn. Everyone would understand that.

Only that’s what made it all happen because, you see, Shawn changed my life.

Shawn isn’t quite like any other normal high school senior. I thought he was. I thought he was like you or me; I mean, the way I used to be. But Shawn is as different as a space alien. In fact, it’s possible that’s exactly what he is. I don’t know. He won’t talk about it.

I met Shawn in trig class. We were both sailing through advanced linear equations and were heading into functions and formulae. He smiled at me, and I was stricken, just like that. Maybe there’s an equation for it. I suppose I could plot the graph. It was definitely a Y=asin (x), and my heart sped faster than a locomotive. My blood rocked wilder than ocean waves. I was hardly breathing, if you know what I mean.

I guess Shawn noticed the effect he had on me. He stopped by my desk and asked me out. Of course, I said, “yes.”

My mother worked late on Wednesday evenings. I figured she’d never find out if I went for a spin with Shawn. She probably wouldn’t care anyway. At least, that’s what I rationalized, and driving around the city with Shawn really was almost worth what happened.

I thought at the time that Shawn was like a dream come true. We laughed and talked about everything that night. He liked the same music I did. He had the same ideas about life. He even wanted to go to Yale like I dreamed about doing, or at least, that’s what he said. I guess he would have told me anything then. He was already looking ahead to the end of the night, but I didn’t know it then. I thought he liked me. I thought we were going to be a couple.

Shawn drove me way out into the country. He said it was to see how beautiful the sky is away from the city lights. “Counting stars is a hobby of mine,” he told me, and I believed him.

He parked on an old hunter’s road. It was off-season, so no would care, he said. But what that meant was that no one would be around to stop him from what he planned to do.

That much of the story everyone would believe. They could picture the handsome senior putting his arm around me. Next, he’d kiss me – first with a quick peck that would make me eager for his lips, so I’d turn to him, and I’d let him hold me close.

That’s how it happened all right.

But we saw a shooting star then and stopped and watched. For a while, it was just like he’d said it would be when we were driving around talking and laughing. The sky was like black velvet stretched out as far as we could see. The stars glimmered and twinkled. Shawn said that was the atmosphere’s interference. He said stars didn’t sparkle like that in space.

I remember I laughed. I thought Shawn was just kidding me or imagining how it would be. I never believed he meant it.

The inside of the car grew cold. I started shivering. That was Shawn’s excuse to hold me close again and to press his lips against my neck. Oh, if only I’d said, “Please, take me home now.” That was when I should have done it. There was a chance Shawn might have then, but maybe it was already too late. Probably.

Shawn’s lips were soon pressing against my neck, and his breath was warm and inviting. I liked his breath on me. I liked the touch of his mouth. I suppose I leaned into him. Maybe I groaned. I think I told him I loved him.

I know he never whispered anything to me. Instead, he drew back his lips, and his tongue began to taste my skin. That was paradise. All the cautions my mother had ever told me flew up into the sky at that moment. I was lost, swimming in that sea of stars. I wanted Shawn to continue kissing. I wanted him to do even more.

Another shooting star shot across the sky. I exclaimed over it, but Shawn didn’t react that time, not to the star. He took advantage of my extended neck, the way I’d turned to get the best sighting. He must have been ready for that move, for that’s the moment that my life changed.

I can tell the teacher this much of the story. She’ll believe all I’ve said so far. I know where her mind will go then. She’ll imagine that we ended up in the backseat. She’ll figure that we did what most teenagers do in that situation, but it didn’t happen like that. Not at all.

Shawn, you see, didn’t want me for sex. He bit down into the tender part of my neck, and he gnawed at me like a rat, sinking his canines deep into my vein. Then he drank me.

That’s the part I can’t tell anyone. Not unless that person is sitting in the car with me on a darkened country road. I can tell him then, and he'll believe me. Only then, as I sink my fangs into his warmth, then, like me, he’ll have a life-changing moment.

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