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The worst thing you can do in a relationship, va your partner that you don’t trust him Even if it’s true

—Love Bites: A Female Vampire’s Guide to Less

Destructive Relationships

My life didn’t begin until I died

Pre-vampire Jane worked Saturdays and holidays and any other days that no one else on the library staff wanted to work I had never done anything for myself I’d never traveled And noas n soil Actually, it was the tile in Heathrow Airport’s Sunproof Lounge on the very first stop of our trip—London I think round eale And the pickpockets were able to peg ht away But I was really, really happy to be off that plane

I have claustrophobia issues

I’d never had a healthy adult relationship as a live girl Then again, I’d just abandoned my 150-year-old boy-friend in a hotel room in Brussels, so maybe this one didn’t count, either

I’m pretty sure it was Brussels We’d made quite a few stops since London

My ’round-the-world roht after we checked into our first hotel in London There was a note waiting for Gabriel at the front desk, fancy linen paper addressed in spidery black ink Whatever it said, it put him in a very foul ly posh room, he put his flowy black coat back on, said he had to ht My newly purchased trunkload of lacy underthings took this very personally When he returned, he gave ed to say, “What the hell?” in about fourteen languages

You kno after you’ve hung around a person for a while, you can tell when they’re trying to have a good ti in Gabriel He was like a Carlson Wagonlit agent on crack, ht excursions toparties with his fancy inti that would keep us out of the hotel room from dusk till dawn Gabriel’s credit-card company put a fraud watch on his accounts as itched hotels on a whim, two or three times per city Each ti for hiot just a little more Manson-ish Charles or Marilyn, take your pick

His cell phone rang incessantly, and every tio to voicemail or whispered, “Business,” and took the call outside I tried to ignore the warning signs I tried to give Gabriel the benefit of the doubt, but a girl can only bury her head so deep in the sand He had toldissues he couldn’t tellwhich I couldn’t reach him by phone And I’d found out that on several occasions, he’d lied about where he’d been He’d assured me that it wasn’t another woman, despite the fact that the name “Jeanine” had popped up on his cell phone several times Never had I wished sopoorked on my sire

Even though I still had (raging, screa) doubts, I had chosen to believe hi to feel like one of those women at whom people yell, “How stupid can you be?” when they inevitably appear on Dr Phil

I suppose one should expect a certain amount of dra in aabout the night I was turned All young vaet drunk with their buddies and share war stories about how they became undead I do not partake in such revelries Why?

The short version is this: I was (unfairly, unceremoniously) fired from the library and replaced by hter But instead of getting a severance check, I got just enough of a gift certificate to get rip-snorting drunk at Shenanigans I h to drive, but as a result of unfortunate circu Bertha, died halfway ho down the road by the town drunk, Bud McElray, who mistook me for a deer and shot me I was left in the ditch to die, only to be found and turned by Gabriel