1. To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before

“Do you think there’s a difference? Between belonging with and belonging to?” 

— Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

📚

Chaya had to admit: she didn’t exactly have the best track record when it came to men. Not by a long mile.

In fact, the mere thought of her last boyfriend managed to send shivers down her spine.

***

Calo’s face became even more haughty. “They’re just jealous, is what they are. Jealous cause we’ll have powers they could never dream to have. Jealous cause we could take over their dull, human world if we wanted to, and they know it.”

“I don’t think I want to take over their world.”

“I do,” Calo said – his voice strong and firm and determined. “You just wait. When I’m older, I’m gonna take over the world… it’ll be mine. So it’s a good thing you’re friends with me.” He smiled for the last part, but his words still sounded menacing to Chaya.

“That’s because the time for that hasn’t come… yet. Soon, I will. And you can too. You won’t have to hide yourself anymore… ever. It doesn’t make any sense, anyway. We’re so much stronger than these humans around us, and yet it’s us adjusting ourselves to their world… their lifestyle. It should be the other way around. The strong should prevail over the weak. And soon, we will.”

For Chaya, who finally realized how she had been two-timed… How she had been played… How Calo had only ever been interested in her powers, and not in her…

…The puzzle ultimately came together just as well.

“Oh, Calo… screw the hell off.”

***

Yeah, Chaya had come to realize. No more evil vampires plotting to take over the world. She’d had enough of that to last her, well… forever.

So what better way to swear off evil vampires, she’d decided, than to date an evil-vampires-hating alien—much like her?

That’s how Chaya met Tika Madden.

Even without the whole shared species factor weighing in, she had to admit; there was some definite, immediate attraction there.

Alright, so she had to admit: she did suddenly feel the need to laugh extra loudly at Tika’s not-so-funny joke when she saw Calo walking in behind them.

And, fine, there may have been some purposeful taunting involved…

But, hey, Calo deserved it. Believe her.

***

Anyway. Tika. Yeah… so maybe she had been a little… predisposed, to like him. But that was at first. Then she realized that here, she had a man whom she not only did not have to hide with—that had been the only good thing about Calo, as well—

He could actually relate to her experience.

In fact, he’d tell her, he was even more of an outsider than she was; after all, she was still born and raised right here on Earth.

And he hadn’t been.

For some odd months there, she and Tika… Well, we had a lot of fun.

Then something happened.

Maybe you already guessed it. Chaya wished it weren’t such a cliché – she really did.

But in a world of spaceships, aliens, and vampires, she guessed there still had to be some space left for the awfully mundane.

She became pregnant.

Once she got over the initial shock, it really—surprisingly—did not feel that bad… which she guessed was a little strange, because she had never found herself the type to do the whole nuclear, picket fence family thing.

Well, not that there was anything really nuclear about her situation at any rate.

Maybe it was Tika’s overtly exuberant reaction, that made her believe that it could’ve been worse.

He was so on board with the pregnancy… perhaps, in retrospect, Chaya should have felt some suspicion there, already.

If only she had.

Unfortunately, she was too busy making yet another worst-mistake-of-my-life as far as it related to her boys drama.

And so Chaya and Tika continued to spend the next months together; again looking back, she might have seen some warning signs… some alarm bells, even. For one, the way he talked about vampires… quite frankly, it reminded her of the way a certain evil vampire she once knew had spoken about humans. And just like back then, there was a part of her that became scared by the harshness of their words… but just like then, she decided not to sound any alarm, just in case that it might all not be so bad after all.

It was.

Alright. Enough with the subtle hints and the cliffhangers. She’d cut straight to the chase, already.

***

She had the child; he was a boy and she named him Maxen.

Sure, she was surprised by the fact that he did not exactly look alien, despite the fact that both his parents were. I mean, there’s no question about that. But she decided to shrug it off, figuring that, really, it was all she could do. So he didn’t look like them yet. Maybe he’d grow into it.

After all, she may be an alien herself but that didn’t mean she had any real clue about how all of this whole alien crap went.

She figured Tika might offer a feasible explanation – you know, having been born on Sixam and all that.

He didn’t.

Or, well… she guessed that in a way, he did.

“That is not my child.”

Tika screwed up his face as he looked at the child, then turned his gaze to her. The disgust in his eyes was unmistakable.

Chaya looked at him, shocked. “I mean, I know he may not look it, but—”

“No, it’s not. Period. I ain’t taking care of this thing.”

This was around the time that Chaya got angry, too. “This thing? That’s what you have to say about my child?!”

He didn’t respond to her words. “You disgust me,” he said instead.

Oh, yeah. By now Chaya was angry alright “Why? Because I may have screwed other men before you?!”

“Because you screwed vampires.”

She was shocked. “What?”

“That thing,” Tika pointed, face morphed into the single most disgusted expression Chaya figured was fathomable on a human-looking face. “Is a vampire.”

And just like that, she remembered. Remembered the one night she had spent with one of them…

Of course this had to happen. Of course.

In retrospect, in some warped, twisted way it may have actually been a good thing. After all, it allowed her to see Tika’s true colors.

So that was that. She thought that after Calo, she couldn’t have done much worse. Then Tika Madden had to prove her wrong.

And Maxen?

She tried to take care of him. She really did.

The thing was, she just wasn’t cut out to be a mother – just like her own mother had admitted to her she hadn’t been.

She really did try. Even moved out of her parents’ place and found them their very own apartment.

She just Could Not Do It.

Finally, she caved. Started up the laptop she never used and opened her browser. Right. Now. What did she know about this vampire? All she knew was that his name was Reese.

She hoped desperately that that was enough.