Chapter 1

The Day I Stopped Aging

This story begins on my birthday, because that’s the day I stopped aging. If you were looking over my shoulder, you would have seen a pair of waxen numerals: the bold digits one and two. White with blue trim, molten beneath their individual flaming wicks, and set atop a generic sheet cake. My expression, as blank as that birthday cake; skin as pale as fondant icing. The problem was that I’d turned twelve last year, too.

This was the year that I became a vampire. Stick with me here—this is not a tale of the supernatural. If I told you this was a true story, you’d think, well, there are no such things as vampires. And that’s true, so think about it that way. I wasn’t literally a creature of the night, stalking and draining the blood from lifeless victims, yet there were plenty who would believe just that. You know what? Let me start over. This was also the year I stopped lying and I don’t want to start this story with something that sounds like a lie.

* * *

A few months after that birthday, Dad and I left Los Angeles and moved to Bozeman, Montana. I was twelve. I should’ve been thirteen, but as I said—I had stopped aging. I wanted time to stop altogether, to not have to leave California at all, but that’s not how it worked. On the drive up to Montana, Dad had said, “Think of it this way: it’s a fresh start. You can be whoever—you can be whatever—you want, Gordy.” So I chose to be a vampire.

That’s me, Gordy, as you might’ve guessed. I preferred to be called Gordon, or better yet, “Gore Don,” which was my D&D Dungeon Master name from a playgroup I’d never see again. My parents were the only ones who ever called me Gordy, but it beat “Gordo” which is what you get called in L.A. when you’re a chubby kid in predominantly Hispanic public schools. I wasn’t chubby anymore, mostly because I didn’t want to be called Gordo anymore.

You know what, I don’t want to start this story that way either. Let me start over; really start over.

A fresh start.