Michael Griffo - Unafraid

Getting up from the bed, Fritz had one more declaration. “I think Nebraska would make a right fine husband and if I’m not invited to the wedding, I’ll knock both your bloody heads in.”

“Fritz,” Michael announced, “it wouldn’t be a party without you.”

The moment after their impromptu guests had left, Michael thought Ronan would continue their conversation about honesty and reveal to him the remaining secret, or God forbid, secrets that he was still concealing from him. But the gift giving had yet to cease. “I have something else for you,” Ronan said.

Now Michael really felt uncomfortable. Not only had he forgotten Ronan’s birthday completely, but now Ronan was showering him with gifts. “You’ve already given me so much.”

Ronan kissed Michael softly on his cheek. “And I’ll never stop.”

He shoved his hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a ring. It was silver with a thin blue band around it that looked like the waves in the broach Edwige always wore. “It’s the symbol of Atlantis,” Ronan explained. “Never-ending water.” Slowly, Ronan slipped it on Michael’s finger, and Michael felt a flurry of emotions rise from his stomach and swirl around his chest. It was such a beautiful ring, such a heartfelt gesture. Michael had no idea that it was also a family heirloom.

“My father left it for me,” Ronan explained, “along with a note that said, ‘You’ll know what to do with it when the time is right, when you become a man.’ Well, the right time is now.”

Speechless, Michael stared at the ring and then at Ronan; he just didn’t know how to respond. As he started to cry he simply said, “Thank you.”

“There’s something else I need to tell you,” Ronan began.

“No,” Michael said. He couldn’t take any more; he was too filled with emotion. He didn’t want to listen to anything, he didn’t want to hear about any more secrets, all he wanted to hear was the sound of Ronan kissing him, the sounds of the two of them making love. But just as they embraced, the door flung open.

“Ronan! Just how long did you think you were going to be able to hide this secret?!”

Neither boy knew what Saoirse was talking about. “Yeah right,” she said, not believing their baffled expressions. “Well, follow me and I’ll show you.”

Downstairs they were as shocked as everyone else to see a car parked on the lawn in front of St.

Florian’s with a huge, black bow on its roof, but shocked for different reasons. Ronan because he genuinely didn’t know who would leave such a gift and Michael because he couldn’t believe Ronan would buy him a car on top of all the other presents he had given him. “Oh my God, Ronan!” Michael squealed. “I love it!”

In complete amazement, Michael walked around the red Mercedes Benz SUV. He had wanted a car ever since he passed his driver’s test and got his license, but he never thought Ronan would be the one to fulfill his wish. He was right. “Sorry, love,” Ronan said. “It’s not from me.”

“You’re just being coy, mate,” Fritz said, “ ’Cause you wanted it to be a private surprise.”

Even Ciaran thought Ronan was lying. “How did you ever convince Mum to spend so much money on someone other than herself?”

Michael noticed that a card was tucked under the windshield wiper. He ripped open the envelope, read the handwritten message inside the card, and every beautiful birthday memory was wiped away, every happy moment that he had just shared with Ronan and his friends was erased. He felt like he had been punched in the stomach. “To my son. Ad infinitum! Happy Birthday. Love, Dad.” Michael spat out the words as if they were poison, and in his mind he was transported far from Double A to a padded room where he saw his father kill his mother, brutally and cleverly so that everyone would believe the body left behind was a suicide. The same father who now sent his love attached to a bright red car. He tore the card in two, flung the pieces into the air, and stormed upstairs with Ronan close behind him.

“Why the hell would he do such a thing?” Fritz asked.

Picking up the pieces of the torn card and placing them together so she could read the note herself, Saoirse remarked, “He’s got some issues with his dad.”

“So bloody what! The bloke gave him a Benz! In red! It doesn’t even come in red, it had to be specially ordered!”

Ciaran understood Fritz’s confusion, but he also understood Michael’s pain at receiving a gift from his father, whom he had completely written off. He knew that he couldn’t share their history with Fritz so he tried to channel his friend’s energy and make light of the situation. “Look at it this way, Fritz,” Ciaran said. “Since Michael doesn’t want it, maybe he’ll let you drive it.”

That was all Fritz needed to hear to make him forget about Michael’s fury and abrupt departure.

Unfortunately, Michael couldn’t forget. He couldn’t forget witnessing his parents at their defining moments: his father committing an act of unconscionable violence and his mother begging God to save her son seconds before she died. Sitting on his bed next to Ronan in thick silence, it was with an unwanted sense of maturity that he realized no matter how hard he tried to move forward he could never fully escape his past.

Summer was no longer the same.

Deep within The Forest, Michael sat on the bank of a stream that led somewhere, nowhere, and watched the water glide over his submerged feet. Even though it was July the water felt cool, and Michael wasn’t sure if it was because the thick shade blocked out much of the sun’s rays, because the weather in this part of the world didn’t get too hot, or because as a vampire, temperature, like age, was an irrelevant concept. Watching the water trip over and through his toes, he had to admit it: he was confused. And it was all because of that stupid car.

Well, the car wasn’t stupid—it was pretty amazing actually. It was everything Michael had ever hoped for. It was like somebody reached into his brain, picked out the car of his dreams and made it materialize. But why did that somebody have to be his father?

It couldn’t have been a gift from Ronan? Or Edwige? Or even his grandfather? No, it had to come from the one person he wanted nothing to do with, the one person he wanted out of his life for good.

“Oh my God!” Michael groaned out loud. “What if that’ll never happen?”

Collapsing backward onto the dirt, Michael looked up at the pieces of sky he could see through the lush foliage and called out to the universe, “Thanks a lot, guys!” For the first time it hit him, no matter how long he lived, no matter how many birthdays he celebrated—100, 200, 362!—he would always be his father’s son instead of his own man. Most children outlive their parents, escape them, but not Michael, no, he was lucky enough to have been given the gift of immortality, but guess what? So was his father! For as long as Michael walked the earth, somewhere on the planet his father would be walking as well. “That totally sucks,” Michael moaned.

Sitting up, Michael noticed two leaves floating on the current. One was vibrant green with dark, almost black veins, the other much lighter in color, its veins, translucent. Visibly different, yet connected, the leaves touched and never separated as they rode on the water’s surface. Some mornings Michael woke up and wished he and Ronan were like the leaves, that during the night they had been taken elsewhere, far from Double A, far from his father, and David, and the threats that hung over them. But when his mind cleared and he could think like the formidable creature he was and not the child he had been for so long, he realized distance was not salvation. It didn’t matter where he was, the intangible ropes that connected him to his past and even to his enemies would still be tightly bound around him. What Michael needed to figure out was how to live with those ropes and not be strangled.