Broken Hearts Club

[Soraya]

“Do you want to talk about it?” Soraya asked Brianna from the doorway. Her daughter’s room was dark and silent, a total opposite to its usual bustle as Bri engaged in either a tea party or her most recent play practice.

Still, though she lacked the vampire’s vision in darkness, Soraya could just make out her daughter’s form sprawled on her bed, hugging her penguin pillow pet tightly as she shook her head.

The whole thing had been instigated when Michael had pointed out that Brianna was being unusually surly, followed by an all-out outburst on her part when he’d teased she must have had a crush on a boy. Her vehement denial and verbal assault on Michael, going so far as calling him a, “doodoo head,” had served to prove his point quite soundly.

“Oh, okay, then. No need to talk,” Soraya answered, though she stepped into Bri’s room and quietly sat on Bri’s bed, rubbing her back gently for comfort. “Can I tell you a secret?” the redhead asked her daughter, and interpreted her lack of response as an affirmative.

“I have had my heart broken too.”

Sniffling, Brianna sat up and peered at her mother. “That’s not possible,” the child countered after a moment of allowing Soraya to brush her hair from her face. “You’re with Daddy. You’ve always been with Daddy.”

Soraya stifled a laugh and gathered Brianna into her arms and settled atop the bed. “It is true, I have been with your father a long time, but not always. There was, believe it or not, a time before he was in my life.”

“Really?” Bri asked, obviously intrigued by this concept, but having difficulty picturing it.

“Really,” Soraya confirmed.

“So there were boys before Daddy, too?” Brianna asked, wide-eyed.

Again, the redhead found herself having to work on maintaining a straight face, before she nodded. “There were.” She looked down at Brianna severely and took a deep breath.

“His name was Kahlin. I was eight when he moved into my village with his family, and all of the girls fell in love with him the instant he did.”

Brianna wiped her nose with her sleeve, though her eyes remained riveted on Soraya. “You too?”

The girl’s mother nodded. “Me too.” She sighed wistfully. “He had these soulful green eyes you could get lost in forever, and this luxurious golden straight hair, hair the color of the wheat fields in autumn, you could just imagine running your hand through. And a smile that could melt the snow in the dead of winter when he aimed it at you. Oh, but he was beautiful.”

“So what happened?” Brianna asked, cutting through her mother’s reverie.

Soraya laughed aloud this time. “Well, I was so taken with him that I volunteered to help him and his father in their stables.”

The young vampire actually gasped at that. Anyone who knew Soraya knew she was deathly afraid of horses, had been since a very young age, and even Vlad’s best efforts had only manage to leave her uncomfortable at best around equines. “You didn’t!” Bri exclaimed.

“I did,” the redhead laughed harder. “But with my constant yelping and jumping, his father caught on rather quickly that stable work was not meant for me. He had Kahlin walk me home right away.” Soraya winked at her daughter and squeezed her tightly. “Those fifteen minutes were, up to that point in my life, the most magical I had ever had. And it culminated in his kissing my cheek!” she confided, her tone suggesting it was scandalous. “Imagine! Kahlin Rawlings kissing /me/. I was in heaven. I was sure I had won him, that I had prevailed over the other girls in the village.”

Brianna’s eyebrows knitted together at those words. “But you didn’t?”

Soraya shook her head. “I caught him kissing Millie Horelle in the fields the next day. On the lips. Needless to say, I was heartbroken,” she confided. “I took to my bed for almost a week and refused to move. I cried all the tears my poor little eight-year-old body held and then I cried some more. My parents had no idea what to do to make me feel better.”

The girl contemplated those words for some time, as they obviously struck close to home. “So what did they do in the end, then?” she asked.

“Well,” Soraya began, “my mother made my favorite dinner.” Noting that Brianna wasn’t registering the meaning of this, Soraya elaborated, “My mother, Clayr, was sick. Very sick. It took a lot of effort for her to even dress herself in the morning. Making a whole dinner was a very big deal.”

Blue eyes looked up at Soraya searchingly, obviously not quite sure what to make of this revelation. That was likely due to the fact that her mother hardly ever spoke about her own family, about her own past.

“And it worked?” she asked finally.

Her mother smiled warmly in answer. “It did. It made me realize just how much more important family is. That in the end, they are always the ones who are there to see you through.” Her smile became one of mischief. “Besides, Kahlin had moved on to Imala Mordred about a week later. And I had moved on to someone else, as well,” she winked.

“Daddy?” Brianna asked, interest piqued.

“No,” Soraya smiled. “Another boy named Jex. He and I, became inseparable after that, at least for a very long time. He made me happy.”

The girl seemed genuinely confused now. “But you married Daddy,” she said, trying to put the rest of the pieces together.

“I did. Your father came along later, when I had grown up and after many things had changed. We met and fell in love, a love that is much deeper, much more meaningful than anything I thought I had with Kahlin or Jex. Not that I did not love them, in their own ways, but it is a different kind of love. A love you can make a life with. In the end, your father is the only one I love, and those other heartbreaks are just memories.”

Brianna’s usual smile peeked out, if only for a moment. “So it won’t always feel this bad?” she asked Soraya.

“No, it will not,” the redhead promised in answer, kissing the top of her girl’s head. She refused to let sadness due to the fact that Bri would forever be in this six-year-old body and would, therefore, likely never find this sort of love herself overwhelm her. “Though if you want, we can go to Uncle Minhea and Mircea and we can give them the boy’s name. I am sure they would love to have a chat with him for breaking your heart,” she teased mischievously.

Rubbing her eyes, the vampire girl answered, “It’s okay. Mr. Thompson didn’t really know I liked him anyways when he decided to marry his girlfriend.”

Comprehension dawned on Soraya then, and she asked, “Mr. Jeff Thompson? The director of your play?” Well, schoolgirl crushes usually ended up aimed at older men. Not to mention the fact that, though they tended to forget it, Brianna really was older than she seemed.

Soraya didn’t have to see Bri’s nod of affirmation to know the answer to her question. “I am sorry,” she said, then fell to silence to hold the girl comfortingly.

“Mommy?” Brianna asked. “Can I watch Sherlock and have some ice cream?”

The redhead nodded sagely. “That sounds like just the perfect cure. Everyone knows ice cream, especially the chocolate kind, is the best thing for a broken heart .”

“Yup, and staring at Benedict Cumberbatch helps, too,” the girl grinned through her sniffles.

“It does,” Soraya agreed quickly. “Put your pj’s on, I will get us set up downstairs in the theater room.” She kissed Brianna’s temple, squeezed one last time and released her to go do as she had promised.