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It&039;s funnylife can sneak up on you Your own life can do that Because when you&039;re inside all the weird stressful awful things that are happening, you can&039;t see the big picture

But when you finally realize, when you get a chance, a glimpse, to really see theall over again, only ht it was before, it&039;s e is in the middle of your life

Some of my friends were dead Some of them didn&039;t remember ed the timeline Some of them ell on their way to insanity, and some of them never, ever wavered in their love and loyalty toback, thinking about thatit&039;s so fucking depressing, you know?

Which bringsto do it," I announced, heading for the freezer for e Twirl Predeath, o-to had been Hershey bars with almonds, or irl Once

Adding to my annoyance (which had never been difficult, since I had always been a bitchy girl), I first had to haul out half a dozen bottles of Tina&039;s weird, weird vodkas before I could extract the Precious Just reading the labels was enough to s: hot pepper, three olives (like one olive wasn&039;t vile enough), root beer (good God!), triple-shot espresso (so you could take so that will make you sleepy and spazz you out at the same time), Absolut LA (which boasted acai and blueberry, and thus was good for you, except for the fact that it was alcohol, which is poisonous), and plenty others too hideous to ether like some unholy frozen army of booze No, waitThree Olives was a brand, not a flavor The flavor was tomato Why, why had so!

Finally, after a nice crop of frostbite was no doubt gonna show up any second, I found o-to and restacked all the boozeupside down, so Tina would have to reach in and haul each one out to check the flavor Ha! More proof that it doesn&039;t pay to mess with the vaeance were endless

The door swung in, and there was Jessica For a woman who claimed she couldn&039;t hear me when I tried to explain why it was perfectly okay for a woh heels, she had no trouble hearing the fridge or freezer open fro the blender and ice creaet to work and then we&039;ll have a faht it, never ht Fauys weren&039;t my family, as any of it for? Jessica had always been my sister, and Nick loved me (I was pretty surehe didn&039;t hate and fear me, at least) because Jessica did, and I knew Tina loved me, too

Maybe even Garrett, the Fiend forirlfriend, the bitchy olf Antonia, did (What? She was a olf And she was also bitchy Grumpiest person I had ever, ever met Because in death, I was fated to be surrounded by weirdos)

For sure they liked me I didn&039;t think that was , either: they&039;d moved from their lives to our lives to hell and then back to our lives Of course, I did rescue Antonia fro around, but like I said, that prob&039;ly meant they liked me Or at least didn&039;t loathe and fear me (I&039;ll take it Believe me And how sad is that?)

As for Sink Lair, his love had never been in question, though I was too bubble-brained and pissed to catch on right away, or realize I loved hi So, yep, my husband absolutely loved me

(I wasn&039;t quite sure aboutwas how Jessica didn&039;t blink, or pause Just took a step back while holding the kitchen door and yelled, "Milk shakes, idiots!"

I had to take a few seconds and pretend to be busy du scoops of ice cream into the blender, so she couldn&039;t see irlfriend can tell at a glance when you&039;re upset or touched or pissed

After a few seconds I was able to turn er had to pretend Because now I had a whole new problem: where were my candy bars? My precious delectable Hershey bars, always kept in the fridge (room temp chocolate = yuck) so I could chop theenerous splash of whole ht tiallons of er ale (with actual luer ale!), a few boxes of leftover Chinese takeout (as eating that, I had no idea), a bottle of blueberry vodka (what, the freezer wasn&039;t enough, fer Chrissake?), a box of Godiva cookies (pretty decent chocolate, but useless for my needs), and a couple of tins of Giselle&039;s cat food Ouch Another of my many character flaws: I was a little slow to do ht, first off, ree, still hunting "This is just sad, and also gross And second, if one of you a shitheads filched my Hershey&039;s, there will be blood on the streets, I swear it, blood on the st-oh, there they are" Why they were in the door slot for eggs I did not know and did not give one shit

I heard the fwoo open, and looked up in time to see Antonia and Garrett walk in Sinclair and Jessica were right behind therateful Sometimes it could take over half an hour just to round everybody up

"Uh-oh," Nick said, eyeing the Precious and grinning It eird that he didn&039;t hate me in this timeline The way I remembered it, he had made Jessica pick between him and meand she picked me! (I couldn&039;t believe it, either) But that had never happened now Sohad it never happened? Even though I could remember? Because it was so aard and awful? Ow, I&039;uns, vampire queen"

And that! What was that? He said it, but not in a ood thing Like it hadn&039;t ruined his life

I don&039;t like being confused and angry!

"You keep shooting lances," he continued (happily!) "I take it in the old tinant, and you weren&039;t living here" To put it mildly Also, I accidentally tortured you and then ot weirder problems"

"Yeah Like how she&039;s not dead anyone to the booze freezer for a drink, and was now knocking back espresso vodka in a lass

"Weirder than that, even"

Antonia chortled in ulp Her black rat&039;s-nest hair was its usual unke a bad day Not that she wasn&039;t gorgeous-she was Sickeningly so, ith the black masses of tu olf-y eyes But she eird All olves were

"Not weirder than that," Jessicacould be weirder than that"

"What&039;s weird about it? I left Now I&039;m back Don&039;t throw lanced around "Where&039;s Tina?"

See, see? Nothing about Marc being dead Nothing about hell Just "ti my man for a while, don&039;t wait up and ha ha, I scored more free vodka off Tina, and oh by the here is she?"

"Everything&039;s better now," Garrett said with a sweet smile But I expected his reaction, too Garrett was a littleoff He&039;d been a Fiend (a vampire deliberately starved until it went feral and bitchy) for decades, and had been dead going on a hundred years That had shattered any vibrancy of personality he&039;d ever had in life He&039;d been a shell of a vamp until Antonia swooped into his pants I mean, his life

Garrett looked at the world with envious si Antonia was back Knit one, purl two All ell Again: envious si to wonder We soe who can cast on, knit, and then purl while blindfolded But I tended to forget, even though he brings out my protective side, that Garrett wasn&039;t a kid, and hadn&039;t been one for close to a hundred years And if I ever wanted to h all that Garrett had endured was as close to a fool-proof recipe as I could get I knew there wasn&039;t much he wouldn&039;t do to protect Antonia I also kneas a liar and a coward

I guess seeing the Marc Thing a few days ago was giving me some unwanted perspective on "it&039;s always the quiet ones" And this is the part where, if this was a movie and I was a sensible (yet hot) heroine, I&039;d et to the botto, "This isn&039;t over" By which I&039;d really y?

Spreadsheets That&039;s e needed Some kind of written record of all the weird stuff we should never lose track of no s were settled (however briefly), I could look on ht, I caught Garrett in so to hell and I also know he&039;s killed more people than Hot Pocketsation?"

It would be easy! Which was the flaw Too easy, if anything, because such things tended to get shoved out ofBad of the week reared its-

"-ht?"

"Yeah, but with this particular proble We can&039;t just lie around working on spreadsheets, people!"

"Uh, what?"

"Never h"

"Does this have anything to do with how ?" Nick/Dick asked