Meaning

The name Blythe means cheerful. Ellery has been aware of that fact for a very long time, nearly as long as he has known her. It’s one of the first things Lee ever told him.

Ellery and Blythe hadn’t known each other beforehand, but they’d been turned together. Wrong place, wrong time. Ellery doesn’t remember much about the first few hours after he was turned. It all comes in vague flashes of memory, so mixed with nightmares to the point he doesn’t understand what was real and what was not. Ellery was turned first, that much he knows. Blythe moments later, and her pained screams are burned in Ellery’s mind as the first time he heard her. He knows that there were others, a small group of them, but he and Blythe were the only ones turned. He remembers the hunger. Ellery has never been able to quite describe the pain of it, how quickly he lost control. The very last thing he knew for sure about that night, before Lee arrived, was that no one from that small group of strangers made it out of there. Their blood was hardly even enough to quiet the hunger, hardly enough for the both of them.

Lee found them, covered in the blood of their first ever victims, and had asked for their names. As if it was a normal meeting. Ellery answered first, voice hoarse, and then Blythe followed his lead. Lee had smiled at them, and said the name Blythe means cheerful.

The three of them stayed together after that, for so long it started to feel strange remembering a time they weren’t together. Ellery and Blythe were far from the first vampires Lee helped out after they were turned by his own father, but they’re the first that stayed with him.

In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t take Ellery very long at all to fall in love with Lee. It didn’t take Blythe long either.

Ellery knew from the beginning that Lee would never return his feelings. It’s a bone deep knowledge that makes it so he’s never hopeful, even when Lee would treat him with such kindness. Kindness Ellery didn’t think he deserved. Blythe hadn’t been so concerned.

Ellery was there, the night she confessed to Lee. He probably wasn’t meant to be listening, but he hadn’t been able to move from the spot in the hallway outside of the room where it happened. When Blythe first voiced the words, it hit Ellery with panic so strong it was as if he’d said them himself. He had known, of course, that Blythe felt the same way towards Lee, but he had never expected the girl to do something about it.

The silence that had followed her confession was deafening. In that moment Ellery had only been thinking one thing, a phrase that he repeated over and over in his head. How could you do this?

How could you be so brave, voice the feelings out loud? How could you be so stupid, not to realize it was futile? How could you be so hopeful? How could you tear the three of us apart?

When Lee rejected her, it wasn’t a shock. The surprising part was how normal it was afterwards. Ellery’s fear that the confession would stop them from being able to function as a group never came to fruition. In fact, it was as if the three of them grew closer. A strange, dysfunctional family that was borderline codependent.

Blythe never really seemed upset about being rejected, aside from a few longing glances towards Lee in the days following. Ellery was reminded of her name a lot in those days, cheerful. Enough to be happy in the wake of a rejection.

As time went by, they changed. Ellery accepts his nature as a vampire. Maybe it was easier for him, already being inhuman before. Blythe’s guilt grew and grew until it was overwhelming, choking the room. She couldn’t bring herself to kill humans, even when it became unhealthy for her. Ellery wonders sometimes if she ever started to hate him. His acceptance versus her retreat.

Lee changed, too. Blythe’s guilt became his.

It was torture for Ellery, feeling himself slip away from them. He couldn’t get himself to understand. It was worse even, when he realized that wasn’t the only thing about Lee to change.

The three of them had been together for so long. Lee, Ellery, Blythe. When Lee began to fall in love with Blythe, it became Lee, Blythe. And Ellery.

Ellery remembers being angry. Furious. He discovers, on his own, that the name Ellery can mean cheerful as well. He compares and compares, and never understands.

Why her? Kind, beautiful, sure, but poisonous. Her guilt poisoned Lee, weakened him. Ellery never took his anger out on Blythe, but he was never close with her again, not like before. It wasn’t her fault really, that Ellery wasn’t good enough.

The moment he forgave her was the moment Lee told him she’d died. He knows that Lee never told her that he’d begun to love her back. Ellery feels awful about this, even through the jealousy. Lee deserved to be happy, and they could’ve been happy together. Ellery had kept the knowledge to himself, despite knowing Blythe couldn’t see Lee’s feelings from so close, never would’ve realized without being told. He was selfish.

Lee doesn’t return to his normal self afterwards, Blythe's feelings follow him like a ghost, and Ellery never figures out what to do about it. He can’t convince Lee to drink, can’t wake him up when he passes out from exhaustion. Lee drinks less and less the more he mourns, the more he regrets. Ellery never understands.

Ellery still loves him, a dull ache in his chest that will probably never go away. Lee has carved himself a spot in Ellery's heart and Ellery will never manage to get him out. He protects him when he sleeps, weeks, months, years. He convinces him to drink when he can. He kills, so that Lee doesn’t have to. He doesn’t tell him about it, so that he won’t suffer.

When Lee starts getting better, Ellery allows himself to feel hopeful for the first time. It’s ugly, how much he wants to be the reason. Maybe if Lee just started to love him back, it would fix everything. He’s not the reason.

When Ellery meets the strange new people that have come suddenly into Lee’s life, he sees the look in Lee’s eyes. He’s happy with them. He doesn’t need Ellery anymore. Maybe he can only associate Ellery with Blythe, and it hurts too much. Maybe he resents Ellery for never developing the same guilt. Maybe he doesn’t know how much Ellery needs him. The people are kind, for the most part. They’re good to Lee, they help him in a way that Ellery could never figure out.

One of them is named Ai. It means love, he says excitedly as he introduces himself to Ellery.

All Ellery can think is it’s happening again.