Lemon Balm officially released on October 31st, 2025! So, I released the first chapter for everyone to read as a preview the same day. You can read it here. Some info about the book, before I share the chapter - It’s a contemporary dark fantasy set in New York and Pennsylvania in 2020, through 2022. It has horror and some romance elements, and is the first of a series.

The leads are LGBTQIA+ - Acanthus (they/he) is nonbinary and gray ace, and Cypress (he/they) is nonbinary and demisexual.

Please note that the story contains some difficult topics, and we want to make sure that you’re prepared for it while reading. The story has more lighthearted moments than not, but just in case it is an issue, here is a list of common triggers woven throughout the story: Mental health struggles ,suicidal ideation, self-harm, self-neglect, and disordered eating, Vicious animals, Implied (off-page) past abuse, (very slight) mentions of drug use, (very slight) homophobia and transphobia, (very slight) mentions of animal death, (very slight) Mentions of sex work, very slight mentions of off page child neglect.

With that said, let’s launch into the chapter!

That Time That Life Was Mundane

Cypress

Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this one before — I am sitting in a dark room with a vampire. The setup sounds like a joke, but there’s no punchline. But, if you don’t laugh, you cry, right? So, let me spin you a tale of a vampire and a werewolf sitting in a dark room. I know, I know — Vampires, Werewolves? Sitting in the same room, and not killing each other? It’s quite amazing.

I’m Cypress, and I’m one part of this story. My vampire friend over there? That’s Acanthus, and I think you’ll find we have a lot to say. This story is kind of about us, and some stuff that drew us together, but it’s also about things way, way bigger than us. Things that I didn’t know existed until I met a vampire, rotting in a coffin and hoping to die. Acanthus is here with me because this story isn’t just mine to tell. From now on, I think we’ll switch back and forth on telling the tale of 2022.

It sounds stupid because it’s just a year, right? But honestly, the events have turned my life into the opposite of a joke. I’ve been kind of bobbing along in the World of Shadows, with my Vampire companion holding the guiding lantern through the dark. But, the story doesn’t work if I start in 2022. I need to start at the beginning — at least, the beginning for me — so let me take you back.

“Cypress! Did you finish that report I asked for?”

My head was resting on my desk when my boss Anita rounded the corner. I shot up from the surface, the fluorescent lights mixing with the bright monitor backlight in an awkward, overstimulating mash of blue “high definition” light that made my eyes ache. My gaze landed on her gaunt, angular face, peering with a scowl beneath furrowed eyebrows. Her brown corkscrew curls flew wildly away from her face, and her almost black eyes screamed disappointment at me as I put on the cheeriest tone I could muster, glad for the fact that I didn’t have to fake a smile under my brightly-colored mask. The soft cotton fabric had a cartoonish splatter of white clouds across a bright blue sky; the pattern made me happy in the morning, but the joy it brought was sucked out of me within five minutes of being in the office. Anita was a hawk; terrifying at the best of times. I happened to not finish the report she was questioning me about. “Sorry Boss, I had a few other things I had to get done first.”

Even with the mask perched on her angular face, Anita’s jaw clenched and I could see the gears grinding in her head as she gritted her teeth. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Cypress. I asked for this report at 10 AM.”

I didn’t need to see her mouth to picture the sour-lemon frown. I was already busy with the IT tasks I needed to do, and lately I had been wearing another hat for data entry because the entire department was in shambles. The report that she had asked for wasn’t something that either department I was covering was responsible for. “I know,” I replied quickly, trying my best to sound sympathetic without giving her room to berate me. It was easy for me to slip into that corporate, cold mask to placate her. “We had more pressing matters.”

Despite the importance of a spending report in Anita’s world, we had to fire three people today for not showing up to the office. Cutting our losses. The height of corporate capitalism. It’s not like there was a pandemic or anything. Not to mention, my actual department — IT — was being tasked to set up Work From Home for eighty percent of the employees while I was busy trying to please my toxic boss. Anita was unsympathetic to my plight. “I need that report first thing tomorrow morning Cypress, even if you have to work all night to finish it!”

I get it. I get it. No need to bite my head off. I tried my best not to let my irritation show. “Yes Anita. You’ll have it.” I smiled my most pleasant, award-winning smile, pleased to hear that it slipped into my voice rather than the budding headache at the base of my skull, but this woman was a stone tower.

“Tomorrow. Morning.” She hissed this through gritted teeth as she stormed out, the cloying scent of Freesia in her wake.

I sighed, hit print on the report I was working on, counted to thirty in my head, and shut down the computer. She would already be in the parking lot by the time the report printed. “Can’t yell at me from there,” I grumbled at my stony-faced reflection in the dull shine of the fake wood desk. The name plate in front of me reflected upside down. Cypress Borne. He/They. IT Specialist. I reached for the hand sanitizer to its left and pumped it into my palms for good measure.In case the masks didn’t clue you in, the year is 2020. Yes, that 2020, with the lockdowns and the trauma surrounding it that no one wants to talk about. To be fair, I also don’t want to talk about it, but I need you to know, Reader, that it was a thing. And, unfortunately, I lived in New York City at the time.

Mundanity didn’t exist in our lives during that fever dream of a year. This is really when I started to wish for things to be more mundane, but I had no real scope of just how wild my life could get at that point. Mundane. Mundane? Muuuuundane. You ever say a word so much that it no longer sounds right? Yeah. Totally Mundane, all the time. In fact, if you say mundane fast enough, it sounds like “Monday.” We crave routine. It’s human nature to blend in. That’s… normal, right? Right.

And yet, when you really boil it down, there’s so much that we take for granted in the mundane. When we blend into the crowd, we want nothing more than to stand out. When we have a routine, we want nothing more than to break it and to do something exciting. Mundanity is something that we crave, but our normalcy can be so overwhelming. And sometimes, when your life gets crazy… that becomes the new normal. I wanted to be able to stand in a crowd without getting heart palpitations over the thought of some disembodied cough. I also wished, more than anything, to be able to leave this job, but what was I going to do? It’s hard to interview for something that would let me work partially remotely with a six figure salary. Here I was, trapped by my 401k as a prisoner to my own comfort. What a paradox.

Actually, this position kind of fell into my lap. I’d been a data entry grunt for a few years, trying to pay my way through school and live on a shoestring budget when I landed this job by fixing Anita’s computer. She had accidentally downloaded a virus from a phishing email, and thankfully, I was in her department and there was an opening in IT. I was really lucky, but it was something that caused me an extreme amount of stress and anxiety at the time. The new degree helped matters. Looking back at who I was at the start of all this, I kind of miss when dealing with my job stress was the worst of my problems.

I was a social twenty two year old guy, freshly graduated from college with a Computer Science degree and a minor in Finance. I’d managed to finish school in June of 2019, and I’d only had a few months of catching up with life before the lockdowns hit. I missed my friends, my gym routine, and my ability to go somewhere other than my apartment. I remember that my confidence was high despite being scared a lot of the time. I had a good job with security. No one would do the amount of work that I was currently handling, coupled with Anita’s impulsive and verbally abusive management style. The salary was too good to pass up.

All of these are echoes of the mundane; the simple, routine life that I craved before the pressure of COVID hit. I even kind of fit into that nice mundane box with my appearance. Lined up with anyone else on the street, I could probably be mistaken for just about any other standard, vaguely-attractive brunette white guy. And, really, I don’t care much about what I look like. I just don’t want people to run away from me because I’m tall or intimidating. This is why Anita gets under my skin so much; I care a lot about what people think about me. Pretty much the only thing about me that doesn’t fit into a conventional cis white American male box is that I’m nonbinary, but I mean, there’s nothing out of the normal about being queer, either.

Hopping out of my chair, I grabbed my travel mug and briefcase, and opted for the stairs over the elevator. If I started cardio now, I wouldn’t have to work so hard at the gym later. That meant I would be walking home, and walking there. No taxi! The gyms had just reopened the week before, and I was craving the bright cheery athliesure outfits and the smell of chalk. I was willing to work out with the mask on my face if it meant seeing an area that was different from my studio or my office. Besides, working out alone at home was incredibly lonely.

I slowly descended the stairs from the 4th floor where the IT core team was located. I still craved a life that was simple, positive, and kind. I wanted the stereotypical American life: a job that paid enough to keep me comfortable, a partner that loved me and enjoyed my company, maybe two and a half kids and a white picket fence. The kids, honestly, were negotiable, and the white picket fence, well. You can’t very well find those in the city, and I don’t quite consider myself a country kind of person. But, it circles back to the mundane, right? Nice. Easy. Normal. Calm.

When I got to the first floor, I scanned the lobby looking for familiar faces. There were none — my hope to see a friend was naive. New York City doesn’t allow for familiarity. Sighing, I resigned myself to another night alone. Dreaming of white picket fences and meeting an eventual lover in New York City at the height of a global pandemic may have been the inner delusional romantic side of me. I wasn’t remotely looking for a relationship at the time, anyway; the thought of dating, of kissing someone, made me physically ill in those days. The concept of a lover was way more palatable than actually finding one.

My friends had been super nervous to leave their respective homes, and honestly, I couldn’t blame them. I wasn’t about to bother someone to come to the gym with me. Kennedy and Kassidy weren’t really into the gym scene and lived all the way in the Bronx, and Junior was a friend that I could only really take in small doses. I don’t think I really wanted to reach out to him and put a sour note on a space where I felt safe. Vic and Frankie were the most likely to come, but Vic’s sister had some autoimmune disease that I could never remember the name of, and no one had seen him since the shutdowns. Most restaurants and bars were really restricted, and it was our age group that was mostly getting sick. Even with being careful, I couldn’t honestly say that the disease wasn’t terrifying.

It was the end of August. The air was heavy and hot, and it felt like my clothes were soaked the second I walked through the door into the baking concrete jungle. One woman stood next to a street sign, balancing against it as she switched her pumps to far more comfortable walking shoes. I was already pulling at my tie, my suit jacket casually thrown over my arm. The mask stayed safely on my face despite it being itchy and damp against my skin, and I was already regretting my decision to walk home and then to the gym. People avoided each other, carefully flowing like water throughout the streets but keeping as much distance as possible. I watched one guy follow my lead, loosening his tie as if it were a noose, huffing and puffing as he pulled off his jacket. Why does anyone walk in this weather?

The seven block walk from work to my tiny studio apartment was pretty uneventful. Small groups of people carefully measured their distance from others, most wearing masks and most being miserable in the heat. I thought about the little 400 square foot paradise waiting for me. I had grown up in the Catskills north of the city, and I still wasn’t used to how cramped everything was even after living here for a few years. The apartment wasn’t much, but it got me through the day. A small part of me knew I wanted more, but a large part of me was terrified of losing the comfort and complacency that my routine and high salary provided.

Living in the city, even in areas outside of Manhattan, was astronomically expensive. I didn’t need much in terms of space, and being surrounded by people was oddly comforting. I personally preferred my little pocket of neighborhood in Brooklyn over the skyscrapers in the city proper. It wasn’t as if I needed all of the luxuries the city had to offer. At least I have a coffee maker. I remember when Junior was surviving on a mountain of discarded paper cups from cafés.

It was a comfortable twenty minutes before I hit the fences in front of my apartment complex. Tasha, my neighbor, was in the apartment on the ground floor on the left end of the complex. Because she was on the corner, she had the privilege of accessing the small, three foot by three foot fenced-in yard for her dog Carlton. The Dachshund in question barked at me in greeting as I walked past their gate, his brown tail wagging ferociously as I paused my journey. “Hey Buddy, Good to see you!” I leaned down over the gate and scratched him behind his beige speckled brown ears.

I always stopped to pat him when he was out. He was a sweetheart; I think the “Beware Of Dog” signs plastered all over the chain link fence were a bit overkill. My door was technically two doors over from Tasha’s, because the access to the upper floor apartment was between us, but that was alright. Dogs were worth the patience it took to spend extra time in the heat.

The neighbor glared at me from the doorway, her dark green eyes flashing. She was a firecracker of a woman, a solid foot or more shorter than me, her dark brown hair always in a bun and usually clad in scrubs. She rolled her eyes in a typical New York kind-but-not-nice sort of way. “Don’t touch my dog.”

We got along well enough, but our banter made onlookers feel as if we hated each other. Truth was, she was a trauma center nurse and asked me to feed Carlton when she worked doubles. I gave her an award-winning smile and flipped my damp, curly brown hair out of my eyes. “Hey, Tasha! Always good to see you, darling.”

Tasha rolled her eyes, fiddling with a little amethyst point she wore around her neck for ‘protection’. I’d never call her out on it, but I couldn’t understand how someone that worked in a scientific field could put stock in crystals. “Cypress, you idiot. Get inside before you have a heat stroke.”

I laughed and struck a pose that was guaranteed to make Tasha crack a smile, playing up the goofy stance with obnoxious overconfidence. “What. Don’t like what you see?”

In those days, my confidence and ego were even bigger than the skyscrapers of the city. I was safe in my little world, all things considered. As expected, she laughed. “You cocky bastard.”

She walked out to the gate, scooped up Carlton, and brought him inside. I watched as one of the “Beware of Dog” signs fell on one side, dangling from a corner and threatening to fall to the concrete, before pulling my keys out of my slacks and making my way up the sidewalk. I hopped up the little step to my door. A moment of jingling keys, and then I was greeted with a blast of precious air conditioning as the door swung open and I was met with the large, spacious ground floor studio.

Back in my apartment, I threw on athletic shorts, a gray undershirt, and some running shoes. The stress of the day was already melting away as I anticipated the burn in my muscles from lifting the free weights. The thought of going to the gym filled me with a joy that mirrored a kid on Christmas, and gave me back energy that had been sapped away during the work week. It was a Friday, too, which meant that classes would be happening and more people would be there than usual.

I work out, mainly because it’s a hobby that helps me to both focus and burn off the anxiety that sticks way too heavily to my ribcage. I don’t want to veer too deeply into self-deprecation, and keeping fit helps me curb that into something positive. The way I bulk doesn’t help how big I am, sitting at a healthy 6’4” on a standard day. But, my smile keeps me approachable. Dimples make me cute, and I can slouch to be less intimidating. That was one thing that I missed about pre-COVID the most -- I couldn’t disarm someone with a smile, and more people acted scared of me.

I didn’t need the gym to work out, and I did bodyweight exercises at home when they were closed down, but nothing quite hit the same as a hard workout. There was a type of euphoria that set in once it was done, and I felt both better about myself and the life that I was living after a good bout of exercise. It also helped that there were people around. I poured more coffee into my travel mug, and away I went, armed with a gym bag filled with all of the things that I might need. The gym was about a mile from my apartment in the opposite direction of my job. If the traffic behaved, I could jog there in about fifteen minutes. The traffic gods were thankfully on my side today, and I won the crosswalk war.

It wasn’t long before I was inside of the tackily-painted yellow interior and making my way through the lounge, towards the workout equipment. The gym was a lively place even with the restrictions still in place, and people stood a respectable distance apart, most of the patrons with earbuds in their ears. I was surrounded by people doing their own thing, but working on themselves and aiming to be the best thing that they could be. One girl had a timer going on the treadmills, and she was running at top speed as the timer blazed “35 minutes” in cyan blue.

I had to pass the machines to get to the free weights. There were a few people, one man doing lunges with a 25lb plate and one on the barbell with a spotter watching intently. Working out with other people around felt far less lonely than trying at home. I was elated to see a spot in between the lunger and the barbells. At a respectable distance, of course, marked in a neat, even square of yellow tape.

Walking over, I nodded to the lunger, who nodded back, lowering the weight to the floor and letting out a huge sigh through an anime mask. Soon, I’d be in the same state of hyper focus, counting my repetitions and feeling the burn in my muscles as sweat dripped from my neck and back. There’s this weird sense of friendly camaraderie with other gym-goers, like having company, without having company.

The familiar whistle of one of the fitness coaches sounded, signaling the start of a calisthenics class. I tipped my head towards the classroom, setting up with a few 20lb weights. The buzz in the gym inspired me, and made me feel better about my day. If you ignored the masks that rested on people’s faces, the energy levels in the gym were at an all time high. Since it had been a few months since I had worked with free weights, I figured that it would be better to go easy on myself.

After my final set, I sat for a moment with my gym towel draped across the back of my neck, heart pounding. I was giddy; panting through my mask as the endorphins flooded me. Racking my weights, I debated on what to do next. I was too tired to move on to another type of exercise, and it was nearing seven o’clock. It wouldn’t be a good idea to only do endurance training for arms, though. A well-rounded workout was the only workout to have. Chugging half of my coffee, I decided to hit the machines.

The calisthenics class was wrapping up, and by the time I did my last set on the leg press, the gym was starting to clear out. It made sense to me; it’d been a hot day, and a lot of people would rather be getting ready to go clubbing rather than working out on a Friday evening. Because I walked here, I missed a bit of the optimal people-watching window, but I didn’t mind. I’d still had a great workout and experienced a bit of that shared camaraderie.

Pulling a fresh towel from my bag, I made a beeline for the showers. I’m aware it didn’t make sense, when I’d be running home again anyway, but why should I have to wear three layers of sweat along the way? Looking back on it now, it kind of surprises me how comfortable I used to be, being in a semi-public area and dealing with nudity. I’d never shower at a gym, now. After the shower cooled me off, I made my way to the lounge at the front of the gym, where the built-in smoothie bar was calling my name. It wasn’t guaranteed to be open due to the food restrictions, but it looked like there may have been someone in the back room when I walked past earlier. I was surprised to see it open, but not surprised to see sealed cups and wrapped straws on the counter.

The girl behind the counter, Joanna, was one that I knew fairly well from before the gym had closed. She was a stunning woman; bright hazel eyes in a hooded almond shape that left me captivated in her kind warmth. Her straight blonde hair was cropped short in an angled bob, and I don’t think I’d ever seen her with it longer than her chin. She was fit, and though she was shorter than me by at least eight inches, her confidence made her seem ten feet tall. She’d worked there for at least two years, though I had never seen her outside of the establishment. I didn’t expect to see anyone I actually knew tonight. “Hey, girl, what’s up?”

“Oh! Hey, Cypress! I almost didn’t recognize you with the clouds.” She pointed up towards her face, indicating the mask.

I laughed, winking at her. “You could say my head’s in the clouds. How you doing?”

“I’m good,” she replied, her blush visible over the line of her black mask. “You know, glad to be back here. My other job is kicking my ass.” She looked up towards the menu and abruptly changed the subject. “You got an order for me, hotshot?”

I leaned against the counter, my shaggy brown curls falling into my face. I needed a haircut. “Your number, preferably,” I replied, “I’d like to catch up sometime when I’m not smelling like sweat and gym chalk.”

She sputtered, and I laughed, shaking my head. “I’m joking, Joanna. A green smoothie with peanut butter, please.” I wasn’t the type to flirt with waitresses and baristas while they were on the job.

She laughed, though it was a bit breathless. “Gotcha, coming right up.”

After a few minutes of pulsing blenders, clinking of ice crushing together, and the sloshing of juice, I had a delicious smoothie sitting in front of me on the black and gray speckled counter. I swung my gym bag around my shoulder, grabbing for the zip. “How much do I owe you?”

“Forget it,” Joanna replied as she handed me the thin thermal paper receipt, “It’s on the house.”

“Oh no,” I frowned, rubbing awkwardly at the back of my neck. “You sure? I feel bad taking it for free.”

“Nah, I got it!” Her voice was cheery. “I haven’t taken my free one yet today, and I probably won’t. You get kinda sick of smoothies after a while.”

I laughed, noticing writing on the receipt as I grabbed the smoothie from the counter. “Alright, well, if you’re sure. Thanks, Joanna!”

When I flipped it over, her neat cursive was scrawled across the thermal paper. I felt a little guilty, she must have written it when I wasn’t watching. Her neat print said under the numbers, Let’s catch up away from the gym chalk, yeah? The attention flattered me, but I wasn’t exactly interested in a relationship, despite my teasing. Imagine trying to start dating during Covid. All the same, I thanked her for the smoothie and pocketed the number. I wasn’t going to outright shoot her down, you know? It was nice to know she was interested, and maybe I’d take her up on it when I was a little more comfortable.

She said a quick goodbye as I turned and made my way out of the gym, pulling the straw up between the mask and my face to sip at the smoothie. I added Joanna’s number to my phone one handed, then pocketed the machine to rip up the receipt and threw it away. Don’t need some creep getting a nice girl’s number. A cool wind blew through the street, and I tilted my head up into the feeling. Looking up to the sky, there was an endless expanse of dirty gray-brown above me, just beyond the freshly illuminated streetlights.

The stars were non-existent in the city that never sleeps, and it was one of the things I missed the most about living in the Catskills. I closed my eyes, picturing the thousands of glittering silver stars studding the navy, purple, and black sky. The endless din of car horns and sirens couldn’t touch the night, there. It wasn’t worth it to think about the country; I needed to start my jog. The streetlights were harsh, though the park usually offered some reprieve from them. I start walking, deciding to take the long way back to my apartment. As I jogged to the street corner with my smoothie still in hand, my phone began to ring. Who let the dogs out?

That ringtone was only set to one person on my phone — Tasha. I grabbed it from my pocket and flipped the call on, not breaking stride. “Hey, hun, what’s up?”

“Cypress, sweetheart,” her thick Long Island accent came through the receiver. “Work’s yanking me by the leash, the ER department is overwhelmed and I was called in. I gotta be there in about half an hour and I don’t have time to stop home, can you watch the dog?”

“As if you have to ask. I’ve got Carlton. Go take care of business.”

Tasha laughed. “I knew I could count on you. Listen, I left already and Carlton’s outside. It’s cooling off and he was having fun, but I don’t want him out too much longer. You still got my key, right?”

“Yeah, it’s on my ring. Don’t worry, I’ll bring him inside. Does he need food or anything?”

Tasha hummed a negative. “I fed him an hour ago. He might need breakfast in the morning.”

That was good. That gave me time to relax at the park, so long as Tasha was alright with it. I’d never owned pets myself, but I’d watched Carlton enough to know he would be alright for an hour. “I’m stopping by Saratoga before I come home so he’ll be out for about half an hour, is that okay with you?”

I didn’t want to leave the Dachshund in the yard longer than Tasha wanted him out there. I was already halfway to the park, and getting home would take about twenty minutes. Tasha sucked in a sharp inhale, and my stomach panged. I distracted myself by sucking at my smoothie. “Y’know, sure. He can stay out. But you better get your ass there by like, eleven,” she said sharply. “You know he’s a digger and I don’t want him loose.”

“Yes ma’am. I’ll have him in by ten, even.”

She laughed again, and we said a quick goodbye before hanging up. By then, I was on Halsey Street. I made it to Saratoga Park in record time, and found a spot to spread out comfortably under a tree. I resumed people watching as the air began to slowly cool.

So, there we have it! If you liked it, consider picking up the book. It's available as an e-book, paperback, hardback, and audiobook. You can also find Lemon Balm on hoopla and it can be requested in most libraries, so check with your local librarian! Otherwise, here's the link of where to buy.

If you enjoy my writing, I also share short stories for paid subscribers to read. The first 1,000 words are free to read as part of the newsletter or as a free subscriber on Patreon, Ko-Fi, or Substack. I also release a newsletter touch-in at the start of every month. Consider signing up if you want to keep updated! Until next time, have an amazing day!