“You weren’t in homeroom this morning.” Thank you, Captain Obvious.
He sighed, closed his locker, and turned to face me. “Yeah, Paige pulled me aside to talk.”
I did my best to sound surprised and intrigued. I probably sounded like an interrogator. “Oh yeah, what about?”
Malcolm cocked his head to the side and gave me his best don’t-BS-me look. “Oh, come on, Noah. How long have we been friends? And I have to hear from Paige about how your date thing went? Seriously, dude. Not cool.”
“First of all, it wasn’t a date, okay? We were studying. I don’t even know if she likes me like that.” He promptly rolled his eyes, but I continued anyway, in an ill-advised bout of defensive self-righteousness.
“Second of all, I was going to tell you in homeroom this morning, but you weren’t there, and third of all—”
“Okay, I believe you were going to tell me in homeroom. Take it easy,” he interrupted, “but the WTF part is about how you ditched through the bathroom window.
I mean, what happened?”
“Well, Paige told you how things were going fine at first, right?” I quickly tried to come up with a good story.
“Yeah. How do you know that?”
I panicked. “You, um, said Paige talked to you. I assume she told you that part.”
“Right. Okay, so go on.”
“So we were sitting there, and I got the feeling that I was going to be really, really sick. I mean, I think it was some sort of food poisoning from the Mexican food I ate for dinner, but it was bad. I didn’t want to puke all over her, so I ran to the bathroom.”
“Okay, but why did you crawl out the bathroom window?” He had me there. There was no excuse for that. Absolutely no rationale that any normal person could come up with. So I just shrugged. “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking. I panicked.” I put on my most convincing sad puppy face. I learned it from Pepper, a dog I’d had when I was younger.
Malcolm softened. Once again the magic of the Pepper face had allowed me to wriggle away from a pretty awkward conversation. “Wow, that sucks,” he giggled. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be laughing, but—”
“Yeah, I know, it’s kind of funny.” I began to chuckle.
“You know you have to apologize to her, right?”
“Yes, of course. I just don’t know what I’m going to say.”
“Just be straight with her.”
“She’ll think I’m a jerk.”
“You are a jerk,” he cracked.
“Yeah, thanks a lot.” I shoved him lightly with my shoulder. I was getting better at controlling my excessive strength.
“She likes you, you know.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Come on, Noah. You’re killing me!”
“Sorry, it’s just all kind of surreal.”
“I get it. Just…be careful. Treat her right, okay? She deserves something good.”
“Of course I’ll treat her right! Don’t get ahead of yourself, though. We’re not together yet. I don’t even know if she’ll want to go out with me, especially after this.” And especially if she found out I was a creature of the night.
“Give it time.”
“You’re assuming she’ll forgive me.”
“She’ll forgive you.”
“How do you know?”
“Just freaking apologize, you big dummy. Of course she wants to forgive you!”
“You’re right, you’re right. Thanks.”
“No problem. Just next time I’ll have to charge you by the minute.” He winked.
I felt wretched and guilty for just having spied on my best friend, assuming the worst about his intentions, and then lying to his face. The deceptions were mounting on top of each other like a monstrous house of cards. I felt that at any moment, the next lie I told in the interest of self-preservation would cause the whole structure to come tumbling down.
As Malcolm and I started walking to our first period classes, he leaned in a little.
“So, did you kiss her?” he whispered conspiratorially.
“Almost,” I whispered back.
“Chicken.”
A wave of relief washed over me. Our friendship was intact. For a brief minute I thought everything was going to be okay.
****
I found Paige chatting with Celia in the corner of the courtyard during lunch. It wasn’t a particularly pretty day. In fact, it was a deep, depressing gray, but as a result, the courtyard was otherwise empty. She’d avoided me all throughout history, which was especially awkward seeing as we were supposed to be partners. I had to fix this. I steeled my nerves and stepped out into the cool air.
My feet made a soft impression on the damp patchy grass. As I made my way toward the picnic table near the northeast wall, Celia caught sight of me and stopped talking. Paige looked over at me, then back at Celia. Though they weren’t saying anything, I knew they were speaking some sort of silent girl language, some code I could never in all eternity understand. I swear girls are born with it.
I stopped just in front of the table. Celia’s eyes darted between Paige and me. All of a sudden my throat went dry and tight, and fell into my stomach. I forced a smile. “Hey, Celia…Paige.”
“Heyyyyyyy, Noah,” Celia responded.
There was a significant pause. Paige did her best to flash a smile. It was a decent effort.
“Hi,” she said quietly.
Celia hastily gathered her half-finished tray of cafeteria food. “I’m going to get a cookie. Paige, you want anything?” Celia asked.
“No thanks.”
“Yeah, no, I’m good, too. Thanks for asking!” I said cheerily, hoping to relieve some of the tension that hung heavy in the air. My attempt failed.
Celia flipped me the bird and left.
I took the opportunity to snatch her seat across from Paige, who stared at me unabashedly and drummed her fingers on the table. “So,” I said.
“So?” she responded.
“I owe you an apology.”
She nodded slowly.
I sucked in a breath and continued. “I’m really sorry about last night.” I hoped that would be enough, but clearly it wasn’t. Paige raised an eyebrow, waiting on the rest. “I was having a really good time, but I just started feeling really sick. Something I ate, I think.”
“So you were feeling okay, then we kind of had that little moment where, I don’t know, I thought maybe there was something between us, and then you got sick?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. Thanks.”
“No! Wait! That came out wrong!”
“So, I don’t make you want to hurl?” she asked dryly.
“Yes! No, I mean…no, of course you don’t!” I was tripping over my words like a kid in clown shoes.
“Then what happened?” she asked, her tone softening. The defensive posturing drained from her voice and her vulnerability began to seep through.
I decided that this time I would actually think before I talked. “I had some dinner before I came over to your place. When I got there I felt fine. When we were watching the movie I still felt okay, maybe a little off. Then, like you said, we were having a little moment. I couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful you looked.”
At that I saw her face light up like a flash. She tried to hide it. “So let’s just say the—um, your beauty, sort of turned my stomach into knots—in a good way—and at that point the whole food poisoning thing hit.”
“I guess that would explain why you leaped away from me with a look of terror.” The glint in her eye was back. Was she flirting with me again? Were we cool? “As much as I enjoy projectile vomiting on the girls I like…”
“Okay, a little too visual there!” She put her hand up to my face and laughed. Her laughter bounced lightly off the tall brick walls of the courtyard and fluttered upward into the misty sky.
“Sorry, TMI, I get it.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears. “So, you…like me?”
I kicked ne
rvously at a pebble on the ground.
“Um, yeah. I kind of do.”
“I kind of like you, too.”
I looked at her. She was smiling at me shyly. There it was, the affirmation I’d been waiting for since fifth grade. She liked me too! ME! Well, some version of me, at least. She probably wouldn’t if she knew the truth, but I wasn’t about to ruin that perfect moment with the stupid truth.
“But…”
No. No, no. I didn’t like that word. I didn’t want any caveats, clarifications, or qualifiers.
“But,” she continued, “I just got out of a long relationship. It wasn’t the best, and I’m kind of messed up about the whole thing. I’m not really ready to date or anything.”
“I totally get it.” I didn’t get it at all! Harold sucked, and she’d had a whole month to get over him!
“So do you think for now we could still be just friends? It would mean a lot to me. I do like you, I just can’t…I’m sorry, I just can’t think about dating or anything right now.”
“Of course. Friends.” This was a disaster!
“I just have one more question,” she said, trying to infuse levity in her voice. “Why go out the bathroom window?”
I shrugged my shoulders and tilted my head to the side. “I panicked.”
She laughed again and shook her head, her ponytail swishing gently through the air. “Try not to panic next time, okay?”
“Sure. Next time I get violently ill while we’re hanging out, I won’t panic. I promise.” I solemnly held two fingers up, Scout’s honor, and put my other hand on my chest.
“I’m going to hold you to that, you know,” she teased.
“I hope you do.”
We sat there for what felt like a solid minute in total silence, in the dimming light. Our eyes lingered on one another. Her eyes positively glowed, rich and brown like fresh earth. The stray strands of hair from her loose ponytail swayed with the slightest movement of her head. She was so perfect. Unique. So beautiful. It broke my heart.
“You lovers done?” Celia’s voice broke through the mist of my bittersweet infatuation. She was standing at the head of the sad little picnic table, holding a wad of cookies in her hand. There was a big wet spot on the upper leg of her jeans.
“Celia!” Paige whispered harshly, embarrassed.
“Oh, sorry. What I meant to say was, Are you lovers done here?” she retorted impatiently.
Paige sighed and gave me an apologetic look. “Yeah,” she said, “we’re done, thank you very much. What happened to you?” Paige pointed at the giant wet spot on Celia’s leg. Celia rolled her eyes, exasperated, and launched into her explanation while cramming another cookie in her mouth. It was quite impressive actually.
As Celia continued sharing her chocolate chip cookie misadventure, I figured it would be a good time to make my exit. You know, leave before she could see the pain in my eyes. With one quick forced smile and a nod toward the girl of my dreams, I was gone.
****
Damage control: Success. Operation Ask Paige to Prom: FAILURE. I walked out of school at the end of the day feeling pretty conflicted. Even though she liked me, she wanted to be just friends. How was I supposed to get around that? I pulled my hat tightly over my head, zipped up my jacket, and strode into the woods with the events of the day replaying in my head.
That lasted all of, oh, forty-five seconds. I suddenly felt like I was going to be sick. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping to will away some of the pain, and sat down on the ground. Mind over matter, right? That’s when I heard the voice. It was barely audible, even to me. In fact, I couldn’t tell if I was really hearing it or if my overactive imagination was making up a language born of leaves and wind.
“Go ahead,” it whispered.
My head shot up and my eyes scanned the path ahead. There was no sign of anyone. Not a shadow. Not a footprint.
“I’m here,” it came again, from all directions.
The words reverberated inside my empty being. What was going on? Was I so hungry I was hallucinating? Was it a sound I was only imagining? A sound that was halfway between a voice and a breeze?
“Hello?” My voice sounded small. I felt like I was going mad. I guessed the stress of turning into a vampire could do that. I slowly picked myself up off the ground. I took a long, steady look into the woods that encircled me. Still nothing. I shook my head and looked again. For a split second I saw a ghostly flash of a figure, still and pale, in the distance. A second look and it was gone entirely.
“Noah,” the voice came again, this time right behind me.
I spun around startlingly fast, but apparently not fast enough. The dirt path stretched out before me, empty as before. Yet, I had the distinct feeling I was not alone. That’s all it was though. A feeling. I shrugged my backpack up on my shoulders. That’s when it suddenly hissed.
“Mine!”
This time I thought it was right above me. Without thinking, I looked straight up through the foliage, into the brightly blanketed sky.
“Ow!” I yelled.
Though it was far from sunny, glancing into the light of the day stung my eyes like acid. I blinked rapidly as the pain melted away. When I was able to see clearly again, my eyes revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Just the woods and a footpath.
I waited for ten minutes, hoping that the strange voice would come back and explain itself, or that I would decide I was nuts and move on without thinking twice about it.
Since neither happened, I continued my walk home, unsettled and on edge. The creepiest part about the whole incident was that although the voice I heard was distinctly eerie, I wasn’t so much frightened as curious. There was something familiar about it. I was itching to hear it again, to figure out why I was inexplicably drawn to it. Like a song you’ve heard a million times but can’t remember the lyrics.
By the time I was close to home, I felt worse off than when I’d started the day. Sure, things with Paige and Malcolm had been smoothed over, but I still had to figure out how I had become a vampire, what the blond tattooed chick had to do with it, and why I was hearing voices. Also, Mom and I were not exactly the perfect picture of a mother-son relationship. And I had to deal with it all without blowing my cover with my friends. Awesome. As much as I hated lying, I didn’t want to spend my entire undead life as a lonely loser. I couldn’t even imagine what they’d think if they found out the truth.
Chapter 9
The squirrel tasted like mud and mange. I hadn’t expected it to be good by any standard, but little did I know how putrid the blood would be. Blood was blood, right? Man, was I wrong.
After the curiosity about the particularly creepy incident in the woods had worn off somewhat, I was once again left with a crippling thirst. It had been ages since I’d satisfied my hunger.
I dragged myself back to my house and up to my room, where I tried to distract myself by re-watching the first season of Dexter. Bad idea. While most people’s stomach would churn at the unapologetic orgy of blood splatter, it only made my mouth water. That’s when I heard the scampering.
Before my brain could catch up with what was happening, my body had taken the lead. I forced the window open so fast and hard I thought it would shatter. The darkening evening cast a pale lavender light over the backyard and the tree in which the offending squirrel was mercilessly scuttling. In one fell swoop I leaped off the ledge of my window, cleared the six-foot gap, and effortlessly landed on the branch. The squirrel didn’t have a chance.
I had completely given in to the animal instincts that were driving my every move. And those same instincts were the ones that reached out with lightning speed, grabbed the hyperactive critter, and shoved it in my mouth. Bon appétit. My fangs sank smoothly past its rough fur and into its soft flesh, tapping into the rapidly pulsating stream of blood.
As I choked down the warm, rank life of the dying squirrel, I felt my limbs waking up from the inside out. Power and strength pulsed through me with growing intensity until I felt
all but completely revitalized. Satisfied for the moment, I finally tore the rodent’s limp body away from my fangs and laid it carefully on top of the branch I was perched on.
I felt strong again. At first I was relieved. I was no longer a sickly weakling struggling with chilly fevers and ethereal hallucinations of voices in the woods. I was vibrant. Confident. Whole.
On the other hand, I also felt the life of another creature surging through my veins. I realized it was probably the closest I would come to feeling alive again. And that depressed me. Killing adorable animals was what made me feel alive? Exactly what brand of sicko was I? Was I less of a psychotic serial killer because I hadn’t murdered a person yet? I knew I was capable of that. But I also knew I felt remorse over a stupid squirrel. So where exactly did that leave me? Not exactly human. Not exactly psychopath. Definitely something unnatural.
It was a guilty pleasure, feeding. It was as natural to me as swimming is to fish, and yet I carried with me a tremendous amount of guilt, especially after drinking. Oddly enough, that reassured me. I was sure guilt was only a human emotion; therefore, some part of me still must be human…right?
As my senses began to rejuvenate high up in the tree, my thoughts were interrupted by a little something that made me aware that I wasn’t alone that evening.
That little something was Malcolm shouting in horror and disbelief. “WHAT THE?!”
“Malcolm!” I shouted with equal terror and surprise. I had managed to get so wrapped up in my thoughts that I hadn’t paid attention to the approaching footsteps, the steady breathing, or the sudden lack of both when my best friend saw me up in a tree gobbling a squirrel like a madman.
We both stared at each other, frozen in confusion and dismay. His bright blue eyes were wide and shiny as newly washed plates. I don’t think he blinked for a solid minute. I quickly took stock of my appearance. I was still crouched on a branch like a wild cat waiting to pounce, I had blood and gray fur smeared all over my face, and my fangs were on full display. There was no way out of this. I didn’t know what to say or where to start.
“Please tell me this is a dream,” Malcolm said flatly.
“This is a dream,” I offered.
I Heart Vampires Page 10