by Amy McClung
Backing my way out of the room, I softly shut the door. They didn’t even remember I was there it seemed. I thought it was best to leave the two lovebirds alone to work things out. It’s not every day that you find out your soul mate was a bloodthirsty demon. Although around this town, it was becoming more common.
It was a beautiful day, about sixty degrees and the sky was bright blue. I walked toward my house and then changed direction and went to the park. There was an open swing so I grabbed it. After sitting there for a few minutes, someone walked up behind me and gave me a push. I knew it had to be Quinn and he wasn’t mad about what happened earlier. He continued to push me and neither of us spoke for the next few minutes. He grabbed my waist, helping me come to a stop. I closed my eyes, leaned back and puckered my lips. He kissed me, but it tasted different this time. It wasn't the same passion as before either. When he pulled back, I opened my eyes and yelped. Will stood over me with a smirk on his face.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled, hopping out of the swing and turning to face him.
He chuckled, “You practically asked me to kiss you just now."
I rolled my eyes, “You know I thought you were Quinn, I know you know that.”
He shrugged and said, “Prove it. I didn’t give you any reason to think I was Quinn. You can’t blame me if you go around asking guys to kiss you.” I gave him a disgusted look and stomped off. I was so mad I could spit. I was mad at Will and mad that I let myself think he was Quinn.
I needed to go home and hope for a better tomorrow. This day has not been a pleasant one. My boyfriend tells me that he turned one of my friends into a vampire and then I break my best friend’s heart and had to bring her back from insanity and now I kissed another guy. Wait…did I just refer to Quinn as my boyfriend? I have got to stop doing that until I know for sure. Why does my mind always wander off to the most selfish minute thoughts?
That night I couldn’t go to sleep without trying to reach Quinn, so I texted him.
Me: Hope you are ok, I am so sorry I ran off, I had to get to Jackie. Everything is ok now. CU2morrow?
A few minutes went by before he texted me back so I thought it would be longer, but it only had one word.
Quinn: OK
Maybe I woke him up, who knows. Anxious for a new day, and the opportunity to see Quinn and make things right between us, I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.
At school the next morning, I saw Quinn standing by his locker, so I hurried over to him. When he turned my way, I waved and smiled excitedly. He slammed the locker and walked in the opposite direction. Ouch, that stung. Calling his name out didn’t even cause him to flinch. I knew he heard me, Vampires have excellent hearing. Well, he can’t ignore me forever, and why is he mad at me? He's the one who turned my best friend’s boyfriend into a vampire. I was only worried about my friend. This is ridiculous and, for a 76-year-old, he is acting mighty childish. When I walked into class, I noticed Quinn had managed to switch places with someone so that there were no open seats around him. He sat beside Christine of all people. She flirted with him and he acted like he enjoyed the fact that she touched him so much. Jerk. I glared at him for a moment. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me, so I sat by Mitchell instead.
Leaning over, I whispered to Mitchell, "Is Jackie Ok?" He smiled and gave me thumbs up. At least someone was still happy together. When the bell rang I thought I would have another shot, but Quinn took off like a bat out of hell to his next class. Every class up until lunch was like that.
In the cafeteria, I found him at a table by himself. He tried to ignore me, but I took my tray to his table and slammed it down. He growled. He actually growled at me. What a douche. “Why are you mad at me?” I demanded of him. He looked away and back at his food. “Hello? You're gonna have to tell me eventually! I’m sorry I ran off on you, but you really can’t blame me for being worried about my best friend.”
He slammed his fork down, stabbing it into the table, and I jumped back. "Oh yeah, you seemed real torn up, kid. Did you enjoy swinging at the park yesterday?” He asked.
Weird, I didn’t realize he knew I had gone swinging at the park. “Uh, sure, I guess it was a good stress reliever,” I responded.
He scoffed, “Is that what it was? A stress reliever? Well, I'm glad you had Will to help you with that.” Duh, I’m such an idiot. He saw Will kiss me. Actually, he saw me ask Will to kiss me. At least that's what it would look like to anyone else. Crap! No wonder he is mad. To a bystander, that had to look like a romantic moment between us. Crap, Crap, Crap!
Sitting down, I started to explain what happened from the time I ran off from him until the incident in the park. Before I could even get to the part about the park, Quinn stopped me. “You don’t have to tell me anything, sweetheart.” That time he put so much anger into the word. It was the first time it didn’t make me swoon when he called me that. “We don’t mean anything to each other, right? You actually did me a favor. Now I don’t have to pretend to care and we can be the natural enemies we're supposed to be. It’s obvious that you feel that way already. You’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t trust me because of what I am, so I'm going to make this easier on both of us.” And he plunged the knife straight into my heart, metaphorically of course.
I was too shocked to speak and he took advantage of the opportunity to get up and leave me sitting there. As he walked away, the tears started to pour out of my eyes. I don’t know why I thought he actually cared about me. It's obvious that he was using me to stay alive. He knew that if I found out what he was I would kill him, so he got close to me and made me fall for him. I hate him. And now, I will have to kill him, once my heart stops breaking.
My first instinct was to call Jackie, but I was blubbering so hard by the time she picked up that she didn’t know what I was saying. Eventually, I was able to enunciate 'bathroom' enough for her. She came in and found me in a stall and I spilled everything that happened; the misunderstanding with Will that led to the truth about Quinn’s feelings for me and my heart being shattered into tiny fractions. She made every attempt to calm me. When I finally was able to stop crying she told me that I needed to talk to Quinn. She believed he said that because he was hurt and afraid of the truth, afraid I was going to tell him I was in love with Will because of what we had in common. She had to be vague in case anyone was around. My response was to tell her, again, that she watched too many soap operas.
She took my hand and, as I was leaving the bathroom, I noticed my face was a mess. She grabbed a paper towel, wet it, and cleaned my face as a mother would do for a child. Mitchell waited outside the door and wanted to know if I was okay.
"Mitch, can we meet up later?" Jackie asked.
Reluctantly, I spoke up and insisted Mitchell could come with us because I could see he was disappointed. So, the happy couple and the third wheel, me, walked home. Thankfully we didn’t talk about Quinn. When we made it to the house, I thanked them both and told Jackie to go be with Mitchell that I would be fine and wanted to lie down and get a nap.
The house was empty; I barely made it to my room before collapsing on the bed in tears. I ended up sobbing myself to sleep. Out of pure exhaustion, I slept until morning. When I awoke there was a text on my phone, it was from Quinn.
Quinn: Mitchell said you were crying yesterday, I wanted to make sure you're alright. I
Me: Mitchell shouldn’t have told you that, it’s not like you care, you made that clear. Just leave me the hell alone and I will do the same for you.
No response. It was a struggle to get out of bed, but I needed a shower. My head throbbed and my eyes were pretty raw from crying. The memory of the day before hit me, like a ton of bricks, and I sat against the wall of the shower and slid down until I was on the floor. I had my knees pulled up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. My eyes were burning, they were so dry and I had
cried the last of my tears it seemed. It felt like my heart was breaking all over again, but I couldn't release the pain. It kept replaying in my head, over and over. Quinn telling me that he never cared and that I meant nothing to him. It baffled me why I was so destroyed over this boy I barely knew. It almost scared me how empty I felt now. The water started to run cold and brought me out of my trance. I turned the water off, grabbed a towel, dried off and wrapped my hair in another towel.
After showering, I headed downstairs in my robe and made breakfast for my parents. The thought of food made me sick to my stomach, but it was something to do to feel a sense of normalcy and take my mind off things. They came down, made small talk, ate breakfast and left for work. I must have looked a hot mess because my mom had no problem calling the school and telling them I was sick and wouldn’t be in today, it was even her suggestion to do so. It wasn’t a lie that I was sick, my headache had formed into a migraine.
I went back up to my room and got on my computer. It was time to update my social media status with some quip about how much life sucked and men were evil. Except that I didn’t. Instead, I wrote, ‘Feel like crap today.’ That sums it up. I plopped down on the bed and went back to sleep.
Next thing I knew, I was being shaken awake by Jackie. “Hey girl, I was worried about you. Look, don’t be mad, but I explained everything to Quinn about what happened. He's stubborn” and in an annoyed tone, “not unlike you actually.” Her tone filled with concern, “He didn’t want to listen, but when I was finished he felt horrible and he wants to see you. He said he didn’t mean a word of it.”
“He just feels bad because he made a girl cry. He doesn’t care about me, he never did.”
Jackie shook her head in disagreement. “Give him a chance, Park. You should've seen his face. Actually you should've seen how mad he was when he saw Will. I’ve never seen someone so angry. I couldn't hold him back. Mitchell had to do it with his super strength and I thought for sure the secret would be out.”
I sat up abruptly. “He didn’t hurt anyone did he?” Jackie shook her head. Thank goodness, I thought.
Lying back down, I rolled over to stare out the window. “Jackie, I just want to be alone today. I'll consider talking to Quinn, but right now I have such a bad headache that I just want to focus on getting rid of that.” Of course, that wasn’t the only thing that hurt; I don’t need everyone to think I'm suicidal or anything drastic. In a few days, I'm sure I'll feel better…I hope. She ignored me and got a cold rag for my head and tried this trick she knows for headaches which worked somewhat. Once I was feeling a little better, I hugged her and thanked her for being so great just as she was leaving.
My phone had been buzzing all day long, Quinn would call and then text, the same text over and over.
Quinn: Please call me, I do care, we need to talk, I need to see you.
I couldn’t answer them. Even if he didn’t mean it, he still said it and it hurt too badly right now. I needed time to think, time to clear my head of the memory of those damaging words. I grabbed a book off the shelf and was going to go sit on the porch swing and read to take advantage of some fresh air. Setting my book on the swing, I walked down to get the mail and inside the box was a white rose and a note that said I love you—Quinn. He made my heart stop again, but this time it was in a good way.
I lifted the rose and inhaled deeply. White roses were my favorite, but I don’t remember telling him that. An odd feeling came over me as though he were nearby; I could feel his presence. A short ways down the road he waited to see me. He raised his hand and slightly waved it. Standing still, in a state of shock almost, I didn’t motion back and he dropped his head and turned to walk away.
“Wait” I barely spoke. He turned around and, in the blink of an eye, he was at my side. A giggle escaped me and it made him smile. My arms extended outward to him and he moved in closer to me, wrapping his arms around my waist. I nestled my head into his chest and he rested his head on mine and held me tightly. We stood there holding each other for what seemed like an eternity. Our body temperatures seemed to perfectly meld together, his cold and my warmth made for a comfortable feeling between us, a feeling I didn’t want to lose. Pulling back from the hug, I took his hand and he followed me into the house.
We sat on the couch and he reached out and ran his thumb along my cheek. “You're so beautiful,” he said. I looked down as my cheeks redden. He lifted my chin so that our eyes made contact again. He leaned forward and began kissing me and I didn’t stop it, nor did I want to. I lay back on the couch and he gently lay on top of me, not breaking the contact. His body was like stone to the touch, but it felt as though his body floated above me. If it weren’t for the passion I felt from his kisses I wouldn’t even know he was lying on me. Then, we heard the key in the door and both jumped up. My parents were home.
My dad walked in and looked surprised, “Hey Princess, who's your friend?”
Without hesitating I said, “This is Quinn, my…boyfriend. He stopped by to check on me since I wasn’t in school today.” It was obvious that introducing him as my boyfriend was a bit shocking to Quinn and my father.
Although, Quinn seemed happily surprised with the revelation and that was a relief. He stood up and went straight to my father and firmly shook his hand, “You have an amazing daughter, sir.”
My dad smiled and said, “That I do, son. Sit down, please.” He and Quinn sat and talked while I went and cooked dinner.
They were laughing and getting along great, from what I could tell eavesdropping in the kitchen. My mom came home as I was finishing dinner. After she had met Quinn, she came running in to get the 'scoop' from me and talk about what a 'hottie' he was. That was a weird conversation for me. My mom acted like a teenage girl gushing with her BFF over the star quarterback. Creepy. Dinner went well and my parents were not embarrassing, believe it or not. Quinn wooed them; in fact he completely won them over. He could propose to me right now and they would probably jump for joy. Why do I keep thinking about things like that? I know there is no rational future for Quinn and me.
While I cleared the table, Quinn asked my parents for permission to take a walk with me. Of course, they said yes and exchanged looks of disbelief and joy that he asked. My mom came over and took the remaining dishes from me, giving me a big grin and a girlie squeal of joy. It’s sad when you're more mature than your mother.
Quinn and I stepped outside to a sky full of millions of stars visible tonight. I wanted to forget the last couple of days had ever happened, but I knew we had to talk about it in the long run, so I went ahead and opened the subject. “I’m not mad at you about Mitchell, I never was. I understand that you didn’t do it because you wanted to. You did it because you lost control for a brief second, but it could've been worse.”
He didn’t say anything so I continued, “All I heard that day, in my head, was that Jackie was in trouble. Something good came out of it though. You telling me that gave me the strength to tell her what I am and she accepted it. I couldn’t believe how well she took it. The truth about Mitchell was harder for her though. I'm not sure why, maybe because Vampires are supposedly always evil whereas werewolves change once a month, as she has always heard, that is. Or maybe it was that she learned one right after the other and it was too much to take. I tried to explain to her how it really was and I finally got through and she and Mitchell are better than ever.”
I paused when I realized I was rambling and he hadn’t said a word. He looked at me, “Why did you stop?”
”I don’t want to bore you with my ramblings,” I laughed.
He squeezed my hand, "Nah, you couldn't bore me. I love hearing you talk." What a load, I thought. It bothered me a bit that he didn’t respond about what I said, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he was choosing his words. Perhaps he just needs time to…think it over.
While we were walking, something occurre
d to me, “Is Will still staying at your house?”
Quinn fidgeted as he admitted, “No, that day that I found you at the park, I kicked him out and he hasn’t been back since. I think he's sneaking into the school at night and sleeping there. Don’t be mad, I just didn’t want him around. It was too hard to look at him. The two of you have this bond, the whole werewolf thing.”
His face dropped and his voice became solemn, “I owe you so much more than an apology, Parker. The things I said to you…the part about not caring about you…I just feel…I feel horrible about it. From the moment it came out of my mouth, I wanted to take it back. I was hurt and thought that you didn’t care and that it wouldn’t matter what I said anyway. Then I looked at your expression after I said it. You were heartbroken, it was all over your face, and it broke my heart to see that look of pain and know I was the source of it. Then Mitchell told me what happened later and I…well there are no words to express how sorry I am. You do understand that none of what I said had any meaning behind it. It was all a lie that day.”
It was difficult to hear that moment rehashed, but it meant a lot to me that he was explaining himself. “I’m not going to lie to you. The things you said did hurt tremendously,” a look of misery came over his face and he dropped his eyes from mine. I lifted his chin until he was looking at me again. “I accept your apology and I know that you didn’t mean it now. I’m not upset anymore, I promise.”
He took my hand, kissed it, smiled, and said, “Speaking of mad, it's getting late, I should get you back home while your parents still like me.” He walked me back to the house and the light was still on in the living room. My parents were waiting up for me. He did the gentlemanly thing and kissed my cheek and told me goodnight.
Chapter Nine