Twice Bitten

by Diana Greenbird

  ‘I can’t see you as a mechanic,’ Emerson said.

  ‘No?’ I asked, jacking up the car and then fully removing the nuts and the tire.

  ‘You working any job seems pretty odd to me.’

  ‘You being in high school is odd to me,’ I countered.

  I grabbed the spare tire, and mounted it into place, screwing the nuts on by hand.

  ‘You won’t be able to keep driving on this donut. Just to the shop so they can fit you with a proper one,’ I told him.

  I lowered the car a little further to the ground and I tightened the nuts with the wrench.

  ‘If I still need it taking in, why bother changing the tire?’

  ‘Because it’s cheaper to drive the car into the shop yourself than have to pay the recovery fee, duh,’ I said.

  I fully dropped the car back to the ground and removed the jack. ‘And now you’ve learnt a valuable life lesson, so you won’t be stranded if this happens in the future.’

  ‘This only happened in the first place because you’re a moron when you’re wankered.’

  I scowled at him. He grabbed the jack, wrench and chocks. ‘But thanks. I mean, you kind of do owe me one for damaging my car for the second time, but thanks,’ he grinned.

  I threw his keys at his head. He still managed to catch them even though his hands were full. Asshole.

  Emerson ended up just chilling at Maybelle’s place with me until they came back from church. We watched the pilot episode of White Collar, then a few absolutely shit reality TV shows that Jenny had been giving us updates on for the past few weeks.

  He eventually drove his car to the shop a few hours before they closed. He text before he went to bed to say he could drive me to school in the morning as they’d been able to fit him in. He’d already let Gi know, so I agreed; she wouldn’t have her plans messed around, then.

  ‘I have to know everything,’ Jenny said as soon as Emerson and I got out of his car the next day.

  The rest of the AA Team were also waiting for us at the foot of the steps to the high school.

  Though we were only two days into November, it was like winter had rushed us – telling fall its days were numbered. Jenny had on a winter hat with two furry pompoms making her look like Mickey Mouse, Gi was in earmuffs and Martha was in a fur coat that I couldn’t be sure was real or not. I just hoped there were no PETA activists around. Robbie just looked like his usual casual self, with a jacket and boots on.

  ‘Have to know what?’ I asked.

  Jenny turned her phone around to the group chat where there was a picture of me passed out cold on my bed, still in my Halloween get up, though my wig had been flung somewhere on the floor.

  I whipped my head around to Emerson. Before anyone could say anything, he’d grabbed the phone out of Jenny’s hand and deleted the picture.

  ‘I video-called them after I messaged Marion to say I couldn’t help out with Sunday school,’ Emerson explained. ‘She must have screen-shotted when I turned the camera to you.’

  I crossed my arms.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jenny said.

  ‘Why couldn’t you just text like a normal person?’ I snapped at him.

  ‘I think the more important question is what were you two doing in bed together on a Sunday morning?’ Martha asked.

  ‘Oh, give it a break. We were fully clothed,’ I said.

  ‘You spent Halloween night together. I don’t remember you telling us about that when we were sharing our Halloween plans with each other.’

  ‘We went to a college party,’ I shrugged.

  I started walking my way into the school towards my homeroom class. The best way to avoid questions was to run away. I knew I couldn’t escape them forever since we would all be having lunch together, but avoidance was easier right now. There was no way I wanted to deal with all that this early in the morning.

  ‘A college party? And she got totally wasted? Come on, you have to tell me whether you two hooked up! You’re totally dating aren’t you-?’ I heard Jenny pester Emerson as I kept on walking.

  ‘Jenny, give it a rest, babe,’ Robbie groaned.

  ‘Did you have fun?’ Gi asked Emerson – the last thing I heard before I escaped into my homeroom away from the AA Team.

  I didn’t get a reprieve until lunch. Gi was in my English class and since there was no assigned seating, she plonked herself down next to me and began her own inquisition.

  I could already tell she’d gone through this all with Emerson – if she hadn’t already plied him for answers when I’d been unconscious yesterday she would have had homeroom, which they shared, to do so. She wasn’t as peppy or as obnoxious about me and Emerson so totally dating like Jenny was, but that wasn’t to say she didn’t believe that something was up.

  ‘What happened to his car?’

  ‘Huh?’

  Surprisingly, that hadn’t been a question I thought she’d ask. I thought she’d start off with something about me and him sharing a bed – you know something that actually hinted there might have been some fooling around between us. But then again, Gi never really did or said things that I entirely expected of her. Like inviting me to be her friend, having Emma as a past BFF or somehow wrapping the whole school staff around her tiny, polished fingers.

  ‘The front – it was all banged up. He just shrugged it off like it was nothing.’

  Once again there was that hidden accusation in her tone that her best friend never kept secrets from her – unless it was about me. Right. That was why she was going to lecture me… the past “talk” we’d had about Emerson resurfaced in my mind.

  ‘I, urgh, took it for a spin. Wasn’t as careful as I should have been.’

  ‘You were drinking and driving?’ Gi’s face was appalled. Yeah, I wasn’t exactly pleased with myself either. ‘And Emerson let you? Was he worse than you? You should have just called a cab.’

  ‘No, he was sober. And he didn’t really let me.’

  I vaguely recalled a lot of swearing and him running to catch up with the car, throwing my boot at the door to stop me and when that wouldn’t work, diving in front of the car. That last one did get me to swerve to a stop. Considering he didn’t have any vampiric skill when he was high, that was some feat he’d managed there.

  ‘Are you actively trying to put yourself in danger, now? Get out of the car, Liv.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What?! You’re drunk. And high. You can’t drive.’

  ‘I can drive.’

  ‘Fine, then. You shouldn’t drive. Do you know how dangerous that is? You could seriously hurt yourself – or others.’

  ‘Sorry. I… I forgot. I just really wanted to drive again. I miss driving. I miss my baby. I even miss the Porsche, how silly is that – I only had it for a day!’

  ‘Just give me the keys, love.’

  Gi pulled me out of my memory. Her face was still frowning, her eyebrows pulled in the middle. She was holding her pen in a tight grip. She was definitely pissed at me. Because not only was I messing with his heart, but I was also a bad influence…? I didn’t know.

  She lectured me about the dangers of drinking and driving, then about the dangers of underage drinking. For a former cheerleader, it was odd to be receiving this lecture from her. But she was also the high-achieving, churchgoing, caring for her twin sisters type, so it made sense she’d be responsible. And probably a good influence on a girl like me who lived life on the edge every day.

  Only it didn’t work like that. Someone like me was always the influencer. My aura was a black cloud that seeped into every pore and damaged everyone it touched. If this wasn’t a reminder of how selfish I was being, I didn’t know what was. I needed to pull away from Gi and the AA Team before they got hurt – before Death caught on to how much I loved having those guys as friends. Emerson could only be a buffer excuse for so long.

  Eventually, Gi’s lecture petered out. She probably thought my sullen mood was because I’d been listening to her good and proper and was going t
o be an upstanding citizen from now on because of it.

  ‘So… about everything that happened on Halloween. Like, between you and Emerson…’ she was clearly leading to a question, so I didn’t say anything. ‘You and Emerson are…?’

  ‘Friends,’ I said, pointedly.

  ‘Right. So, you’re good?’

  ‘I don’t get what you’re asking me. We chilled yesterday. He drove me to school today. Yeah, we’re good.’

  I had to figure it was one of those things where she was asking me if we were more than good. If we’d decided to put a label on whatever we were, or admit to knowing each other before school started like she assumed we did.

  ‘You remember what I said, don’t you?’ Gi asked.

  ‘About…?’ Gi gave me a sharp look. ‘Yeah, yeah. Don’t mess with Emerson’s feelings or break his heart. I get it. All we did was hang out. He knows where he stands.’

  ‘Does he? Because spending all that extra time with him might give him the wrong impression.’

  Right. Well, it looked like the first lecture had only gotten her warmed up for this one. I didn’t like that I probably knew part of her was right. He’d been trying to get me to define what we were at the frat party.

  ‘He’s a big boy. I think he can read between the lines and see that a girl taking him out for Halloween or watching a couple of his baseball games doesn’t equal a blood sworn promise of dating and relationships. If it did, he’d be dating half the school,’ I joked, deflecting.

  ‘He doesn’t want half the school.’

  ‘If you’re implying that he does want me, I can assure you it’s nothing more than a short-term fun fling. Maybe not even that. He said he wants me to come hangout with Charlotte some time.’

  ‘How does him wanting to hang out with his other friends make it any less serious?’

  ‘Because Charlotte and Emerson do have a romantic history,’ I said. ‘And Grayson’s out of the picture which means Emerson might soon be back into it.’

  Gi sat there, her mouth slightly agape.

  ‘Emerson’s love life is a lot more complicated than simply trying to get me to commit to the guy. If anything, I’m the simple one. I don’t date, won’t date and never will. Life’s easier that way, trust me.’

  ‘Easier for who?’ Gi asked, coming back from the shock of the little gossip bomb I just dropped. That probably wasn’t something Emerson minded his human best friend knowing, right?

  ‘Everyone.’ Christian’s smile flashed up in my mind. ‘Really, Gi. Everyone.’

  15

  By lunch, I didn’t know how Emerson had managed it, but they’d gotten off the topic of me and him. As they all had gym class together, I assumed they’d talked themselves to death about the weekend, whilst I’d been swimming laps. Gi and Jenny were known to talk over the barrier to the boys waiting to bat – much to the annoyance of Coach – and Emerson did as he pleased.

  I’d already finished my lunch, so I grabbed a wrapped pretzel from Emerson’s and started nibbling on the salted edges as Gi and Emerson chatted. They were going on about some cousins she had recently connected with on her mom’s side.

  Gi had never believed that there was anyone from her family, besides her dad and sisters, over in the US. Gi’s dad was a second-generation immigrant, but her granddad had died before he ever made it over to America and her grandma had passed away at fifty-one to cancer. Gi had never known them. She’d never had any contact with any of her mom’s family, either. Gi had just assumed that her mom was like her dad – alone.

  Apparently, Emerson had encouraged Gi to look into her family history. The twins had been too young to understand why their mom had left and not come back, and Gi had always hated her mom for the depression her dad had sunk into after the divorce and the struggles that had been put on her at a young age, becoming the rock of the family. But that didn’t mean that there wasn’t some aunt, uncle, cousin out there who might be worth reconnecting with.

  It seemed as though Emerson and Gi had bonded over not having much family to speak of. As Gi talked about how excited her lost family were to see her this Thanksgiving, and connect after all this time, I had to wonder what exactly Emerson’s cover story was. The logistics of it all. He said he didn’t have “much” family to speak of, but what family did Gi think he had?

  Where did the people at school think he lived? What names did he forge on the papers for his parents, or did Emerson have some “emancipated minor” story to tell admissions? And would that work for three vampire cover stories, or did they each have their own unique story to tell?

  I was cut from my pondering as Martha groaned loudly at the positivity spewing from Gi’s mouth.

  ‘You’re just grumpy because of the general elections tomorrow,’ Jenny scolded her friend, throwing an empty bottle in her direction.

  Martha scooped up the bottle and crushed it in her hand. ‘Shut it, Jen.’

  ‘What’s this about?’ Emerson asked.

  ‘Elections, tomorrow. She’ll be better once the votes are in,’ Jenny said.

  ‘Pft, “better”,’ Robbie muttered under his breath, clearly not agreeing with his girlfriend.

  ‘Are you even old enough to vote yet?’ I remarked, grabbing Emerson’s bag of chips and opening them. I’d accidentally finished the pretzel much faster than I’d thought.

  Gi gave me a questioning glance. She’d already seen me steal his pretzel. I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t like he was going to eat them, but I just shrugged and shoved a couple in my mouth. I’d decided that it was exceptionally wasteful for Emerson to just bring food to lunch that he was going to bin. Someone might as well eat it, and since I was nearly always hungry, that someone might as well be me.

  ‘And wasn’t last year the big voting year. It’s just Congress stuff or something this year, isn’t it?’ Besides the presidential campaigns that were shoved down your throat from every advert and news outlet, I wasn’t that clued up on politics.

  ‘I’m eighteen in April,’ Martha said. ‘That’s beside the point.’

  ‘It’s not Martha who’s the problem,’ Jenny said.

  ‘For once,’ Robbie added.

  Martha kicked the back of his seat. She was sitting on the second row of the auditorium. Robbie and Jenny on the front row; me, Emerson and Gi sitting on the stage opposite them all.

  ‘Her parents are seriously into politics. Its why they signed Martha up to volunteer at the station.’

  I recalled Gi telling me about Martha’s job. The weird one where she called up random numbers and talked them through registering to vote. Not even persuading them to vote a certain way, just register in general.

  ‘Every vote, General, Senate, House of Representatives, Governors – every one is a big deal to her mom and dad,’ Jenny explained.

  ‘It’s like I was born under a bad star,’ Martha said. ‘Politics is soulless. It’s a capitalist train where everything meaningful and human is disregarded for power. All that happens is someone gets to power and they spend the next four years undoing all the work the previous government tried to put in place. The medical system is screwed up, the “liberal” stance of the left is a joke, gun laws are run by maniacs who think that self-protection requires machine guns-’

  ‘I mean, we got a black president this year so that kind of means progress, right?’ I tried to butt in.

  I didn’t know why I bothered considering the look of derision Martha gave me.

  ‘One black president. In a line of forty-three old, white men. When was the last time a woman was even considered?’

  She had a point. But I’d accepted the sexist skew of today’s society as one in a long list of shitty things I’d had to deal with. I doubted I would have had half the trouble I did in foster homes if women’s bodies weren’t seen as the property of men or that we shouldn’t have our own sexual autonomy. My mood darkened as my thoughts proceeded down the path to Christian.

  Emerson seemed to pick up my mood and grabbed the empt
y packet of chips from my hand. ‘Hey, thief,’ he said. ‘Are you gonna buy me some more crisps before class?’

  ‘Crisps?’ I asked.

  ‘Chips,’ he shook his head. I knew he had been American once, a long, long time ago, but I couldn’t imagine it. The Emerson I knew was so… British.

  ‘Whatever. Sure,’ I grabbed my stuff.

  ‘See you at rehearsals!’ Jenny said, upbeat like always. ‘Love birds,’ she whispered mockingly. I couldn’t tell if she’d wanted us to hear or not.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Emerson asked, once we were out of the auditorium.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, kicking the floor.

  ‘Okay,’ Emerson said, but I knew from his tone that he didn’t believe my lie.

  ‘Did you ever vote?’ I asked, wanting to change the subject so he’d forget it.

  ‘Not eighteen, remember?’ He furrowed his brows. Like a memory was returning to him. I didn’t speak to let him continue his own train of thought.

  ‘Lamia only really started to get involved in human politics and power games in the First World War. But my father cared a lot about that sort of stuff – human stuff. He was probably one of the only lamia in our area who did vote. He was passionate about freedom and independence.

  ‘I remember he published a lot of stuff about the fight for Cuban independence.’

  ‘He did?’ I asked.

  I wasn’t a history wiz. The only stuff I really knew tended to be things I’d absorbed from books written in the past. I knew strange facts – things that appeared from journals or articles I’d been prompted to read after something was mentioned in a Classic – but in general I didn’t know much about history. The bare minimum from what I’d picked up in class just about covered it.

  ‘Yeah, it caused a lot of trouble. At least in our house it did. I had to get out a lot. I had six sisters,’ Emerson explained. ‘And most learnt to read by using dad’s articles. When he reported on the concentration camps in Cuba, with deaths of around a quarter million, the terror and sorrow was like… thick jelly in the air. I couldn’t walk straight without feeling like I was slogging through a marsh.