Eventually, I fell asleep on the couch, and Mae woke me up a little after six in the morning. She dropped me at home, where I could shower and get ready for school. She’d sent me with vitamins and iron, as that would help produce more blood and combat my weakness. I still felt frail and out of it, and I wasn’t really sure how I would make it through the day.
After an unseasonably warm August, I walked to the bus stop in a rather chilly mist. Last year marked the first year since I was in the fifth grade that Milo and I attended the same school because of our grade difference, but it still felt incredibly strange going to school by myself. Going back to school was like a return back to real life, but I was going alone. Milo was no longer a part of real life.
On the bus, I pulled out my iPod with the intent of listening to it, but nothing sounded good. Today felt so off and I felt so disconnected from everything. I just wanted to sleep, but I didn’t want to go back to my apartment. I never wanted to go there again. It didn’t felt like home anymore, and everything about my life felt wrong.
I stumbled blearily through the first couple hours of school until Jane cornered me in a stairwell.
Stupidly, I had put on my headphones to listen to Bloc Party very loudly, so I didn’t hear her calling my name or chasing after me. I had made it up a flight of stairs when suddenly her face appeared directly in front of mine. Her make up was caked on heavier than normal, trying to hide the fact that she looked pale and freaked out. Otherwise, she looked like her usual perfect-Janeself.
“What the hell is going on?” Jane hissed, ripping the ear buds from ears.
“What?” I tried to play dumb since there were still people streaming down the stairs around me. I would’ve tried to get away from her, but she had backed up against the wall.
“You know damn well what I’m talking about.” Her voice was just above her whisper, and her face was so close to mine I could smell the Red Bull on her breath and the strawberry gloss on her lips.
“I don’t want to talk about it here,” I replied warily. People were slowing down on the stairs, stopping to watch the scene she was making.
“Maybe you should’ve thought about that last night when you weren’t answering my calls,” Jane growled.
“I wasn’t thinking about anything.” I dropped my eyes to floor so I didn’t have to look at the frightened glare she was giving me. “I slept a lot yesterday.”
“Come on,” Jane grabbed my hand and started yanking me down the steps I had just walked up.
“What are you doing?” I asked, but I didn’t even try fighting her.
“We’re gonna talk!”
She dragged me to the nearest girls’ bathroom and then practically threw me inside. I stumbled and fell to the ground, but I blame that mostly on my own infirmity. There was a freshman washing her hands at the sink, but Jane sneered at her, so she finished and hopped over me on her way to the exit. As I got to my feet, Jane checked underneath the stalls to make sure we were alone, and then threw her heavy book bag in front of the door to act as doorjamb.
“What the hell happened, Alice?” She stopped glaring at me just long enough so she could go over and dig her cigarettes out of her book bag. I walked over to a sink and leaned on it, since I still didn’t have the kind of strength I would’ve liked. “What are they? Who were those people that chased after us? And what the hell did your brother do to me?”
“One question at a time, Jane.” I ran a hand through my hair and tried to ignore that haunting, pale reflection that stared out from the mirror. I turned my back to it and using every last bit of my strength, I hopped onto the counter.
“Start with whichever one you want,” Jane gestured vaguely as she lit her cigarette. The bell rang overhead, announcing that the break had ended and class had begun, but neither of us made any move towards the door.
“They’re vampires,” I said quietly and studied her response.
When she took a drag from her cigarette, I noticed her hand was shaking. Her eyes stared intently at the yellow bathroom floor tile, and she exhaled smoke out of the corner of her mouth.
Her expression didn’t look surprised and her skin didn’t pale, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. Maybe she just thought I was insane. She took another drag of her cigarette, and then gestured for me to continue with her other hand.
“I don’t really know who the other vampires were. We met them at a club a little while back, and they were like obsessed with me because Jack wouldn’t share me or something. I don’t really know what they want with me.” I kept watching her, but she stayed the same, nervously smoking and looking down. “They just happened to be at the club that night. I didn’t know they would be.
And they chased us. Milo lost blood in the attack, and he was kind of desperate to replace it. So he bit you. I’m sorry. We never meant for you to get involved.”
“Milo is a vampire?” Jane said, almost interrupting me. “How long?”
“Just over three weeks.” It sounded so weird to me saying it aloud. My brother’s been a vampire for almost a month.
“Jack is a vampire?” She was starting to struggle between what she saw and logic, and I knew that feeling very well.
“Yeah.” I was about to tell her that Mae and Ezra were too, but then I realized that she’d never met them.
“But you’re not?” She finally looked up at me again, her eyes wide and scared.
“No, I’m not.” I could’ve elaborated and added that I might be someday, but I didn’t. Not only would it just freak her out unduly, more and more it was seeming like I would end up dead before I turned.
“Why don’t I have bite marks?” Jane pointed to her neck, which was completely bare, the same as mine was, even though we’d both been bitten just over twenty-four hours ago. “I knew that he bit me, but I didn’t have any sign of it.”
“Something in their saliva. It makes the wounds heal right away,” I shrugged. “It’s probably the same thing that makes it so they heal so quickly and live forever and all that, but on a much smaller scale.”
“That’s why you brother looked so foxy. And why I can’t get him out of my head.” Jane chewed the inside of her cheek and stared off into space. “And why I couldn’t get Jack out of my head either. They’re vampires.”
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, unsure of what else to say. “I never thought you would… When Milo invited you out, I thought we would just dance and you’d go home. I never tried to mix you guys. I just…”
“What do they want with you?” Jane looked up at me again, and this time, she was suspicious.
“Are you like Jack’s blood mule or something?”
“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” I shook my head. “He’s… We’re… There’s extenuating circumstances that I’m not gonna get into right now, but we’re almost dating. I guess.”
“What does that even mean?” Her hand was shaking less when she flicked her ashes, and that was reassuring. “Are you sleeping together? Does he bite you?”
“No.” I let it hang in the air, unwilling to tell her the truth about him biting me. “We just care about each other.”
“So why did Milo turn into a vampire and not you?” She was studying me now, trying to figure it if I was lying or leaving anything out, and I shifted uncomfortably.
“There was an accident,” I explained. “He was dying, and the only way to save him was to turn him. So they did.”
“I’m not gonna turn, am I?” Jane’s hand went reflexively to her neck, touching where Milo bit her.
“No, it doesn’t work that. You’ll be perfectly fine,” I assured her, then added, “Oh. You should take iron and B12 for awhile to help your blood replenish or whatever.”
“So… they’re really vampires?” Jane eyed me up skeptically.
“You saw them.” There was no better explanation than what she had already witnessed.
“I did,” Jane agreed thoughtfully. “But that girl, she had fangs, like hardcore. I didn’t n
otice any on Milo or Jack.”
“Yeah, I don’t think those are real.” I’d been thinking the same thing, but I kept forgetting to mention it somebody in hopes they could explain it to me. “I mean, they have really sharp incisors, but they don’t look like that. I think hers must be veneers or something. She has to be a real vampire, but I think it’s all part of her ‘image.’ You saw her black lipstick and Halloween make up.”
Jane nodded and tossed her cigarette butt on the floor. She stomped it out and pulled another cigarette out from her pack. Staring at the floor again, she was mulling everything over.
Obviously, she’d been thinking of it before I said anything. In the car, after Violet and Lucian attacked us, she’d even used the word “vampires” herself. But it was still a hard thing to come to terms with, even when all the pieces fit.
“So what now?” Jane asked at length.
“What do you mean?” I looked at her curiously.
“I don’t know!” She sounded exasperated, and she laughed hollowly. “They are vampires! Doesn’t it feel like we should do something? That we can’t just back to living our life like normal?”
“That’s something that I struggle with everyday,” I admitted. “But there isn’t much else for us to do.”
“I was bit by a damn vampire! And now I’m supposed to go to Chemistry, and flirt with boys, and just pretend like none if ever happened?” There were tears welling in her eyes and she bit her lip.
“I just sorta feel like my whole life was a lie. I mean, what else is there that I don’t know about?”
“Jane, we hardly know about anything,” I pointed out. “There’s tons out there. But it doesn’t effect us. Or we don’t realize it does. This one thing happened to touch home, just for a minute, but it doesn’t change anything else.”
“It changes everything!” Jane insisted dramatically, and I couldn’t help but agree with her.
This is exactly why they had suggested I not tell people about vampires. It was too hard for a person to take. It completely distorts the perception of reality. When things that are so clearly fiction became fact, it changes everything. How could I expect to her pretend none of this happened? From my own experience, I knew it was an impossibility.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I told her simply. I knew exactly how she felt, but I didn’t have the answers for her.
“So you’re no help?” Jane smiled wryly, then flicked her cigarette into the sink next to mine. “I should’ve excepted that from you.” She went over to her backpack and pulled out her ample makeup bag and went over to the mirror next to me.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I demanded.
“You just take your lot in life, no matter what it is.” Jane rummaged through her bag and pulled out something to blot the makeup that had smeared around her eyes when she started to tear up.
“You don’t know how to fight for anything you want.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” I replied, but her words stung more than they should.
“Really?” Jane’s reflection smiled at me sardonically as she reapplied eyeliner. “If you really believe that, then how come you’re sitting here, still human, going to high school? Cause you’ve got to be dying to be a vampire. I know I would be, even if my brother and my boyfriend weren’t vampires.” When she finished her eyes, she caught my expression in the mirror and laughed darkly. “That’s what I thought.”
“It’s so much more complicated than that.” But my words sounded unconvincing, even to me.
“I’m sure it is.” She put on another coat of lip gloss and turned to me. “I’m gonna go to class. And we can just pretend we never even had this little talk, since that’s how you want to play this.”
“I’m not playing anything!”
“Good job,” Jane winked at me.
She sauntered out of the bathroom, swinging her book bag over her back as she left. Her runway walk was already back in full strut, and I just gaped after her. It was as if there was a switch inside her where she could momentarily express real emotions, and then just flick them off when it became inconvenient. She’d been frightened and almost crying, and boom! She fixed her make up, belittled me, and walked off into the sunset.
I leaned back, resting my head against the mirror, and tried to find fault with what she said. I fought for what I wanted. Repeatedly, I had tried to convince Ezra that it was a good idea that I turned now instead of later. Sure, I never really told Jack how I felt, but I still hadn’t gotten everything with him straightened out. All I was doing was the making the best of a messed up situation. That wasn’t the same as just letting life happen to me.
Walking the block and a half from school to my apartment left me so exhausted, I had to sit down on the front steps and take a break. Not to mention the entire day of walking around the school, and I ended up sleeping a lot in class. During lunch, I’d gone to the nurses’ offices and laid down on a cot to get some sleep.
Eventually, I was able to get up and ride the elevator upstairs, but I collapsed on the couch as soon as I got in and passed out.
Milo text messaged me to make sure I was okay, but I only vaguely remember answering it, and then I was out again. I barely managed to wake up for school the next day, but I took twice the vitamins Mae told me to take. When they bus dropped me off at school, I ran across the street to the gas station and bought like five Red Bulls. I was gonna fight this tired thing if it killed me.
Surprisingly, by the end of the day, I was actually feeling pretty good. Jane had avoided me the entire day, but I decided that it was better that way. She needed to extradite herself from this life before she got hurt.
As expressed by the slow way in which I meandered about the halls, and this was me feeling better. I made it through the second day of my senior year, though, so I thought that counted for something.
It wasn’t until I got home and sat on the couch, sipping on my sixth Red Bull of the day, as I had made a pit stop at the gas station again before going home. Milo had texted me twice yesterday, once asking how I was feeling and the second expressing his relief that I was doing okay. He had not invited me over. Jack had not called or text messaged me. In fact, since he’d bitten me, Jack hadn’t really spoken to me at all. There was that conversation when I was half-asleep, but he just kept repeating that I needed to wake up and go downstairs, and that was it. It wasn’t the same as really talking about things. We had shared something immensely intimate, and he was just blowing me off. It was kind of startling how typical a guy he was sometimes.
Admittedly, he was legitimately freaked out by everything. Not because of how close he’d felt to me, but because it meant that we were both in serious danger. But we were already in danger.
Avoiding me now couldn’t take it back or make me any safer in the future. He wasn’t protecting me or preventing anything from happening. Our best bet was simply to keep away from Peter for the rest of eternity, and Ezra was on top of that. I don’t know why that meant I couldn’t be around Jack.
Unless…
When he was biting me, I could feel how much he cared about me, and it was rather overwhelming. It felt amazing to feel how he felt about me and see the way he saw me, but conversely, he could feel the way I felt. Maybe it wasn’t good enough. Maybe he saw how little I cared for him. Not that I didn’t care for him that much, but there was no way I was even capable of feeling the way he felt. I would suffocate under the emotion.
I cared about him as much as I could, as much as my measly human emotions would allow.
Or worse. Maybe he’d felt the way I still felt about Peter. Despite everything that should be to the contrary, I still had very strong feelings about Peter, and something at the very core of me felt destined to be with him. All of those feelings came directly from blood, and maybe Jack really got a taste of that. If he knew how I really felt, it might turn him off of me forever.
Without even knowing it, I may very well have broken his heart and driven him
away.
I couldn’t live in that kind of panic, so I pulled out my phone. I didn’t think I could talk directly to Jack, not yet, so I text messaged Milo instead. Talking to him would still make sense, and maybe I could get a read on the situation.
Hey. How’s it going? I messaged Milo.
It was still fairly early in the afternoon, so they were probably still asleep. As time started to slowly tick by, it seemed more and more likely that either Milo was sleeping or he hated me. I laid on the couch, staring at the television and trying to focus on what was happening, but it was nearly impossible. Finally, after seven o’clock, my phone started to ring, and my heart almost pounded out of my chest.
Pretty good. How are you feeling today? Milo replied.
Good. Better. What’s going on tonight? I responded.
We’re just working on some things here. You should probably just stay home and get some rest.
Milo suggested.
I’m feeling better. I’d like to get out. This was, of course, only half the truth, but I wanted to see Jack. If I was around him and I saw him, I would know exactly what was going on. But I had to get there first.
Not tonight. Just get some sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Milo messaged back, and that was that.
They were shutting me out of their lives, and this time, I was pretty sure I wasn’t just being paranoid. If neither Jack nor Peter wanted me around me anymore, it made little sense for me to be around. Sure, Mae and Milo still liked me, but Milo could still talk to me. Just not at their house.
Peter could just move back home, and they could go on with their lives. Everything could go back to some semblance of normal if they just got rid of me. I took more vitamins, drank another Red Bull, and paced the apartment.
In retrospect, all that caffeine would seem like a really bad idea. I was still tired and weak, and instead of perking me up, it just made me fidgety and it was hard to get comfortable. Combine that with this new panic taking over me since I’d just discovered that I had probably ruined the only that really mattered to me in my life. I was going to be alone and destitute until the end of time, and it was all because of my stupid ridiculous blood.
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