by Rachel Hera
“Anyway, soccer field is occupied. We’re aiming for home-runs today,” Philip recovered quickly, talking to Kristy, Chantelle and I.
“I hate baseball,” Chantelle muttered.
“I just want volleyball to start up in class,” Kristy said.
“Are you trying out for the team this year?” I asked.
“No. My mom really wants me to focus on my grades this year.”
“Your grades aren’t bad, though, are they?”
“They’re not great, either. And gym aside, my course load is pretty heavy. University level courses are just as fun as they sound.”
“Which is not at all, right?” I grinned.
She just laughed, “You know me so well.”
* * *
“The word on the street is that you have two very attractive guys following you around,” Evan teased as we left the music room after class.
“Jealous, Evan?” Maegan asked as we headed across the building.
“Yeah, in fact I am,” Evan laughed. I looked at him, a little surprised, but he continued, “I can’t have anyone stealing my best friend.”
Of course. I wanted to roll my eyes, but I wasn’t even that disappointed that by all definitions of the word I was officially “friend-zoned.” Usually, I was giddier around him. Maybe Shayne coming into the picture had more of an effect than I thought.
“I thought Philip was your best friend,” I replied.
“I do believe I’ve actually known you longer than I’ve known Philip,” he said. “That has to count for something.”
“I guess,” I shrugged.
“Meet you in the cafeteria?” Maegan asked, branching off from our group.
“Sure,” I replied. I looked at Evan. “Meeting up with Philip?”
“Yupp,” he said. “So let me accompany you to your locker.”
“I couldn’t think of a better person to walk a hundred or so steps with.”
“Well, shucks,” he grinned. We walked a few steps in silence before he asked, “So, who are these new guys?”
“Well, they’re new. And they’re rude. Philip can attest to that,” I said slowly.
“I feel like I know them already,” he joked as we turned down the hall that led to the gym.
“Speak of the devils, there’s one of them,” I said, nodding up ahead. Jason was at his locker alone. He looked up, spotting me immediately. He gave a small nod as he closed his locker, then waited as the two of us approached.
“Hey,” I greeted. Evan stuck close, since Philip wasn’t there yet. “Evan, this is Jason.”
“What’s up?” Evan accredited him with a nod.
“Uh, okay,” Jason looked him over, assessing him before looking at me. Somehow, I felt that was better than the introduction to Philip. “How was music?”
“How –?”
“Kristy likes to talk about you,” he said slowly. “She ever so kindly helped me out in biology today. Now I get to spend the semester between her and Maddie, who also likes to talk about you. Your favourite musical is Footloose?”
I’d forgotten that she’d had biology after math. At least the second half of her day was lighter with English and her food and nutrition course. “Well, she is my best friend. And hey, everybody’s gotta cut loose. Footloose.”
The two of them laughed at me.
“Waiting for Blake?” I changed the subject, digging out my water bottle from my bag.
“Yeah, he should be here soon. He’s driving.” The student parking lot was just out the exit by the gym and around the corner. “Ah, here he comes now.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Blake walking down the hall. He offered that same smile I’d seen this morning as he neared and my water bottle fell from my hand. He conquered the last few steps, swooping down to pick it up before I could. “Here.”
“Thanks,” I clutched it tight, feeling stupid as I twisted off the cap and took a sip.
“Long time no see.”
I recapped my bottle. “Sooner than I would have liked.”
“Dante’s waiting,” Jason reminded him.
“I’ll see you around, Evelyn,” Blake said, fishing his keys out of his pocket. Brushing off my comment like it was nothing. Which it was. I didn’t mind looking at Blake –in fact, I could look at him all day. But I think I would die before letting him know that. “But before I go. English… Mrs. Cornwall –”
“Second floor. Room 216. Third period?”
“You, too?” he asked, a small grin.
I just nodded.
“Then I’ll see you in English,” he told me.
“Bye,” I gave a small wave as they walked away.
“You’re amazing,” Evan said as the exit door closed behind them.
“What do you mean?” I finally got around to opening my locker.
“You, my friend, are too nice for your own good. If you don’t like them, then don’t treat them nicely,” he said, as if it were simple. “You give off mixed signals.”
“No. I met these guys yesterday when they came to the parlour. But I don’t know them at all. I’m nice to them for that reason. And they call themselves rude –that’s not me trying to influence their reputation.”
He laughed, “Interesting. But really, if they’re bothering you, tell me.”
“You don’t like them.”
“Well –”
“I know they’re new and, yeah, they really do come across a little rude, but I really think they’re good guys, Evan. And if not good, than at least better than Cole; I’d rather you hang out with the likes of them.”
“Cole can be a good guy,” he said.
I stopped to give him a doubtful look, “Well, good luck with that.”
“No, Evelyn,” he began as I headed down the hall. Maddie, Maegan, Kristy and Chantelle were all waiting for me. But now I was going to be poor company, because Evan knew what Cole and Marissa had been putting me through the last three years, and it was frustrating that he still stood up for him.
“You know I didn’t mean that, right?” Evan said, popping up beside me. “Sorry.”
“Don’t deny it. You meant it,” I told him. “But… it’s fine.”
“We’re cool?” he asked.
“You have to ask?” I rolled my eyes.
“Can I buy you lunch?”
The guy I had a crush on for years wanted to buy me lunch. And I wasn’t going to say yes. What was wrong with me?
“No, it’s totally fine,” I told him. Shayne, I reminded myself. Shayne. There was a chance with Shayne. A real chance with a boy –something I don’t remember having in the last seventeen years of my life. I couldn’t ruin it over “what if”s when I didn’t know what the outcome was going to be. I, personally, didn’t want to be a crazy cat lady when I was older. “No worries.”
“You sure you don’t want lunch?”
“Evan,” I forced a laugh as we stood there in the hallway, “I’m perfectly capable of buying myself lunch.”
“It’s on me. You’d be getting a free lunch,” Evan persisted. “Free, Evelyn.”
“The number of times that word has changed my answer is probably unmentionable,” I sighed, a more earnest smile coming forth. “Thanks, Evan, but maybe a rain check?”
“Sure,” he said slowly. “A rain check.”
Chapter 9: Shayne
“What are you looking for?” James asked, standing in the threshold at the top of the stairs. He had our mother’s delicate features and long lashes, making him what most may call a ‘pretty boy.’ James had cut off all his hair the day before school started; now, three weeks later, there was a thin layer of dark brown hair covering his head.
I was in the basement, looking through boxes of personal possessions my mother had sent me from our house in Europe. She said she had sent everything over, but I was missing one particular photo album.
“Nothing,” I replied. The old-fashioned part of me hated that answer, but I had recently begun to understand why it was used
so often; it was a clear sentiment of one wanting to keep to oneself.
“Liar,” he called me out on it immediately. Evidently, the other party refused to accept that dismissal.
“I’m looking for an album,” I set down one of the boxes, giving up for now. If it was not there, then there was not a thing I could do about it. I would have to call my mother and ask about it later.
“What year?” he took a curious step down the stairs, but retreated as I started to ascend.
“Eighteen forty-four,” I passed him by, heading for the kitchen.
“It’s so easy to forget you’re a hundred and seventy some odd years older than I am,” James muttered, following me at my heel.
My brother was still very much alive in comparison to me. He would not properly turn until he drank fresh blood, when the cells in his body would react. My father called it a perfection virus. It reconstructed the cells in a short period of time, hardening them, making sure their functionality was at its best. It had the potential to change the exterior of the infected, and it, in fact, was rare that it didn’t. I personally hadn’t changed, but I’m fairly certain it’s because I was born, not made a vampire. I was equally certain my brother would be the same.
But virus or not, to me, it was a curse.
“But that’s the year Evangeline died, right?”
Mr. Smith was in the kitchen, preparing dinner for James and I. While my diet was a bit unlike most, eating was not a problem. Mr. Smith was an older gentleman, his family having spent generations serving my family. His son would do the same, after he turned twenty-one. Right now he was sixteen, like James, and living with his mother and sister in the London estate that we had given them for two hundred years of service. It was well deserved. Mr. Smith always seemed to know what we wanted before we could say a word.
That being said, when I entered the room, he paused in his preparations and fetched me a bottle of blood from the fridge. He even went as far as to uncap it for me before he passed it my way.
“The newest sample,” he explained.
“Are you forgetting what she looks like?” James persisted. “I hope you find the album. I want to see her.”
“Enough about the past. You were telling me about a girl in school,” I took a sip of the blood, hating the chalky feeling it left in my mouth afterwards. Artificial crap was what it was. “Mr. Smith, we’ll have to tell Selena that this batch is no good either. It needs to be smoother. Remind me to contact her later.”
“I will,” he took the bottle away and fetched me a warmed blood pouch instead.
Selena and I, along with a few other vampire activists, were working to create an artificial drink for vampires, hoping to overthrow the entire system of taking blood from humans. My father was against it –which was, perhaps, the entire reason I pursued that course of action in the first place. He did not believe we would succeed very well. Vampires, after all, were creatures of tradition and habit. Unfortunately, that habit left more than a few humans dead year after year. It’s why I chose the blood pouch, and why as soon as it was perfected, I’d be choosing the artificial blood.
“So, James? Tell me about her.”
“She’s just caught my eye, that’s all,” his ears turned red with embarrassment.
“She’s in a grade younger than you?” I asked. He had mentioned her earlier, but had been just as vague.
“Just a year,” he spoke slowly, deliberately. Something my father instilled in him since he was a child. Speak with intention. Do not speak without thinking first. “We have one class together. Mechanics. She sits on the other side of the room from me though.”
“Mechanics?”
“She’s not very good. But she tries harder than any of the other girls in the class,” he said. “And I admire that. Like I said, she’s just… caught my eye.”
“And to think, two years ago, Master Shayne had you believing that girls had cooties,” Mr. Smith chuckled to himself. “But, if you will go and take your seats in the dining room, dinner shall be served.”
“Will you be joining us, Smith?” James asked.
“You know I can’t,” Mr. Smith replied.
“Let’s go eat, James,” I said, gesturing with my head to the adjoining room. In the twenty years that Mr. Smith has served us, he had only once eaten at the table alongside us. That one time was when James was eight, and beginning to become more aware of the people around him, but at the same time not care what boundaries were laid down. He still did not care. And I admired my brother for that. But my father had reprimanded Mr. Smith greatly –how, I do not know, but he had never sat down with us again. Not even in this house, which was, in all technicalities, mine and mine alone.
Still, James continued to ask.
“Harry was the one that told you about Evelyn, wasn’t he?” James took his seat opposite of me at the square table in the dining room.
“He saw a picture of her once, over sixty years ago. He was one of the few I entrusted to help me search for her. Somehow, I never thought the day would actually come,” I leaned back in my own chair, looking up at the ceiling. I let out a deep breath. “But I’m so glad it did.”
“So why are you searching for the old photograph?” he asked, caressing his fork with his index finger. They were selected by my mother, who had always loved the intricate designs on plates and silverware. She had helped select everything inside the house, to be quite honest. My mother had always had better taste than I, and I was not afraid to admit it.
“I just… Evelyn’s perfect, and I know I can’t expect her to be like herself, pre-reincarnation, but something feels off. Maybe because this all happened so fast –”
“I wouldn’t say that a hundred and sixty years is ‘fast,’” my brother used finger quotes around the word. “But that’s just a sixteen-year-old’s opinion.”
I sighed. “A hundred and sixty-six. But you’re right. But I wasn’t even sure if she would be reincarnated at all. It was just wishful thinking –until Harry found her. Now it feels surreal.”
“But you’re happy?” James questioned.
“Of course,” I responded.
“Then I don’t know what the problem is,” he said, looking to the door as Mr. Smith began to bring dinner into the room.
The problem was that I did not know what was wrong exactly. Maybe I needed to stop mixing the past with the present. Perhaps I was still unprepared to love anyone other than Evangeline, although Evelyn’s personality was quite endearing. Part of me, admittedly, wanted just to pick things up where we had left them off all those years ago.
I liked Evelyn. She was pretty; she was sweet; she was intellectual. She had a charisma that I was certain she was unaware of. And she smiled so easily. It was refreshing and calming. But somehow, she felt distant. Conceivably, that could be what felt off. I had to keep reminding myself that I had to make her fall in love with me all over again.
James was right, though. There was no point in dwelling on it. I was sure things would work out properly in the end.
Chapter 10: Evelyn
I hummed as I put my things away after music. The weather outside was gorgeous, and I was going to convince the girls to eat in the park. Kristy and Chantelle appeared at their lockers, and just as I went to meet up with them, Jason intervened.
“If I had to guess, The Beatles?” he asked.
“What?” I was taken aback.
“The song you’re humming. The Beatles, right? ‘Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.’”
I hadn’t really been paying attention, really, but I didn’t admit that. “Yeah, I guess. How was biology?”
“Boring. I’ve seen the material before,” he shrugged.
“Did you learn it at your old school?” I asked.
“I just like to read and gain knowledge,” he answered.
“Somehow that suits you,” I told him. “And Blake?”
“He prefers to watch the movie,” he grinned.
“And that doesn’t
surprise me,” I laughed.
“I just don’t have the patience,” Blake appeared at my shoulder, and I would have jumped if I hadn’t watched him approach in my peripheral vision. “Reading takes up too much of my time. I could be out doing other things.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” I told him.
“An avid reader?” he asked.
“Any spare chance I get,” I glanced around, realizing that Kristy and Chantelle had gone as swiftly as they’d come.
“So what am I missing in books that I can’t get through real life experiences?” Blake persisted.
“It’s a form of escapism. I long to live in worlds I can only touch through the words of authors. And unfortunately, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s something you either know the feeling of, or you don’t,” I said to Blake.
“Well, what kinds of books do you read?” he leaned casually against the lockers, as if getting ready for a long conversation.
“Anything I can get my hands on,” I told him. “But Maddie would tell you the only books she’s seen me reading lately are supernatural novels.”
“Supernatural?”
“Yeah… but speaking of Maddie, I should go find her. She’s probably waiting for me somewhere,” I glanced down the hall at the clock. She couldn’t have gotten too far, even if she was waiting. Only four minutes had passed since I’d gotten to my locker.
“So no tour?”
“If you’ve found your way to all your classes, I’m not sure you need to know too much more. You seem like a tough guy. You’ll find your way, I’m sure,” I told him. “I’ll see you in English, Blake. See you around, Jason.”
“I’m sure you will,” Jason said.
“Bye, Evelyn,” Blake said.
I turned, walking away. Their voices floated down the hall after me.
“Cafeteria?” Jason asked Blake. “I’m starving.”
“Me, too,” was the response. “Maybe…”
Their voices grew distant as I reached the stairwell, heading upstairs to Maddie’s locker. I suspected it already, but I was a little disappointed to find she wasn’t there. I didn’t see Maegan, either. I circled the floor, then headed down a floor to the cafeteria, immediately spotting Blake and Jason again.
