Hi. What are you doing? I text messaged Jack.
I vacillated between the two of them, but I felt that Jack was most likely to respond. Until this moment, they’d both always responded to my texts, but this was the longest that I’d ever gone without talking to either of them since I met them, and for Milo, that was fifteen years of talking to him pretty much every day. So this was a big deal.
Not much. What about you? Jack responded. It took him three minutes to answer, which was an unusually long time for him, especially since I knew he was awake. It was after ten o’clock at night. Even he never slept in this late.
Even less. I haven’t done anything in three days. I was trying to lay on the guilt, but I wasn’t sure if it would work.
You haven’t talked to Jane? Jack was suggesting that I hang out with Jane. Wow. Things were worse than I thought. After Peter, Jane was pretty much Jack’s least favorite person in the whole world. And he was encouraging me to hang out with her? Wow.
Not so much. But I guess I could. Great idea. I really, really hoped he called my bluff.
At this very moment, Jane was probably somewhere getting drunk or giving oral sex or something. So tracking her down to partake in that didn’t really sound like that much fun. If it were earlier, we might be able to do something more reasonable, like shop or drink coffee. But with only two weeks until school, I knew that for her, every night would be a blur of alcohol and debauchery.
I’m just pretty busy lately. Sorry. Jack replied.
Oh my god! He’s not calling my bluff. He’s really too busy for me. Okay. Great. My life as I know it is over. Fantastic.
No. I totally get it. It’s great. I’ll just do something else. That’s what I said, but I knew that I was going to spend the night in bed crying myself to sleep. Once I got motivated enough, I’d put on Tori Amos, because that felt like a good thing to listen to while I contemplated suicide.
No. Wait. Are you ready? Jack text messaged back, but it was too little too late.
Never mind. I’m good. I didn’t want a pity hang out. Even I had pride. I think.
Just be ready and outside in like fifteen minutes, okay?
I didn’t reply to that. With tears standing in my eyes, I couldn’t even decide if I wanted to get ready and go outside to meet him. I really didn’t want a pity hang out, even if I really did miss him.
It was stupid how much I missed him. I didn’t want to want to want him so much. But without him, I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself.
Almost grudgingly, I got up and pulled on a pair of jeans. I was wearing a white tank top, and I decided that was good enough. Pulling my hair back in a ponytail, I glanced at myself in the mirror. My face was horribly pale and washed out, so I quickly applied some eyeliner and mascara, and then ducked out the door, unsure if I was making the right decision or not.
When the black Jetta pulled up, I got my answer. It was absolutely the wrong decision.
Mae had come to pick me up. There was nothing wrong with her and I generally enjoyed hanging out with her, but it was a little devastating to see her pulling up. In the past ten minutes, I had gone from thinking Jack hated me to knowing it to thinking there might still be hope and then knowing it again.
I considered turning around and going back inside. What exactly would I achieve by hanging out with her? I’d just feel totally stupid and pathetic all night long, and I was just prolonging the inevitable. When a guy sends his sister to hang out with you instead of him, I think that’s the beginning of the end right there.
“Hello, love,” Mae said sheepishly when she had rolled down the car window. She leaned across the passenger seat towards me, looking guilty, and I knew that she thought the same thing as I did. Things were not good when Jack sent her in his place. “Sorry, Alice. I know it’s not quite what you hoped for, but Jack thought you needed to get out of the house.”
“You know what? I’m actually fine.” I nodded seriously and tears were stinging my eyes. “He’s um… he’s mistaken. I’m sure you have better things to do then baby-sit me, so I can just go back in.”
“Nonsense! You know how much I love spending time with you! So come on. Get in the car!” Her voice was light, but she was not asking questions.
“You really don’t have to do this,” I swallowed hard.
“I know.” She nodded towards the empty seat, so I sighed and finally relented. It still felt like a horrible idea, but I got in the car anyway. “It’ll be fun. You’ll see.”
“I bet,” I muttered, leaning my head back on the seat as she pulled away. “You know, the last time somebody came in place of Jack was when Peter picked me up to tell me that I wasn’t allowed to see any of you anymore. And we all know how well that turned out.”
“This isn’t like that,” Mae insisted, shaking her head. “Jack really wanted to see you. He just can’t right now.”
“What is he doing? Teaching Milo how to turn into a bat?” I asked, mockingly, and Mae scowled.
“There’s a lot that goes into turning, you know,” she told me seriously. “Plus, he’s been helping Ezra with the business. He was supposed to fly out to Tokyo yesterday, but…” She shook her head, tightening her lips grimly.
“But what?” I sat up straighter, interested in find out what her so strained.
“There just has to be something different in your blood,” Mae exhaled, exasperated. She was talking more to herself than me, which made it harder for me to follow. “There’s no other explanation for it. I don’t understand it. But there just has to be something that makes you all so eager to bond. Who was your father?”
“My father?” I wrinkled my nose. “What does he have to do with anything?”
“I’m trying to understand your ancestry, because there’s something so unique about you both. I’m wondering if we’ve been looking at this all wrong. Maybe you weren’t meant for him. Maybe you weren’t meant for anybody. Maybe you were just meant to be a vampire.” Mae chewed her lip, looking sad and faraway.
“Maybe we’re just a means to an end for you.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “An end to what?”
“It’s just that you both bond so easily. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever encountered,” Mae explained wearily.
“Milo’s just super possessive of Jack, right?” I leaned back in the seat and realized that I better just hurry up and resign myself to life of mortal celibacy. “Jack kind of told me the other day.”
“It’s already lessening,” Mae added hopefully. “These things just take time.”
“Why is that the answer to everything?” I scoffed. “All I ever get from you guys that everything takes time and everything’s complicated.”
“What else am I supposed to say?” Mae asked pointedly. “This is all very simple but you’re just too slow to get it? That this will never get better, no matter how much time we have? If that’s what you want to hear, I’ll be happy to tell you that. This is it, Alice. This is as good as anything is going to get, so don’t get your hopes up for anything else. You might as well just give up now.”
“If that’s the truth, then yeah, that’s what you should say!” When she said it, it sounded far more melodramatic than when I thought it, but it didn’t feel entirely false.
“Of course that’s not the truth!” Mae rolled her eyes. “Alice, the only constant in life is that everything is always changing. And that’s a little scary, but it means that things can’t be bad or hard forever.”
“And they can’t be good or easy forever either,” I countered.
“Exactly! Because if they were, we’d never know to appreciate the moments when they were good!”
Mae turned to me, smiling warmly at me. “You’ve just got to trust me on this one. I don’t know how yet, but things will end up the way they’re supposed to be.”
“Thanks for the blanket answer.”
“Look, let’s just forget about all of this,” Mae suggested cheerfully. “Let’s just go have a girls night!
Just the two of us.”
“We’re not going to your house?” I asked, and I felt an awful pang inside of me. I was hoping to at least catch a glimpse of Jack but that wouldn’t be possible. I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t see him.
Despite their repeated claims that I wasn’t being banished, I really was.