Jack had never let himself believe that Peter loved me because he loved Peter. He respected him and never wanted to do anything that would go against him. Then I came into the picture, and the only way Jack could reconcile his own feelings for me was by assuming that Peter could never feel the same way. Peter could never love me like Jack did, and it was all just some kind of glitch with our blood. All this time, Jack had truly believed that he was the one that was meant to be with me, not Peter, and that had made all his actions and behavior okay. But if that weren’t the case. If Peter loved me as much as he did, if not more, then Jack suddenly became the villain in his story instead of the hero. He had stolen me from his brother.
“Jack, you know how much I love you.” I reached out for his hand, and he pulled it away from me.
He exhaled shakily, so I reached out for his hand again, and this time he let me take it. He wouldn’t look at me, so I moved so I was standing in front of him and looked up at him. “I really do love you, and this is the right choice. You are the only one I want, okay? And we didn’t do anything wrong, not really. I mean… I don’t know. What else were we supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” Jack admitted quietly. He was still looking down so his eyes wouldn’t meet mine, and I gently touched his cheek.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you like this. I just…” I trailed off. He was so sad and heartbroken and guilty. I hated to see him this way. “I just wanted you to go easier on Peter. You two should be able to get along.”
“No, you’re right.” Jack exhaled shakily and tried to force a smile at me, but it barely even counted as a smile, so he let it go. “I will try. And I’m sorry that you felt like you couldn’t tell me that or that you had to protect me. I should be the one protecting you.”
“Stop. You haven’t done anything wrong,” I assured him, but he didn’t believe me at all. Not anymore. I wanted to stay with him all day, but the sun was really starting to get to me. It was this heavy sort of weakness that just barreled down on me like a wet blanket. “Why don’t you come inside with me?”
“No, I wanna stay out here just a little bit longer. The fresh air does me good, and Matilda’s still having fun,” Jack said. Matilda had actually sprawled out on the patio, basking in the sun for warmth, but I didn’t argue with him about it.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked and I wished he would just look at me.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jack nodded, but he was lying.
“I love you,” I whispered, hoping that would cheer him up somehow.
“I know, and I love you, too.” Without looking at me, he gave me a quick kiss on the forehead, and then stepped away from me. He had never kissed me so brusquely in all the time I had known him, and that was definitely not a good sign. “Mattie, come on! Where’s your ball?” Matilda jumped up to start searching for her slobbery tennis ball, and Jack walked over to her to help her find it.
I glared up at the sun before going back in the house. If it wasn’t for the god forsaken light,I would’ve gladly stayed out there with Jack and tried to sort all this out. But the sun was so draining, I felt like I might collapse as I walked back into the house. Instantly, the dark sanctuary of the kitchen brought relief, and I sighed. I had no idea if I had done the right thing, but I tended to believe that anything that made Jack that upset was probably bad.
I spent more of the afternoon pretending to sleep than actually sleeping. To fill the time, I texted Jane and tossed and turned a lot. I kept listening for Jack to come in the house, but there was nothing but silence.
Bobby got up to get a bite to eat, but everyone else was sound asleep. Except for Jack, who I had no idea where he was. Finally, I gave up on getting anymore rest and got out of bed. I texted him to ask where he was, but he didn’t answer. I was starting to think I was like a pariah that way nobody ever answered my calls or texts.
When Bobby walked by on his way to his room, he smelled overly delicious. My bedroom door was shut, and the scent of his hot blood wafted intensely in. It had been a few days since I ate, and vampires could go much, much longer that, but I had to get my hunger in control if I ever planned on being with Jack. So as hungry as Bobby made me, I swallowed at back and decided to clear my head with a nice long shower. I had just started gathering my clothes when I felt the warmth in my chest, meaning Jack was nearby, and a moment later I heard him bounding up the stairs.
“Hey.” Jack poked his head in, still hanging onto the bedroom door. “Are you up?”
“Yeah, I was just about to take a shower,” I held up my clothes for him to see. “Unless you wanted something?” I was tempted to ask him if he wanted to join me, but I could still smell Bobby next door, and it was making me a little crazy.
“No, go ahead and shower. But do you wanna watch a movie after?” Jack asked, and I thought that was incredibly odd. He seemed to be doing okay, not as feeling all that sad or guilty, although his heart was beating like it was nervous.
“Yeah, sure,” I shrugged. “Have you slept yet?” It was after six, and as far as I knew, he hadn’t gotten any sleep since he got back, and I’m not sure how much he got on the plane. He looked a little tired, but nothing extraordinary.
“Nah, I’m okay,” he shook his head. “I’ll talk to you after your shower then.”
“Uh, yeah, okay?”
With that, Jack left, shutting the bedroom door behind him. I stood there, holding my clothes in my arms, trying to figure out what was up his sleeve, and then I heard him knocking on the door across the hall.
He was getting more nervous, which made me nervous, so I decided to wait to see how this turned out before I hopped in the shower.
“Yeah?” Peter answered his bedroom door sounding crabby, but that was Peter.
“I went to the video store and I, uh, rented Brideshead Revisted. I know you really like it, and I thought you might want to watch it with us. Me and Alice, I mean,” Jack stammered.
“Um… sure.” Peter sounded taken back, and honestly, so was I.
“Alice’s taking a shower, so it’ll be a little bit,” Jack said, feeling more relieved now that Peter said yes.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” There was kind of an awkward silence, and then Jack must’ve finally excused himself because Peter shut his door, and then I heard Jack running back down the stairs.
In the shower, I have tendency to sing very loudly (today it was the theme to Golden Girls), but even over the sound of my voice and the water running, I could still hear Mae screaming. This would later prove to be a godsend, when Peter explained to me that Brideshead Revisited is an eleven-hour long period piece that originally aired on the BBC in the 1980’s. At the time, however, Mae’s desperate pleas were enough to scare the hell out of me.
Somewhere, I knew that we had bathrobes, but Jack and I were in charge of keeping in our bathroom clean, so it was a total disarray. Maybe buried underneath piles of damp towels, there might be a robe, but I didn’t want to dig around for one. Once I got out of the shower, I could hear well enough to ascertain that Mae wasn’t in immediate danger, and Ezra was trying to calm her and reason with her. Still, something was the matter and I didn’t like it. Hastily, I threw on a pair of my sweats and one of Jack’s oversized tee shirts, and hurried out the door.
“I wouldn’t go down there if I were you.” That was Bobby’s word of advice. He was standing just outside of Milo’s door with a hoodie wrapped tightly around him. “It doesn’t sound pretty.”
“You aren’t bloody listening to me, Ezra! You never listen to me!” Mae shouted, sounding exasperated and angry.
“What’s going on?” I asked quietly, hoping to gain some insight on the situation before diving into it.
“I don’t really know. Milo and Jack left on a blood run about fifteen minutes ago, and then they just started fighting a few minutes after that,” Bobby shrugged. A blood run meant that we were getting low on bag blood at the house, and they had gone to get some from a blood bank. My stomach grumbled at just the thought of blood, but Mae was yelling so much, I easily ignored it.
“Don’t tell me to calm down! I am not going to calm down!” Mae continued after Ezra mistakenly suggested she relax a bit. “I don’t need to be reasonable! This isn’t something that we should be reasonable about! This is life and death, Ezra!”
“I know that, Mae! That’s exactly why we need to think about this!” Ezra raised his voice, but there was nothing angry about it. He was just trying to be heard over her. “But everyone else in the house doesn’t need to hear us yelling about this.”
“I don’t care how who hears anything!” Mae retorted, followed quickly the sound of something glass smashing, like a vase or a glass. Matilda barked in response and Mae snapped at her to shut up.
“See?” Bobby whispered meekly, but the things that made him cower were exactly the reasons I felt like I had to intervene. Peter was still in his room, trying to sleep from the slow sound of his heart beat, so that left me as the only one here that could help out.
I walked carefully down the stairs, not entirely sure what I might walk into. Matilda stood at the edge of the living room, looking as worried as a dog can look. Mae was standing to one side of the living room, and she was even worse than she was yesterday. Her hair was a frizzy mess, and her skin was blotchy from yelling and crying so much. She hadn’t changed her pajamas in days, and I’m not sure the last time she had eaten, but she looked even paler than normal. On the floor front of her, glass was shattered all over floor. There had been a heavy glass statue of a swan on the mantle, and she would’ve had to thrown it very hard to make it shatter like that. Luckily, nobody was hurt by the flying chunks of thick glass.
“You’ve woken Alice,” Ezra told Mae, almost tiredly. He was standing on the far side of the room across from her, wearing silk pajama pants and a tee shirt. Apparently, they had started fighting immediately after waking up. It was still fairly early, so they had actually probably just woken up.
“No, I was awake. I just got of the shower.” I tugged at my hair to demonstrate. It was dripping wet down my back since I hadn’t had a chance to dry it after lunging out of the shower to see what all the fuss was about.
“I don’t care if I wake her! I don’t care if I wake anybody!” Mae shrieked, raising her head to the ceiling so she could wake anybody else that might be sleeping. I had never seen Mae have any kind of disregard for anybody before, and I couldn’t imagine what we had all done to upset her so much.
“Will you knock it off? This isn’t about them. This isn’t their fault,” Ezra told her firmly.
“How is not about them?” Mae looked completely appalled and pointed at me, but she refused to look at me. I was starting to think that maybe Bobby had been right, and I should’ve stayed hidden upstairs. “This is completely about them! They’re why you won’t do this!”
“No, that’s not true. They have no bearing on this,” Ezra shook his head.
“Bloody hell they don’t! They have everything to do with it! You wouldn’t even turn Alice because her brother had just turned, and I know you wanted her to turn!” Mae gave him a knowing look that I didn’t understand, and he shook his head. “Don’t be so damn condescending with me, Ezra! I know you! And I know that you turned her brother for her! So why won’t you do this for me?”
“This is entirely different situation, and I won’t do this. I won’t let you do it. Absolutely not.” He was quiet, but his voice was so firm and finite. I would never be brave enough to challenge Ezra when he spoke like that.