“So you’re out all night having sex with a boy that’s way, way too old for you, and I’m just supposed to turn a blind eye to that and let you skip school so you can stay out all night having sex with him again tonight?” As she spoke, her words kept getting louder and louder until she was shouting by the end of the sentence.
“Yeah,” I replied blankly.
There would be no way I could soothe her anger, so I didn’t even bother trying. Milo looked at me questioningly, although I’m not sure if he was questioning my suicidal tendencies or if I’d actually had sex with Jack. Knowing him, it was probably both.
“Alice!” Mom suddenly got to her feet, pointing her finger accusingly at me. “Go get changed and get ready for school!”
“No!” I protested. “I’m tired! I’m going to bed!”
“Alice, I really think you should listen to her,” Milo whispered plaintively.
“I’m tired, too, but I had to wait up for you! And if you think that you can go gallivanting around just because you finally found a boyfriend, then you are sorely mistaken! When you’re under my roof, you abide by my rules!” Her eyes were so angry they were bulging from her skull, but after what I’d seen in the past few days, she no longer seemed all that scary.
“Fine. Then I just won’t live under your roof,” I shrugged.
It was only a matter of time until I moved in with Jack’s family or died, so I didn’t really need to keep this address anyway. I was hardly ever home anymore. It would make more sense for me to live away from here. I hadn’t actually consulted Jack or Mae about this, so I wasn’t really sure how the idea would go over, but I plowed ahead with it anyway.
“Alice!” Milo hissed.
“You are still under eighteen, missy!” Mom didn’t even miss a beat. “You are not going anywhere, and if you even think about, I’ll have your little boyfriend turned in for statutory rape.”
“It won’t stick.” We hadn’t had sex, and I knew Jack could woo anyone into dropping charges. But if she was going to threaten him, then I definitely had no intention of staying. “Why do you even want me here? I’m gone all the time, and I just cost you money. I mean, you only saw me for like five minutes all of last week. What exactly do you want me around for?”
“You’ve got it all figured out then, do you?” Mom shrugged at me. “You got a boyfriend with a little bit of money? He’s gonna take care of you now? Is that what you think? Yeah, well maybe you’ve forgotten, but I had a boyfriend like that once. You know what I got? Two ungrateful kids and not a damn cent from him! So don’t try and tell me things you know nothing about!”
“I’m not trying to tell you anything! I’m just saying that I’m a burden to you! You don’t want me here, I don’t wanna be here, so why am I here?” I asked her emphatically.
She looked a little hurt at that, but nothing I had said wasn’t true. We barely saw each other, and she didn’t know anything about me. The only one that would be hurt was Milo, but she never saw him anyway, and I’d still see him.
“Go. Go ahead,” Mom said evenly. I started walking towards my room, and she held up her hand. “Don’t even think about! That room is full of my stuff. You never paid for a damn thing in your life. So when you leave, you take what you got on your back, and that’s all.”
“Fine, whatever.” I tried to act like it didn’t bother me that I’d be leaving all my personal belongings behind. Like CD’s, diaries, underwear, and everything I had ever owned. But I had made up my mind, and that was it. “I’ll see you… maybe never.” Then I turned and waltzed out of the apartment.
“Alice!” Milo burst out of the apartment after me before the elevator even came. He was dragging his half unzipped backpack and raced towards me.
“Why did you do that?!”
“It just seemed really pointless to stay there any longer.” I tried not to look over at him, so I wouldn’t have to see the pained expression his face.
Leaving home meant that I was leaving him, too.
“You’re really gonna go live with Jack?” He sounded simultaneously surprised and resigned by the idea.
“I don’t see what choice I have.” The elevator doors opened and there were several passengers on it, which I was kind of grateful for. Milo would be less likely to press me for things then, so it’d be easier for me leave things out.
“You definitely have a choice!” Milo insisted incredulously, ignoring the crowd in the elevator. “I know Jack and his family are super amazing, but you haven’t really known him that long. I mean, they’re almost too good to be true.
There’s got to be a dark secret hidden there.”
“You just might be right.”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling, and I realized with the surprise that it didn’t hurt. Running my tongue along my bottom lip, I searched for any bump or scratch from when I had bit it earlier, but there was none. Jack’s saliva really must’ve healed it.
“Come on, Alice,” Milo pleaded when the doors opened. “Be reasonable.”
“When have you ever known me to be reasonable?” I shot him a look while stepping out of the elevator, and he just rolled his eyes.
We stepped outside into the cold, and I wrapped my sweater more tightly around me. All I had on me were the clothes on my back and my cell phone in my pocket, and there was a very good chance that my only rides anywhere were a pair of vampires that had just gone to bed.
“So what?” Milo was walking to the bus stop, and since I had nothing better to do, I walked with him. “This is it? This is like the last time I’ll see you?”
“No, of course not!”
“Be serious.” He had pulled his bag onto into his back, and he readjusted the straps. “You’re going to move in with him and have all these fabulous adventures and completely forget about me.”
“You’re my brother, Milo. I can never forget about you.” And I wouldn’t, but I had a sinking suspicion that he probably wasn’t that far from the truth.
Jack and Peter had a way of consuming my thoughts, and Milo had a way of waiting patiently at home for me. “Look, I’m not saying things won’t be different or that I won’t see you less. But that doesn’t mean things will be bad.”
“Maybe you can just stay there for a night or something,” Milo suggested hopefully. “Give Mom a chance to cool down, and then you can come home. But she’s not completely off base, Alice. You have school and you stayed out until seven in the morning. I don’t care what you were or weren’t doing with Jack -
well, okay, I do, and you’ll totally have to tell me later. But it doesn’t matter.
You’re still in high school. You should be coming home before the sun comes up and getting an education. What happened to Mom could just as easily happen to you if you don’t have a career to fall back on.”
“I am way too tired for you to lecture me about school, okay?” I groaned.
“Just think about it, alright?” The bus was coming towards us, and he looked apprehensively at it. I didn’t want the bus driver to try and make me get on or something, so I started backing away from him. “And turn your phone on!
If you don’t come home tonight, maybe you could at least stop and get some of your things while Mom’s at work. Okay?”
“Okay!” I waved at him, then turned and walked down the block, away from my apartment, away from my brother, away from my life.
For a long time, I just walked around the tree lined streets. They were still completely bare, but I knew that soon they would have little green buds on them. Spring was edging ever closer, with warm temperatures and longer days.
The nights would get shorter, too, and I wondered how Jack contended with that.
I was definitely cold and tired, but I was way too wired up from everything that had happened. My lips still tingled from kissing him, and I wondered dully if I’d ever be able to kiss him again.
Moving out of my mother’s had been rash, I’ll admit it, and she was definitely justified in her anger. I just didn’t have the strength to deal with stuff that so obviously didn’t matter anymore. Maybe I would’ve reacted a little better if I hadn’t had the reminder of Jack’s nearly-forgotten words ringing in my mind. When I asked what it was like to bite a vampire, he’d responded with, “You’ll understand when you’re a vampire.”
It would only be natural that I eventually segued into vampirism. Even if I didn’t move in with them today, I would some day. They were welcoming me into their folds for a reason, and as Jack had so ominously pointed out before I understood what they were, they wanted me to be one of them. It was really only a matter of time, and I kind of wanted to get the ball rolling in the right direction.
I sat down on a bench and pulled my knees up to my chest. The sun was spilling over the buildings, warming my frightfully cold skin, and I wondered how much longer I’d be able to enjoy the sun like this. Being with them would mean missing out on a lot of things, but it didn’t really feel like it. There would be so much more I’d be getting in return.
Pulling out my phone, I hoped that Jack would still be awake. My exhaustion and temperature were starting to wear me down.