My Blood Approves (26 page)

“
But that was a very long
time ago,” I said softly.

“
I don’t want to hurt
you.”

“
You won’t,” I promised
him.

All of his resistance shattered, and his
vulnerability made him look impossibly young. He stared at me for a
minute, and unexpectedly, he kissed me.

His mouth pressed forcefully to mine, and
his hand knotted in my hair. My body exploded with pleasure. I
loved the insistent way he held me to him.

Just as abruptly as he started kissing me,
he stopped. Peter moaned and jumped away from me. Before I could
say anything, he left the room.

Every part of me wanted to follow him, but I
just lay back on the hard wood floor and stared up at the ceiling.
Even as my head reeled from the ecstasy of his kiss, I didn’t want
to feel this way about him. Peter would just keep hurting me and
pushing me away until there was nothing left.

Something in me had been chosen for him, but
I started to wonder if it had been a mistake.

Mae came in a few minutes later to tell me
supper was ready, looking distressed but not surprised that I was
alone. She had made some kind of pasta that I recognized as Milo’s
recipe, but hers didn’t do it justice.

After I ate, Mae cleaned up the kitchen, and
I helped her as much as she would allow. Every now and again, I’d
hear Peter upstairs, and I’d feel a sharp pain in my side. The fact
that he was so close but refused to be with me was devastating.

In the living room, Mae put on the Beatles,
claiming that they could heal any mood, and sat on the couch. I sat
on the floor in front of her and let her play with my hair.
Theoretically, it was meant to comfort me, but like the meal she
had just made, it was done more as a way to get her mothering
out.

When Ezra appeared in the living room
sometime later, I was relieved. He kissed Mae warmly, and I found
my chance to escape.

I slipped out from her and went to find
Jack. He had crouched down on the dining room floor to rub
Matilda’s belly, and I stood in front of him, wrapping my arms
around myself.

“
Did you have a nice
drive?” I asked Jack.

He looked up at me, then glanced over at Mae
and Ezra, who were busy in their world, murmuring things to one
another. At that moment, I hated them for being so easily in
love.

“
Yeah. Did you have a nice
time with Peter?” Jack raised an eyebrow at me, trying to seem
playful, but I saw the hurt behind it. More than that, I felt it,
like a burning regret in the back of my throat.

“
I’ve had better,” I
said.

His smile came more naturally after that,
and I felt some of the tension ease up between us. Giving Matilda
one last pat, he stood up and looked down at me.

“
Do you want to give me a
ride home?” I asked.

“
I do…” Jack trailed off,
and nodded up at the ceiling, towards Peter’s room, and then he
shook his head. “I don’t think I should. At least not right
now.”

“
Are you like banned from
ever picking me up again?” I had never thought that I would really
miss his speedy trips around the city, especially after he almost
killed me last time, but it saddened me to think that it might
never happen again.

“
No,” Jack scoffed, as if
anybody could ever ban him from anything. “I just think it’d be
better if I didn’t for awhile. He needs to figure out what he’s
doing, and so do you.”

“
I didn’t think I really
had a choice in the matter,” I admitted honestly.

My understanding of things was that I was
completely at the whim of Peter and Jack. I would be whatever they
would let me be as long as it was in their lives.

“
Everyone has free will.”
He leaned in a little closer to me, looking at me earnestly. “Even
you.”

“
You really think
so?”

“
I have to.” His hopeful
smile faltered, and he turned to Ezra. “Alice is ready to go
home.”

“
Sure.” Ezra jumped up from
the couch, smiling at me. “Sometimes I forget that you don’t live
here.”

Putting his hand on the small of my back,
Ezra ushered me away from him. Looking back over my shoulder at
Jack, I wished that things could just go back to the way they were.
I wished I didn’t know about vampires or Peter or that my blood had
ever been meant for anybody.

- 17 -

On the bus on the way to school, I decided to
broach the subject. The ride had a finite amount of time, followed
by a full day of school to keep his thoughts from settling too
long.

Milo had his textbook open on his lap, doing
some last minute cramming for a test. I wanted to make everything
seem normal, so I had in my ear buds and the iPod played the Yeah
Yeah Yeahs, but it was quiet enough where I could talk.

“
Hey, Milo?” I tried to
keep my voice as casual as possible.

“
Huh?” Milo grunted, his
attention unwavering from the textbook.

“
What do you think of…
vampires?” I hesitated before the word, as if by saying it aloud to
someone other than them, it would make it real.

“
I don’t,” Milo answered
flatly.

He didn’t express the vaguest interest in
this conversation, but I pressed on anyway. I hated not telling him
things, and it was nearly impossible for me to carry around a
secret this life changing.

“
You don’t think maybe
they’re real?” I pulled at the straps of my backpack and bit my
lip, waiting for his response.

“
No.” He looked at me like
I was a total idiot, which is what I kinda expected. “Do you think
werewolves are real?”

“
There’s no such thing as
werewolves,” I replied.

“
Yeah, and there’s no such
thing as vampires.” Milo shook his head and went back to
studying.

“
But you don’t think that,
like, there’s even the possibility that they might exist?” I asked.
He lifted his head, looking confused about why I would be talking
about nonsense.

“
Creatures that live on
only blood and never age?” He shook his head again. “That’s not
even biologically possible. And then they sleep in coffins? That
just seems unnecessary.”

“
Well, maybe they don’t
sleep in coffins,” I suggested, picking at a chipped piece of nail
polish on my finger.

“
That doesn’t make it any
more plausible.” He looked over at me with narrowed eyes. “Okay.
What’s this about? Did you stay up late watching The Lost Boys
again?”

“
No.” I ran a hand through
my hair, trying to think of how I could explain this away. “I just
had a bad dream last night. That’s all.”

“
You know, maybe if you
didn’t stay out all hours of the night running around with Jack,
you would be able to sleep like a normal person without any
ridiculous dreams.”

“
Right.” I decided that
maybe hinting would be my best bet. “All hours of the
night.”

“
Yeah, that’s what I said,”
Milo went back to looking at his book, growing
irritated.

“
Yep. I had vampire dreams
cause I was out all night with a really attractive guy!” I tried
emphasizing everything so he would get the point, and when he
lifted his head again, I thought I’d finally gotten through to
him.

“
Wait. I thought you said
you didn’t think Jack was attractive?” Milo asked, and I
sighed.

“
Just forget it.” I shook
my head.

He started to ask me about Mae’s cooking
last night, but I turned up my iPod. I guess I didn’t really feel
like talking about vampires.

Over lunch, Jane made a point of telling me
that I looked like hell and I hadn’t been acting like myself. She
brought up Jack for the first time in days, but I didn’t feel like
talking about him, so I said that I wasn’t feeling well and went to
the bathroom.

When I looked at my reflection in the
mirror, it didn’t really seem to look like me. My skin was pale
with dark circles under my eyes, and I had visibly lost weight.

Since I spent most nights over to Jack’s and
they never ate, it never really occurred to me to eat. Maybe it
would if I didn’t spend so much of the time with my stomach twisted
in knots.

I didn’t know how much longer I could go on
this way. My normal human life felt like a total sham, and the
vampire parts that had once felt fun and exciting were growing
painful.

Everyone had been so nice to me and they all
claimed that they cared about me, but why were they hurting me so
much?

Again, I was reminded of the story of the
ugly girl in the beautiful people village. Only this time, I
related much more to how dried up and used she must’ve felt by the
time they were done loving her.

After school, Milo proceeded to launch into
a speech about how I’m never home anymore and how Mom’s even
starting to notice. At least he seemed to have forgotten entirely
about the vampire conversation on the bus, which made me feel a
little better.

I didn’t think that anybody would really
care if I told Milo. I just figured that he’d probably have me
locked away in a psych ward, and I’d never be able to see them
again.

Good news. Peter and Ezra
are on a business trip.
Jack text messaged
me, and Milo rolled his eyes.

“
You know I really like
Jack, but have you considered what this is doing to your school
work?” Milo asked.

He sat at the kitchen table, working on some
piece of homework, but I lay sprawled out on the couch half-asleep.
My lack of nightly sleep was starting to result in afternoon
naps.

“
Nope!” I said.

Schoolwork didn’t really seem to matter
anymore. It was starting to look like I’d probably marry into
money, or maybe I’d just die. Either way, education didn’t seem
that important.

Why is that good
news?
I messaged him back. Knowing that I
wouldn’t see Peter hurt, but it was also a relief. I could only
tolerate so many rebuffs.

We can hang out and I can take the
Lamborghini. Are you game?

Definitely! I’ll meet you
outside! Hurry!
I responded and jumped up
from the couch.

Milo started in with a lecture about school
and sleep, but I didn’t even pretend to listen. After the stress of
the past weekend, I could really just go for a night of silly Jack
fun.

I burst outside just as the red car pulled
up in front. Throwing open the car door, I leapt inside and smiled
broadly at him. Jack laughed at my exuberance, and my heart swelled
at the sound of it.

“
You’re in a good mood
today,” Jack grinned. We didn’t drive right away, and he just sat
there for a minute looking at me. “What do you wanna
do?”

“
I don’t care! Just as long
as we get there fast!” I said, and his eyes glimmered.

“
You don’t have to tell me
twice.” He threw the car into gear and we sped off so quickly, I
pressed back against the seat.

Even though we’d just been in a car wreck, I
still felt safe with him. After all, he had saved me from the
crash, even if he had also been the cause of it.

“
This weekend felt so
long,” I said drearily.

“
Tell me about it.” Jack
was just as tired and frustrated as I was, and that was easy to
forget.

Generally, I considered him to be a culprit
in all of this, but he was just as much a pawn as I was. We were
trapped in an unyielding battle with biology.

“
I just want everything to
go back to normal.” I had expected him to agree with me, but he
just laughed.

“
I’m assuming you mean
normal in that you were running around with your new vampire best
friend,” he smiled. “Yeah. Cause that’s the baseline for
normal.”

“
Well, it feels more normal
than all this business about my blood being meant for Peter,” I
muttered. “How is any part of me meant for anything? Who decided
that?”

“
I wish I knew.” His
expression slacked for a second, but then he shook his head. “Look,
let’s just not think about any of that. You look exhausted. Why
don’t we just do something nice and relaxing this
evening?”

“
Like what?” I turned to
face him and leaned my head against the seat

“
How about we just go back
to my house and watch a movie? I have like a million. I’m sure
there’s a couple in there you’d be up to watching.”

“
That sounds fantastic,” I
admitted. The thought of spending the evening just curled up
somewhere with Jack sounded positively wonderful. “How long are
Ezra and Peter gone for?”

“
I don’t know,” Jack
shrugged. “Probably a week, I guess. Why?”

“
What do they do? For
business, I mean. How did they make all your money?” I had spent so
much time talking about the preternatural that I never really had a
chance to ask about the practical things, like how they supported
themselves.

“
Ezra’s been working for,
you know, hundreds of years doing various things, so he managed to
build up quite the nest egg before I was even born. Right now,
they’re doing a lot of stocks and trading, and I just never
bothered to follow.

“
They own a couple
companies overseas,” Jack explained. “Everything they do gets
shifted and moved around all the time. They can’t stay with the
same people for too long, or people’ll catch on that they haven’t
aged.”