The Young and Gifted

82. basic

Landon sat beside Stephanie, watching her lips move. But no sound was coming out because at some point, he had tuned her out. They were sitting out on the bench in the sun, the west side of the school and he was zoning in and out of the conversation, nodding when it need be. But as she spoke, he couldn't help but see another girl sit in front of him. Brown. She was smiling radiately, staring at him with fondness, tenderness and love.

Ever since Hope had returned, things hadn't been the same with Stephanie. There wasn't the usual spark he used to get in his stomach when he looked at her, his hands didn't ache to hug her and his lips didn't miss the comfort of hers. Landon was afraid to recognize what it meant.

*

Hope sat alone at the cafeteria, pushing around the food in her tray. She didn't glance up when the seat beside her jerked but she narrowed her eyes when Sebastian emerged. "Evening."

"I don't want to know why you're here," she stated and sighed. 

"Don't be doom and gloom. Loverboy won't stick with the basic for long," Sebastian chuckled. "In the meantime we can both..." he lowered his voice. "Have our fun."

Hope chuckled, rolling her eyes. "Do I look like I'm in the mood to be rolling in the sheets, Sebastian? Please just let me figure this out by myself."

Sebastian sighed and stood up again. "Your loss."

*

The moment MG stepped back on campus, he already knew what he had to do. He asked around, greeted a couple of students before he found the werewolf in the gym.

Raf turned to him, all sweaty and exhausted before declaring, "MG."

"Hey, man," he offered a small smile.

Raf took a deep breath. "Look, I just want to say that I'm sorry—"

"I forgive you."

"What?"

"I've had a lot of time to think about the situation and I understand where you came from. I don't think I realized that when Lizzie said no to me, it didn't mean convince her. I sort of set myself up. I should've dropped it when she rejected me the first time," he admitted. "And because I didn't, a lot of people got hurt. Including you. So I forgive you. Don't beat yourself up, I was just trying to figure things out for myself. After talking with Davina for all of that time, I saw things I couldn't see before. So I'm sorry to you and Lizzie for all the pain I caused."

Raf approached his friend, closing him in a friendly hug. "I really appreciate that, MG. I'm glad that we can put this drama behind us."

MG did his work apologizing, writing letters to those who were among the 34 killed, making sure he remembered their names. He apologized to the school for scaring them and even went to Kaleb.

"Dude, the way I missed you," Kaleb confessed, hugging his best friend to his chest lightly. "I realized that this school is intolerable without you."

MG chuckled and he pulled back, clapping their hands together. "Thanks, bro. I missed you too."

"How was it?"

MG explained all the hours of consuming a bag of animal blood and how Davina would always try to encourage him to stop. Day 136, he had finally done it.

The vampire was on his way to meet Hope, to welcome her back after his memory surfaced when another vampire stepped into his path. "Hey, MG," Jade grinned. "I heard you were back and you didn't even bother to visit me?"

He swallowed and said, " I'm kind of busy, Jade. Can we do this later? "

"They told us that they were fixing you," she scoffed and pulled out a camera. "But this..." she smiled as MG watched himself in the clip murderously ripping into people. "There is nothing to fix. Please don't tell me you're going back to being the sad, little broken boy Lizzie shut down. The same boy who everyone will reject. Why hate the side of you that is built to protect you? Sure, it's called murder or whatever but to me, it's called survival. As vampires, we do what we gotta do to survive, MG. Other people may be afraid of it but I'm not. Let's have fun again."

MG snatched the camera and smashed it to the ground. "No Jade, it's not just other people. I'm scared of it too and I'm not going to let you get inside my head again." He swivelled on his feet before she could respond and left.

~

"Oh, God. That was my 'inside voice.' I am so sorry. Guys like you make me nervous."

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