Driving Me Batty

Chapter 3: Not Exactly Winners

"I'm dating a woman now who, evidently, is unaware of it."

— Gary Shandling

With a mother as old as mine, it is only natural that I have received countless etiquette lessons. Unfortunately, her four hundred or so years of wisdom have done nothing towards helping me figure out the nicest way to reject a Facebook friend request. I did what students do best: I procrastinated the actual rejection. And cursed Jess to hell and back. What really pushed me to finally rejecting Peter were the constant messages he sent urging me to accept him. The stench of desperation was beginning to permeate my laptop and that just would not do. I was tempted to report him. I probably should have. It might have driven him off permanently.

As he entered the library, I felt a piece of my brain die. I’m fairly certain that's what happened, as it’s the only reason I can find to explain the situation I found myself in three days later. I tried to make myself as invisible as possible. I let my hair fall into my face, looked down at my books and refused to look at anything further than the end of the desk I was working at. I schooledan expression of deep concentration on my face and tried desperately to get into the work I was supposed to know for my last exam. After ten minutes, my shoulders relaxed and I eased into my studying. I mentally shouted my thanks to Lady Luck who seemed to be on my side for once.

I’ve heard it said that all good things come to an end. Truer words were never spoken.  Two hours later, the chair across from me was suddenly occupied and the per-a-square-meter arrogance quota skyrocketed in the vicinity. I inwardly sighed while steadfastly ignoring the arrival.

“So I’ve been trying to figure out where you’re from and my bet is Tennessee-” I raised an eyebrow at that without glancing up at him, “-because you’re the only ten I see.” Despite my better judgment, I looked up at him, trying to think of something that would get rid of him without further attention from the rest of the students. The best I could come up with was a disinterested, “Can I help you?” Apparently, this was encouragement enough for one such as he.

“The way I see it, you need to come get some coffee with me now. You’ve been studying solidly for at least two hours and so you need a break and who better to go with than me?” Ted Bundy, a tarantula, a sadistic acupuncturist. My exasperated sigh earned me a glare from a girl sitting two tables away.

“Peter, seriously. What do I have to do to get rid of you?”

“Come get coffee with me. However, I doubt that you’d still want to get rid of me afterwards.” It would probably only be his lifeless corpse I would have to get rid of at the rate he was going. I packed my stuff up swiftly and glanced up at the ceiling, begging for some form of divine intervention. Nothing. Nadda. No help from any deity. I was beginning to believe it wasn’t only vampire souls that were damned but their adopted children’s as well.

“You have fifteen minutes and then I have to get back to studying…in peace.” Oh glorious peace. His triumphant smirk nearly lost him a tooth or two. Court ordered anger management seemed to pay off. At least for the potential victims.

Five minutes into me listening to cheesy pick up lines and a detailed description of his gym routine, I was ready to pour the scalding coffee into my eye just to get away. Thankfully, I didn’t have to go to such extremes. My phone interrupted a riveting explanation (complete with visual aids) of exactly how he achieved his sculpted bicep. I excused myself from the table (as a lady aught to - my momma raised me right).

I glanced at my phone before cheerfully answering with a bright “hellooooo.”

The cheeriness was short-lived. Having expected a parent or my grandmother on the other end of the line, I was unpleasantly surprised to hear Kai’s voice. I looked over at Peter, who was just a few feet away and contemplated asking him to save me from the call. I was finding it hard to decide which idiot was the lesser of two evils.

“Lira,” he cleared his throat in attempt to make his voice sound stronger and deeper, “you’re coming home in a few days and we need to talk.” Controlling and domineering just did not suite Kai and he quickly lost the attitude. “Lira,” He meekly began and I knew then what I had to do. I started mouthing, “help me,” at Peter while pointing frantically at my phone. He just stared at me, looking puzzled. Great.

“Kai, give it a rest already. We’ve had this talk a million times. You should actually start listening during one of them.”

“Lira, I like you so much. When you come home I’ll be waiting for -“

“I’ve got to go study now. Bye.” I hung up before he could say anything else and stormed back to the table.

“And you couldn’t help me?”

“Oh, is that what that was? I was wondering.” Sometimes you just have to questionhow some people passed kindergarten, let alone got accepted to into any tertiary institution.

“Lets just get this coffee thing over and done with.” I plopped back into my seat.

“So, lets talk about you. Where are you from, gorgeous?” I rolled my eyes. I still had seven minutes to get through.

“Kent, Connecticut.” The spark of interest in his eyes had me wince in regret. How could this possibly get any worse?

"Oh I know Kent. I drive thought it on the way to my hometown. It’s really tiny, right?”

“That’s the one.” I swear I heard the cogs in his brain groan as they were put to use for the first time in what must have been ages - if ever.

“I could give you a ride home, free of charge if you like.”

 My brain and mouth temporarily lost contact as my natural frugal student instincts took over. “I’ll think about it.” I almost kicked myself right then and there.

“Here’s my number, just let me know.” He slid a business card towards me. What kind of student has a business card? It wasn’t even a company card. All it had on it was his name and number. What was the point of it? Before I could say or do anything else I was saved by the alarm I had set on my phone. I jumped out of my seat and downed the last of my coffee.

“Well that was… well that’s done. Bye.”

In the end, the rolling tumble weeds in my bank account had me shoving my suitcases into an SUV that could be spotted from space three days later. For all that Peter’s car was huge, it was filled with the weirdest things. The boot was almost completely taken up by huge stainless steal containers and the back seat was littered with broken planks of wood.

I had myself convinced that it wouldn’t be too bad. After all, it was only three hours and I could sleep for most of it.

I climbed into the passenger seat and leaned my head against the window already preparing to fall asleep. Before I could get really comfortable, the most vicious audio assault occurred as Daughtry blasted from the speakers. It was going to be one hell of a long journey.

I feigned sleep until I miraculously blocked the music out and actually fell asleep. It wasn’t too long before Peter was nudging me awake in a borderline-sexual-assault kind of way. We were just about to enter Kent.

“You know, I could totally see you sleeping in my bed like that. Minus the clothes.”

“Um…” The awkward silence stretched out for a few minutes longer than I thought it was possible for Peter to keep his mouth shut. Every now and again, he would look over at me with that smirk on his face that made me want to throw up. Or kick someone. Preferably the latter. As the silence grew longer, my discomfort increased until, for the sake of my sanity, I had to say something that steered any and all conversation away from lewd thoughts about me.

“So…. What is all this stuff you have in here?” His normally arrogant expression took on a new twist of smugness that made me think that I would regret opening my mouth.

“It’s my slayer artillery.”

“Slayer artillery?”

“Stakes, holy water, crosses, garlic, silver-bullet-loaded guns, UV lights, iron chains. My family is in the paranormal slaying business, though we specialize in vampires. I’m pretty badass.”

I choked on a breath of air and my eyes bugged slightly. Well this was going to be interesting.