Seven Minutes to Midnight

5

Looking at what I've just written, I realize that you might believe I am meandering a bit. I assure you this is all vital information. Especially considering how little you know about me. Although... you might be able to tell at this point that I'm slightly long-winded. I was, after all, the self-appointed scribe for our vampire games. Occasionally Veronica would bring me some thread of a story she had painstakingly typed into her computer in some ridiculous font like Edwardian Script or Cantebriggia amounting to a total of two pages and spanning centuries of lovelorn vampire relationships. I would take said story and rewrite the entire thing into an epic. I'm possibly the only reason Veronica passed English last year.

I suppose I should get to it then.

Frank met him first. I'm not sure where or how, exactly. It was sometime toward the end of last year – my sophomore year. Veronica and I began to notice that Frank was missing with no explanation more often than not.

Sometimes one of us wouldn't be able to make our nightly get togethers for whatever reason—Veronica sometimes had therapy, and if my mother wasn't working she would usually insist on what she called a "girl's night," which would involve a big home cooked meal, then sitting in front of the television to watch some chick flick while we did face masks or dyed our hair or painted our toenails and ate ice cream out of the container. This did not happen often enough for me to feel the need to tell my mother that I didn't enjoy any of it. I just watched and listened and nodded, which made her feel like she was my friend. Even rarer was the occasion when she decided that we needed to Go Out and Do Something and Get Involved. It usually involved a day spent at the mall or volunteering at the hospital.

Of course I love my mother. I simply understood that she needed me to be her friend more than she needed some defiant teenager glaring at her. That was Veronica's territory, and that was the reason Veronica was in therapy. I hardly needed to waste my time with psychoanalysis.

Back to more important matters.

Frank's excuses were usually more varied. Sometimes he and his old friends had Dungeons & Dragons parties (Veronica and I went once with him and never again). Frank also took fencing lessons and horseback riding lessons and Shakespearean acting lessons, and went with his parents to SCA meetings in full renaissance garb. Frank's major ambition in life was to work at a Renaissance faire, preferably as one of the jousters.

Veronica and I were very close, so Frank's absences did not generally bother us. We spent most of our time outside of our meetings at the cemetery (put on hiatus for the winter months) making clothing and accessories, which was of little interest to Frank. He did enjoy making his own chain mail while we made jewelry, and was content to watch any horror movie or play video games while we worked. However, after about two weeks of Frank's constant excuses, and several days' worth of unexplained school absences without so much as a single phone call, email, or text message explaining his whereabouts, and his absence in World of Warcraft, we stopped making clothes and began writing an ultimatum.

We brought said ultimatum into school to read aloud to him at lunch, although, as usual, Frank was missing from lunch.

"Looks like we'll need to find a new boy toy," Veronica pouted, cracking open her copy of New Moon to something like page five hundred and twenty-seven. The tattered cover indicated that this was far from the first time she'd read it. "If only we could find someone like Edward. Or maybe Jasper. Hell, I'd even take a Jacob."

Veronica's Twilight references barely even made me roll my eyes anymore. Sure, I enjoyed the books, but sometimes I wondered if Veronica thought that the Cullens were real. 

 "Where else will we find a boy with Frank's fencing skills?" I asked. My eyes drifted to the table of Frank's D&D mates and shuddered.

Veronica shrugged. "Whatever. Maybe he's just sick. Or maybe he's sick of us. And if that's the case, we're better off without him. More importantly, Amy, we need to talk."