By Any Other Name

Chapter 4:

     It always took me a few hours to recover after meetings with him. Time to think and take calming breaths.

     I had woken up dumped onto my couch in a very uncomfortable position the next morning. He had a key to my apartment so I only shook my head at how carelessly I had been disposed of the night before. After stretching my sore body and refreshing myself for the day, I reluctantly headed off for school.

     There would be no time to calm myself today. I trudged out to my small silver Honda and hurriedly slid in to turn on the heaters. Sighing softly to myself I thought about how I had only six more months. Six more months and then I was out of here. Tired but alive, I started the engine and drove into my day.

I always dreaded walking to my locker, for more reasons than one. Bullying comes in many different ways; this high school chose a more evident approach on me. What surprise would await me today? Black graffiti of my nickname? Maybe a small jar of spiders. Or maybe they would even do rubber bats again like they did last Wednesday. The groups of students that sought out to taunt me tried to do something different every day. They were quickly running out of ideas though. Yesterday a handful of daddy log legs were crawling around in there. To be honest I have never seem a janitor faint before. It turned out that he had extreme arachnophobia.

So I had to take them out myself. This just seemed to prod the students further. Though they came up with many names for my lack of such, my main name was "Vampire Girl." That seemed to long to say after a while so they shortened it to "Vamps."

I turned past the girl's locker room and strolled by the cafeteria to tech my locker. And there it was. Today my nickname was written all over it in permanent marker with the Batman symbol at the top. The janitor was not going to be happy about this. He and I had developed a mutual friendship that consisted of conversations of less than 10 sentences. But still it didn't really bother me. And the Batman symbol only made me smirk.

As I clich of popular girls passed me by, I overheard how there would be a new boy coming in today. Some teenagers just don't know how to use a quiet voice and they were pretty easy to overhear. Comments of of how cute or rich he might be followed me down the hallways.

Some faces are really ask to remember. His was a face I don't think I could ever forget. As I was walking out of second period, there he was. A new face beaming amidst all of the others.

This boy is the kind that makes every girl swoon at the thought of him or go weak in the knees when he says "hi" to you in passing. He was tall, perfectly tan and wiry, but very fit, with sandy blond hair and deep green eyes. He seemed to be the very embodiment of beauty. And here I was with my average tan, straight raven black hair, and blue eyes. There was a strange quality about him. It was almost as though he were glowing. Radiating a certain peace or happiness that seemed to physically spread through the building.

I caught him staring at me with curiosity as I walked nervously over to my locker. This gorgeous boy had immediately caught my attention but I tried my best not to stare back.

The janitor had scrubbed away most of the marker but I could still see some remains of the bat that had resisted to come off.

As I was dialing in my combination I risked a glance at the boy out of the corner of my eye. Still watching me intently, and with a faint smile on his lips, he walked over to one of the other students.

Following him under my lashes he stopped in front of a student named Jonas, a basketball player who had first given me my now renowned school name. The new boy gestured to me with his chin casually and I overheard him ask Jonas, " Who's she?"

     My instant blush forces me to look down at my shoes but not from hearing Jones' answer. "Why do you want to know?" He asked nonchalantly. Jonas was one of the nicer students here. I know he hadn't meant to have the nickname stick; he had just said it as a comment of my usual dark clothing. We didn't talk much but he still smiled at me between periods or shrugged of his friends ideas for other ways to scorn me.

     But the boy wasn't giving up.

     "What's her name?" I heard him ask. Here it comes. I sighed inwardly. Nothing I could do to stop it. "No one knows," Jonas replied. "But we call her Vampire Girl. Well, at first we did. Now we just shortened it to Vamps."

     The boy nodded and they both turned to look in my direction. I had looked up again to hear Jonas' response but quickly turned away when they caught me staring. Trying to look busy as I continued entering my numbers into my locker, I was aware of someone who had walked up to the locker on the left, right next to mine. Looking up my throat constricted mid-breath as the new boy began entering in the combination, all the while smirking shyly at me. Of course his locker would be right next to mine. The cheerleaders were going to eat me alive! Fate did not seem to be on my side today.

As I hurriedly opened my locker so I could get to my next class, hundreds, (I kid you not) HUNDREDS of fake plastic vampire teeth came tumbling into the hallway. I heard the students behind me snicker an someone even hissed.

I groaned softly as I reached down to begin the lengthy task of picking them all up.

A pair of hands crossed my vision and began to pick up the teeth as well. Looking up in shock, I was caught up in the captivating gaze of those kind green eyes. So dark they looked like a forest on the edge of nighttime.

"Hello," the boy said as he extended his right arm toward me. "I'm Milo." Hesitantly I shook his hand. His grip was firm but carried a sincerity in it that showed he truly meant on introducing himself. "I hope it's okay that I'm helping you. This would take to log to do by yourself."

"That's their entire point," I muttered. "They do it just to taunt me."

Milo frowned slightly and turned to look at he crowd of teenagers, some who were looking our way with disdain. He whispered, "It's cruel really to treat you like this."

I looked up in surprise that he had spoken so openly about it. He turned back to me with a smile but it quickly turned to awe as he got a good look at my face for the first time. I tried to look away but was confused at his stunned silence. He repeated his sentence. "It's cruel to treat you like this, V."

Just like that the mood was broken as I digested what he had said. "What did you call me?" I scoffed.

"Well, just thought I'd call you something else besides your normal nickname if that's okay," he shrugged. "That name just doesn't suit you. But never mind that, what's your real name?"

He said it with true curiosity in his eyes. He really wanted to know. I just stares at him.

"What's your name?" he asked again. I almost told him. There was something so good about this boy. He truly cared. So I told him the closest thing I could to my true name.

"You can just call me 'lass.'" I said it timidly, almost too quiet to hear. But his clever ears still caught it.

"You won't really tell me what it is will you?"

I shook my head as I forced my eyes downward and pushed my hair behind my ear.

"You can't or you won't," he gently prodded.

With a sudden burst of fear I realized I had put myself In a very dangerous situation. I quickly stood up, most of the plastic teeth still lying on the floor, and slammed my locker shut. Practically running away I turned to see him still kneeling in the scattered items on the floor with a determined look on his face. Even with the guilt in my heart, I could feel only admiration for this boy. The boy who was as mysterious as me.