Seven Minutes to Midnight

21

My stomach felt all tangled up in knots the next morning when I climbed into Veronica's car. I'm a sort of habitual girl—I don't especially like my routines interrupted, or not knowing what is about to happen. In the past weeks my life had been all rearranged. Now I had to worry about what Veronica would do when Lane decided to kiss me again.

If he decided to kiss me again. I did worry about that, too.

Therefore, we had almost reached the school parking lot when Veronica demanded, "Haven't you noticed anything...different... about me?"

I stumbled out of my mental knot of worry and examined her closely.

"You've lost a lot of weight!" I exclaimed.

"Yep." She smiled smugly.

Her previously tight-fitting clothes—the laced up bodice, the black t-shirt underneath—hung loose from her arms and waist. I could even see her collarbone poking out. I was slightly alarmed. I've never been good at estimating weight, but I would have put the weight Veronica lost at around twenty pounds.

"Did you eat at all last week?"

"Yes, but not much." She was still smiling. "Lane will be so proud. I'm starting to really look like a vampire."

We parked and headed into the school building. I glanced cautiously at the sky. "Hopefully he'll be in school today. It's a lot brighter out today than it was yesterday."

"If Lane's not in school I may have to kill myself," Veronica said grimly.

Luckily for Veronica, Lane was hanging out with Frank at Frank's locker. They were standing very close—too close for straight guys. In fact, Frank and Lane were getting quite a few looks from the other students, a mixed bag of jealous girls and homophobic guys. And a couple of jealous-looking guys too. As Veronica and I approached, a few students watched on with interest—probably those who had seen Lane kiss me the morning before.

Veronica wasted no time. She wrapped her arms around Lane's middle. "Oh, Lane, I've missed you."

I waited to see his reaction to her.

With his cold blue eyes on me, he petted her head and said, "I've missed you as well, Vee."

It was difficult, but I tore away from the intense eye contact to catch Frank's reaction to this. He stood impassively, his eyes studying something off in the distance.

Lane took in the direction of my gaze.

I might have felt the same jealousy rising in me that I could see rising behind Frank's mask, despite seeing all too clearly what was going on, but I felt a sudden rush of warmth over my entire body—the sort of warmth one might feel coming inside from a cold winter's day, and there is a crackling blaze in the fireplace, mixed with the sort of warmth I'd felt every time Lane touched me, a buzzing of electricity that raced through my body starting with my heart and ending at my fingertips and toes and entirely numbing my brain.

This sudden chemical reaction of my body brought a smile to my face.

Frank's smile, which I noticed as I gazed happily around at the faces of my friends, looked just as content and dumb as my own. I felt an urge to hug someone.

Just for the record—I never feel the urge to hug someone. Except for that one time at the museum with Lane, and I told you how my mother reacted.

"Francis, get your books. We need to escort these ladies to their lockers before first bell."

Like a happy zombie, Frank did as he was told.

We walked through the hallways together. Veronica was still attached to Lane's waist, but Lane grabbed Frank's hand and pulled their joined arms over my shoulders. The crowd parted before us. Smiling vampires? I could hear them all thinking, which only made me smile all the more.

Then, abruptly, the urge to smile disappeared. Instinctively I knew that Lane didn't want us all grinning like idiots. We were supposed to act like vampires. Vampires didn't smile. Or, if they did smile, they mostly smirked, or curved their lips seductively. My face relaxed into a seductive smile.

No one was thinking anything about smiling vampires anymore.

Instead, students drew away from us, some force about us repelling them, some fear pushing them away, they were not stepping back in awe or jealousy. I caught a glimpse of our new selves in a dark window—we looked dangerous. Veronica particularly looked like she might eat someone. And she did snap her teeth at a few who did not withdraw from our presence, and she licked her blood-red lips at one unfortunate boy whose heartbeat I could hear clearly over the crowd.

One by one Lane dropped us off at our classes. No kiss for me this time, but he did stroke my cheek before setting me adrift. It took longer for this to wear off than the day before—it was a full ten minutes before I had the presence of mind to pull out my notebook and tune in to the lecture at hand.

I felt a little spacey all morning, as though I was going through some kind of withdrawal. My head hurt. I hoped Veronica had her usual stash of over-the-counter medications in her backpack so I could bum some Aleve from her during lunch.