Summer was almost over. I'd graduated from high school, but had absolutely no clue what I was going to do next. All my normal friends and classmates were heading off to college. Well, almost all of them. The pretty redhead sitting next to me—Lilly Haynes, my girlfriend and the sheriff's daughter—hadn't decided on her career path either. I'm sure her dad thinks it's because of me, but it isn't. Lilly just doesn't know what she wants to do. She's smart enough to do whatever she wants, but I don't think she's ready to leave Osborne. Maybe because after everything that happened, she feels like the town still needs her . . . I don't know. She told me recently that all she cared about was continuing to play in Zombie Rock, the band that she, Rob, Melanie, and I started a few months ago. And thanks to the publicity, mostly due to the awful stuff that had happened with Garret, we'd actually gotten some paid gigs.
"Did your mom say she'd be home for dinner?" Lilly asked, leaning her head against my shoulder.
"No." I sighed loudly. "She's having dinner with Kieran." I liked Kieran, I did, but the whole idea of my mom dating was just weird. I guess because it'd always just been the two of us for the past eighteen years. She'd never dated when I was growing up. Sure, when we'd lived in the city she'd go out with her friends some, but never anything more than that. I'd always assumed that she'd never gotten over my dad. But looking back, it was probably because she just didn't want to be seriously involved with anyone while I was still a kid.
"You should get used to the idea of your mom having a boyfriend," Lilly said. "I doubt Kieran's going anywhere."
"I know." I squeezed her shoulders.
I hadn't told Lilly, but it wasn't just my mom dating that bothered me—I was worried about her. Because Mom and Kieran were like me and Lilly. One Zombie, one uninfected person. In the cities, most of these kinds of relationships went unnoticed, but in Osborne, everyone knew who was a Zombie and who wasn't. That meant everyone knew which couples were "mixed." There was Mom and Kieran, me and Lilly, my Zombie friend Rob and his girlfriend Melanie, and Benjamin and his Zombie girlfriend Megan. To our faces, everyone treated us fine, but we'd all gotten hate mail. I think most of it came from people who'd gone to trial for the killings in shanty town. Still, that didn't make it any easier to stomach.
"What's wrong?" Lilly asked. "You're being quieter than usual."
"Do you ever wish we were a normal couple?" I asked, thinking about the hate mail Mom and I had gotten. Lilly didn't know about it, and I planned to keep it that way. The others had kept quiet also. Lilly's dad knew, but he'd started screening their mail as soon as I'd told him about it. I couldn't protect her from the dirty looks, but I could protect her from the hateful letters.
She sat up, glaring at me. She could be downright scary for someone her size. "Are you saying I'm not normal?"
I smiled and she grinned back, unable to stay serious for long.
"Honestly though," she said, "What's normal? Half a century ago, mixed-race couples weren't considered normal. Then it was same-sex couples that were the freaks. There's always going to be people who say one thing or another isn't normal."
My girlfriend is so freaking smart, I thought. "You're right."
"I know."
And humble too.
Suddenly, the movie we'd been watching cut out. Lilly sat up and I did the same. In our experience, cable programming was never interrupted for anything other than earth-shattering news.
"Ladies and gentlemen," an unseen announcer said, "The President of the United States."
Lilly reached over and took my hand as the President took his place at the podium and began to speak. I was glad he got right down to business, because if he'd launched into some long-winded introductory monologue, I wouldn't have been able to pay attention to the life-changing news he was about to deliver.
