Not Another Vampire Story - 17
17. ...is Worth a Thousand Words...
PG13. Tween, humor, middle school, angst, vampires, serial, teen, fiction, summer. #ReadFree
Read from the beginning.
Suggested Music: K-Pop on AudioNetwork
Ahh … the safety of warm fuzzy hoodies.
Sylvia spent the next few day making excuses for the information that Matt had unloaded on her. Actually, she thought, it wasn't so much the information as the imprecations.
She'd learned the word imprecations in a vocabulary challenge in English class just last week.
She took solace in Fruits Basket. Her eyes glazed over as the looked at Kyo's sour face, orange hair planted strategically on his manga-drawn head, his face in Xs and Os as he howled—in dialog bubbles—at Yuki. She pouted back at Kyo's pouty face, feeling for his outcast, disowned state of affairs.
She rolled onto her back on the bed, smiling up at the manga she held over herself. Fruits Basket was better than she thought it would be.
"Comic books are for people too retarded to read Shakespeare," Matt had said in computer lab when he saw her hunkered over volume three when she was supposed to be doing her Mavis Beacon.
"I'm done," she'd told him, wanting to hiss like the orange cat in the manga would have. Instead she had coughed, putting a steadying hand to the table holding the computers.
In her bedroom, lying beside the Potato magazine of Junno, she read the manga, word for word, hoping to distract herself from the all-too-reality of Julia's boyfriend. She smiled.
Junnosuke Taguchi.
His hair was dark again, his eyes smiling back from the magazine article in dark brown as they should be. She went limp. She let the manga fall to one side, the other hand lying on her pillow.
Dark hair, dark eyes... Terry's face flashed before her eyes... Vampires...
Her hand clasped over her face, fingers squeezing.
Why was she hung up on vampires lately?
"Got company!" Julia called from the hall.
Sylvia sat up, her thoughts scattering as she shook her head. Holly immediately came to mind. "Coming!"
Julia should have warned her, Sylvia thought as she shuffled into the living room. She was still running a hand through her unruly, unkempt hair as she appeared in the living room.
It was too late to run.
"Hey," Lane said, his eyes dropping over her as she stopped dead-struck in the room, her mouth agape.
"Oh. Hi," she stuttered as he stood in the living room, returning her stare of shattered composure with one of amusement.
"You got a few minutes?"
She nodded numbly, glancing at Julia, who was smiling, a knowing lilt to her face.
Sylvia nodded too many times at Lane.
A pause.
Lane sighed, looking to Julia. "Can she go for a walk?"
Julia shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe." She looked to Sylvia. "Can you go for a walk?" She stepped closer to her sister, leaning to Sylvia's awestruck posture, her voice lowering. "So, do you think you can support yourself?"
Sylvia garnered every supportive strand of her being. When had Lane ever sought her out before? Or looked so good? She nodded dumbly to Julia.
They made their way down the sidewalk, around the block of modest houses in her neighborhood. He walked beside her, hands jammed in his front jean pockets, a full head and half a shoulder taller than her.
Sylvia felt small. Had he really grown that much since Brian's last party?
"So," he said as they nearly ended circling the block in silence, "what do you want?"
Sylvia strode mechanically beside him, arms crossed in front of her in the absence of anything but her t-shirt, so anxious she'd been to take him up on his offer for the promenade.
"What do I want?" she repeated, looking askance to him.
He returned her unfocused attention. "Yeah."
She looked to the sidewalk stretching before them. Her mind ping-ponged in several directions. "We got your picture."
He grinned, his eyes lighting at the mention. "I got yours, too."
"My what?" She felt the obtuseness slide over her face.
"Your school picture. Nice."
She shoved her hands deeper into her armpits. "Oh. Well, I was bad that day. I had..." What was she supposed to say? A bad case of the mug-shots that day? "I was—"
"You should have grabbed a jacket," he said, pulling off his hoodie and handing it to her until she took it, leaving him in a black and red Detroit Red Wings t-shirt.
For a moment she just trod beside him, the navy blue hooded sweatshirt in her hands, her pace keeping astride of him, eyes fastened on his.
"Shit, Sylvi, put it on," he said as she remained transfixed.
She nodded absently and pulled the sweatshirt over hear head. For a moment she was lost in its bulk, the smell of musk, the smell of him, emerged in the interior depths of the soft lining, and then she felt a hand pull at the thick material, easing the shirt down over her as she struggled.
"Jeez," he said, "find your way out."
She nodded, settling the hoodie over herself.
"So," he said again as they began to circle her block once more, "what do you want?'
She frowned, happily smiling at the warmth of the pleasant smelling sweatshirt, looking up to him as he looked to her. "I like your hair shorter," she said, then cupped her hand over her mouth.
He put a hand to his head, grinning, brushing the short brown hairs back. "Yeah, I guess me, too."
She felt the warmth start from her stomach and well up. The pullover was perfectly warm.
A few steps later, he asked, "What do you want?"
"Uhh...?"
He gave her a perplexed shake of his head. "For your birthday. Fourteen, right?"
Oh...yes...her birthday...of course...
Holly wouldn't go with her all the way to Terry's street the next Friday afternoon. Sylvia rationalized until she was pleading, but Holly wouldn't budge.
"I want to, but I promised Jamie I'd go to the library with him." Holly slammed her school locker shut, looking to Sylvia's face, which was a mixture of pretty much all desperation and angst.
"I need moral support on this. I can't go sneaking in by myself." Sylvia hugged her English book closer. This time she had on a double set of hoodies and low-sole sneakers. She'd come prepared for the breaking and entering she had planned.
"What are you expecting to find? Vials of blood in his refrigerator?" Holly pulled her best hoodie—the bronze-color one trimmed in faux fur and lined with a beading of iridescent root beer-colored spangles—over her head and flipped her hair out the collar.
Sylvia screwed up her face at her friend. "You can't refrigerate blood; it congeals."
Holly looked disgusted. "So, then he'd have to warm it up until it got all liquidy or just to room temperature before he downed a glass of it?"
Sylvia didn't act on the gag reflex that neared her throat. "I don't think it works that way."
They headed down the crowded eighth grade hall to the building entrance. "Then how does it work?"
Sylvia shook her head. "I want another look in the bathroom. The medicine cabinet."
Holly smiled as an arm settled over her shoulders, and Jamie looked over her to Sylvia as he fell into step at her side.
"Hey, Buffy."
Sylvia groaned as they waded through the crowd of students and sifted through the double doors at the front of the school. "I'll go on my own," she said to Holly, giving Jamie a weak smile. "See you guys later."
"Am I still invited to Julia's birthday?"
"Of course," Sylvia said. Julia's birthday party was a family affair, with Terry taking her out for dinner later that evening. "Have fun at the library, Chocolate."
Thanks to Sakurapu for sharing her story!
 | A guest post by
|