Chapter 189
Going back to school was so surreal. I walked among hundreds of kids who knew nothing about what they didn’t know. I had been just like them once, really not that long ago. Walking around with no idea how much evil there is in the world and how close to home that evil can strike.
Lots of people said hello to me in the hallway and welcomed me back. I knew most of that was because of Elliott. Everyone on campus had loved him, and his death had sort of made me a celebrity since I had known him personally, outside of school. They all knew I’d attended his memorial. Sometimes they asked me questions about it, which was a bit macabre. Today, they nodded and smiled, said they were glad I was feeling better. No one seemed to think I resembled Edward Cullen at all or accused me of being too sparkly under the fluorescent hallway lighting.
“Hey, you’re back,” Lucy said, giving me a quick hug as we headed to choir class which we both had first period. “You okay?”
“I’m all right,” I said. “Sorry I haven’t told you anything. I will. I just… need some time.”
“It was pretty intense, huh?” she asked as we wove our way through other kids trying to get to class on time.
“You don’t even know,” was about all I could say. “Actually, I think I might just have you and Em come over Friday after the game again and tell you then, if you want.”
“Saturday’s my mom’s birthday,” Lucy replied, her usually chipper voice somber. “So I doubt she’ll let me spend the night with anyone Friday. But maybe you guys can spend the night with me.”
“Okay,” I said, assuming my parents were seriously not grounding me since my mom said she hoped I’d learned my lesson. If I was honest with myself, I wouldn’t know if I’d learned it or not until I was back in a similar situation. If they gave me enough rope, I just might hang myself.
We walked in and took our seats, and I tried to focus on our cranky old music teacher, Mr. Bergen, who probably knew a lot about music thirty years ago when he still knew how to carry on a conversation. Now, he was very mumbly and deaf in one-and-a-half ears. He’d asked me to play the piano some when the other girl who played was absent, but I tried to avoid doing so if I could because he made me almost as uncomfortable as Christian. Luckily, there were enough people in this class and enough chaos stemming from his inability to regulate what any of us were doing, that I could blend into the crowd and try to keep my mind off of everything that had happened.
By third period when I saw Emma in Biology II, I was starting to feel like my old self again. She didn’t ask me anything at all, just patted me on the shoulder, which was a hug from her perspective, and told me to take my time spilling my guts, which was kind of ironic considering how close to actually spilling them I’d almost come. I knew, though, that was her way of saying she would wait patiently for me to tell her what had happened to me.
Milo and Wes sat with us at lunch, so I couldn’t say anything then if I’d wanted to, and then, after school Lucy and I had cheerleading practice, which I followed up with piano lessons at Ms. Crabtree’s house—another ancient music teacher, but at least she tried to be cool. By the time I got home, I felt okay. While the fear of having my fangs drop out when I wasn’t expecting them to was always there, at least I knew it wouldn’t be triggered by the normal high school routine I was used to. I was beginning to think Jamie might need to take an X-ray to prove to me that they were even there.
That night, Brandon called me after dinner to tell me all about how the IAC works. It was a complicated discussion, and I was sure I didn’t understand most of what he was saying, but I listened, happy to hear from someone who knew the truth. We chatted for over an hour, mostly about the IAC and his training, and I realized I was tired before it was even 8:00. I’d had a full day, my first in this condition, and I remembered something Aaron had mentioned about Cadence being a lot more tired than most new Hunters and wondered if that was the case for me as well.
“You sound sleepy, Cass,” Brandon said as I stifled a yawn. “You need to go to bed?”
“I’m okay,” I tried to assure him, but it wasn’t true. “I’m just… mentally exhausted.”
“I understand that,” he said. “You cheering tomorrow night? You gonna have enough energy for that?”
It was a valid question. “I hope so.” Maybe my Hunter skills would take over, and I’d have enough in the tank to power through. His question made me think of one of my own. “How weird is it going to be for you, not going to play tomorrow night?” On our very long trip to Philly, we’d discussed football a lot, and I could tell how much he loved it.
“Trying not to think about it,” he admitted. “I wish I could’ve waited until the end of the season at least to do all of this, but it just didn’t work out that way. Guess I’ll live. Hunting Vampires is sort of like football. There’s just as much tackling, although, I’ve never ripped the head off of an opposing player.”
“I should hope not,” I muttered. “But… what do you mean it didn’t work out that way? I thought you decided to go ahead and do it because of that hunt you’d gone on with my sister and Aaron.” He’d told me all about that, too. I hope the little girl they’d saved that night, Julia, was okay now and wasn’t having nightmares about the Vampire that had almost gotten her.
Brandon was quiet for a moment. “I, uh, took advantage of an opportunity to leave undetected,” he replied.
I let that sit before I asked more. I got the impression he didn’t know whether or not he was comfortable confiding in me, but since I’d already sensed there was something going on between him and his mom, something unpleasant, I decided to let him know I was here if he did want to talk. “Have you been thinking about calling her?”
“Yeah, I’ve thought about it.” Silence again. I wished I was sitting with him, so I could put my hand on his arm, reassure him. I had no idea what it was like to have an unsupportive mother. I couldn’t even imagine it; such a thing was so far away from my reality. “Cass, my mom… has a problem.”
Not knowing what to say, I tried to put myself in his shoes and thought about how my friends had allowed me time today. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know,” he said quickly.
“That’s okay. If you want to, I’m happy to listen. If you don’t want to, that’s all right with me, too.”
“It’s just… you’ve been through so much. I don’t want to…”
I had to cut him off. “Brandon, you were literally right there the whole time I was going through that whole mess. The least I can do is listen to you talk about your mom, if you want to.”
