In Love With a Vampire

Chapter Five

Donna

My eyes flitted to the wall clock hanging above the English teacher. According to my schedule, the class was meant to go on for fifteen more minutes.

You cannot do it, Donna.

Shut up.

Listen to your body Donna.

I wanted to but I could not. The rules I had been given all revolved around one centerpiece; I was not to draw attention to myself. Yet, in the few hours that I had been here, I had already caught the attention of a very angry human boy. What would happen if I suddenly sprang up from my seat and ran from the classroom? I darted my eyes to the wall clock, twelve more minutes. Was it just me or was time moving slower in the human realm?

I stole a glance at Maria. She was calmly seated beside me with her hands cupping her face and her eyebrows drawn together…wait, was she actually enjoying the class? How could she when the English teacher was utterly boring? Perhaps I had misjudged the heavy-boned bespectacled human male with a clammy forehead. I averted my attention back to him just as he was fetching a handkerchief from his pocket. He paused mid-teaching and wiped his forehead. How could one person lose so much fluid? Were all humans like this? An image of the human boy with stark black overgrown hair came to mind. His forehead had certainly not glistened as much as the English teacher’s. In fact, his forehead had been smooth, almost pale.

Just like Sorokin’s.

Yet the human boy was nothing like Sorokin. Unlike my calm and collected trainer, the human boy was…what was the word? Unhinged? His green eyes were filled with so much rage, or had it been pain? Why was he so concerned about me jumping off the roof? Was it a common occurrence among humans? Could the creatures survive such a fall after all?

My eyes darted to the wall clock, seven minutes. I let out a quiet groan and crossed my legs under my desk. I rapped my pencil against the assigned reading, “Hamlet”, hoping the motion would bar my mind from listening to my body. I bent over slightly, careful not to attract unwanted attention. If I could remain in that position for the next few minutes, I would have successfully stuck to my mission…

“Before we end the class we have two new students…”

Oh no.

“I would like them to come in front and introduce themselves…”

I angled my head to look at Maria who had lowered her gaze to her desk and was currently tapping her feet. I averted my gaze back to the English teacher, he was beckoning us to stand up using his sweat-draped handkerchief, his eyes seemingly smaller behind his glasses, his neck swallowed by his torso.

“Ladies, could you please introduce yourself?”

The blended juice I had taken that morning was demanding to leave my body. It was screaming and pushing, trying to burrow itself out. I could not hold it in any longer, I had barricaded it for long enough. Submitting to the burning sensation to relieve myself, I clumsily made my way to the classroom door and open it. I then proceeded to run across the hallway until I saw a small room with an exceptionally thin door.

It was not until after I had finished relieving myself that I noticed the room was filled with what appeared to be mops and buckets.

* * *

“Am I reading this hall monitor’s note right? Did you…did you…Miss did you pee in the janitor’s closet?”

I pursed my lips. Who was a janitor and why did he have a closet in a learning institution?

“I asked you a question Miss Shavihai…”

I was seated across from a human female with ashen hair and large round glasses. She wore a navy blue suit that contrasted deeply with her bright pink lipstick. It was as if she was caught between two worlds; the old and young. I suddenly felt bad for her, it must be disheartening knowing that with each day that passed you were one step closer to your grave.

“I apologize. I honestly was not aware that the room was a closet for a janitor. I must apologize to them too after this. But surely the fault is not entirely mine, closets are meant to be bigger than that are they not? If you got the janitor a larger closet then I doubt other creatures would relieve themselves in it.”

I watched as the human female opened and closed her mouth successively. Her cheeks and the tips of her ears had adorned the color of crimson and her nostrils were flaring in a worrying manner. After what seemed like a lifetime, the human female cleared her throat and leaned forward at her desk. I mimicked the latter action.

“Normally stunts like this warrant a suspension but because of who your relatives are I will not send you home. This does not mean that your rebel act will go unpunished. You will attend detention and follow every instruction given to you by the person supervising the punishment.”

Detention? Punishment? A frustrated sigh escaped my lips. So much for not attracting attention.

Before leaving the room, I stood in the doorway and said,

“Bright pink does not suit you.”

The last thing I heard before closing the door behind me was a loud shriek.

Jim

I could not shake the image off. The auburn hair, grey eyes, pink lips…No matter how much I blinked, smoked, or distracted myself with actual classwork, I could not scrape off the image of the roof girl winking, smiling, talking. It had been her, right? Had I imagined it? Had I wanted to see her sitting in front of the English class, the same spot Sara used to sit? The doctors had warned me about the hallucinations. They called it a “coping mechanism”, my own f****d up way of dealing with my trauma. So yes, I suppose it was possible that I had imagined it all. It was possible that the roof girl only existed inside my head and that I had been so desperate to have an exciting year that I conjured her up.

I was currently walking towards detention. I could already picture my parent’s faces when they heard that I had gotten detention on my first day back. To be fair, I had not intentionally arrived late for class or smoked, or used my phone to cheat on an entry exam…Who was I kidding? I hated school and I had made that clear to them but they would not listen. No one ever listened.

Sara did.

I shoved down the random thought and ignored the pressure in my chest. I then looked at my watch, I was five minutes late for detention. I shook my head, a bit unnerved by what I was capable of. I sighed and pushed the door open.

“How nice of you to join us, Mr. James…”

I gruffly nodded and made a beeline for a seat at the back of the empty classroom. Once I was seated, I swept my eyes across the room. There were five other students sparsely seated, their bodies hunched over their desks, their minds probably screaming at them for winding up in detention on the first day of school. I scarcely wondered how their parents would react to the situation. Would they ground them no questions asked or would they sit them down and demand an explanation? Probably the latter although I was aware that some kids had it rough.

Some parents could be monsters.

I felt an eerie tingling on the nape of my neck, something that normally happened when someone was blatantly staring at me. Prepared to flip them off, I shited my gaze to the far end of the classroom.

Right there, against the wall sat roof girl and she was smiling at me.

“f**k me.”