“Abby, do you have your first boyfriend?” She sounds all serious now.
“What! No. I don’t have a boyfriend, Mom. Geez.” I get up and go to the sink to rinse my bowl, keeping my back to her as long as I can. “Look, Mom, guys aren’t exactly beating down my door. I’m so not that girl. I just have a lot going on at school.”
Mom stands up and walks over to me. “First of all, you’re gorgeous. You could so be that girl, but you have more class than that. Second, having your first boyfriend isn’t a bad thing. Of course, I need to meet him first. Especially if you plan on going anywhere with him. I know this isn’t something you like to talk about, but you have to be careful. What if he’s--”
“Mom!” I hold up my hand before she says the V word. Most girls dread the virginity talk when they get their first boyfriend. For me, it’s the vampire talk. Yay, me. “I don’t have a boyfriend. There’s no one to meet. I’m not going to get lured away by some evil bloodsucker of the night!”
And now we’re fighting again. It feels like all we’ve done lately.
“Maybe not just the night, but you’d know that if you took this seriously.” Mom shakes her finger at me. At me, like I’m the one being unreasonable.
“Take what seriously? Some stupid book written by a psycho? You want to know what’s wrong with me?” Shut up. Shut up. But I can’t. “It’s this! I’d be scared to ever tell you if I have a boyfriend because you’d think he wants to munch on my neck. Did it happen to you? Did a vampire break your heart?”
Tear glint in her eyes. It’s almost as if they’re my tears. They affect me the same way. “Mom…”
“I’m going outside back to work in the garden. If you want, come out and help.” Without another word she goes out the sliding glass door, shutting it on me. What’s wrong with me? Everywhere I turn there’s drama lately and I’m the common denominator.
Deciding to go out and make things up to her, I run upstairs to my room, wash up and get dressed. After tying my hair back in a messy ponytail, I go back downstairs to hear a faint knock on the front door. Okay, we almost never get visitors, which leaves a delivery or mail man. My life is so exciting.
Before opening the door, I take a peek through the peephole anyway.
My heart stops. Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! I’m caught between a busting a move because I’m so excited that Caleb Evans is at my door. Sure I’m mad at him, but Caleb Evans is still at my door. And the other part of me wants to stake myself now because if Mom comes out here and sees him, my life is over anyway. No, I’m not even being dramatic either. I couldn’t live through Mom inviting Caleb in for a friendly game of Vampire or Human.
Caleb knocks again, jump starting my heart. What the heck is he doing here? My head falls forward, hitting the door. I have no idea what to do and not a lot of time to figure it out. Once more knock jars me out of my stupor. I should let him think I’m not home, but I can’t do it. This is Caleb and I need to know what he wants. Quietly, I slip the door open. “Caleb, what are you doing here?” I whisper like my Mom has vampire hearing and is listening from the backyard.
“Well, hello to you, too.”
Good God, why does this boy have to be so hot? I’m about to have a heat stroke, looking at him all black hair and green eyes, squinting at me like I’m confusing him. I wave my hands forward so he’ll step away. When he does, I walk onto the porch and pull the door partially closed behind me. “You have to go.” Or stay… No! How could I handle it if Caleb knew my big secret?
He looks a little taken aback with my words before his eyes travel behind me. I turn quickly to make sure Mom isn’t there. She’s not, but Caleb can’t keep his eyes off me. Oh, me! He’s looking at me, not behind me. Score!
“Um, I just thought we should talk. About last night, I mean. And the other day at school.”
“I can’t, Caleb.” I shake my head.
He shifts the weight from his left to his right. “Listen, Kit—Abby. I know I screwed up, but don’t shut me down. We need to talk. There’s… well, there’s some things I need to tell you.”
Being mad has nothing to do with why I can’t talk to him right now. It’s like Jerry Maguire except he had me at knock, knock, instead of hello. The reason starts with ‘Mom’ and ends in ‘believes in vampires’. “My mom is home!” I tell him like I expect that to make sense.
Caleb wrinkles his nose at her. “So?”
“She doesn’t know about you. All of a sudden she has this weird idea that I have a boyfriend, and if she meets you, she’ll think you’re him. She won’t get that there’s no way that will ever happen and--”
“Why won’t that ever happen?”
Um, does he have split personalities for something? “Well, for starters, you told me we could never be more than friends and second, because you won’t even talk to me at school and third because…well…you’re you and I’m me.” My words even make no sense to me, but I’m still a little happy I got them out. There! Take that, I spoke my mind. What now?
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Caleb reaffirms my confusing words. “I mean, I know what I said, but that’s part of the reason we need to talk. Can’t you get out for a few minutes so we can talk?” It’s obvious he’s uncomfortable, because he does that Caleb-shift thing and ruffles his own hair. “If your mom needs to meet me, that’s cool, I guess. She may not like you hanging out with the wild Evans kid though.” This time, it’s me who wrinkles my nose at him and he shrugs. “I get that a lot.”
My chest tightens a little for him. “As long as you don’t have fangs, my mom doesn’t discriminate.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I want to slam the door in his face and never come out again. I can’t believe I said it! I want to take it back, but not at the same time because it kind of felt right since he just admitted something to me.
“Abbs, can you come here?” Mom yells.
Oh, there’s goes my heartbeat again. Maybe I’m undead myself. “I’ll be right there, Mom!” I yell, then whisper to Caleb, “Please, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Do you have to go do something with your mom?”
“No.” I probably should so we can have make-up session number five billion.
“Then come with me.” I want nothing more than to do as he says. I peek my head inside and when I do, Caleb grabs my hand. “Come on, Abby. Please?” There’s no way I can deny him. Not when he’s looking at me with those forest green eyes that remind me of the woods we spend so much time in.
“Ugh! Okay. Go wait at out stop sign. I’ll me meet you there in five minutes.” Without waiting for him to reply, I go inside and close the door. He wanted to talk to me, really talk to me from the way it sounds and everything inside me is pulling myself toward him, wanting to hear any and everything he has to say.
I run to the backyard. “Mom? Do you, um, mind if I head out for a little while? I really want to go for a walk and maybe hit up the library.” And here I am, Liar McLiarson spinning more tales.
Mom smiles, asking forgiveness silently. “Sure, kiddo. Just be home--”
“Before dark. Yeah, I know.” I give her a hug, grab my backpack and head to the stop sign to meet Caleb. My stupid hands shake the whole time. I totally need to work on my poker face, because without even looking in a mirror, I know I’m a mess.
“Thanks for coming.” Caleb says as I meet him.
“You’re welcome.” I kick at the ground, trying to play off my nervousness for indifference.
“You wanna go back to my place? Or the woods? We can hang-out there again.”
My anger pushes to the surface again. “Sure. We wouldn’t want anyone to see you with me.” I mumble.
“What?” Caleb asks.
“Nothing.” I keep walking. He’s following behind me, both of us silent. Right before we cross the street which lines the woods, he stops me.
“Hey, I’m not embarrassed to be seen with you.”
“Could have fooled me.” I try and walk away again.
“Abby, I’m serious. Why would I be embarrassed to be seen with you? Things are just…”
I look around. “Let’s go into the woods. We can talk there.”
“Who’s embarrassed now? I could care less if people see us talking. I’m not the one who freaked out because my mom might want to meet you.” There’s pain in his rough voice and it shocks me. Hurts me too. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m also mad. Confused. Everything.
“I’m not the one who completely turned my back on you like you were nothing. And it’s not as if you’re rushing me home to meet your parents.”
“That’s because I don’t have any!” Caleb yells. We both freeze, just staring at each other. He doesn’t have parents? He has to. I’ve seen his dad around town, heard the rumors about him.
Caleb’s eyes drop closed, his breaths coming out rapidly. He buries his face in his hands before looking up at me again with hooded eyes. “I guess there’s no forgetting I said that?”
“No… I don’t think I can, Caleb.”
He shakes his head and starts to walk. When he gets a few feet away from me, Caleb turns and looks over his shoulder. “You coming? I don’t wanna talk about this here.”
Chapter Twelve
Caleb leads me down to the creek back behind his house. It’s not a large creek. In fact, I didn’t even know it was here. The small stream of trickling water flows from behind his house to a deep section of the woods where I never venture. Nestled between two large trees, I notice a swing. It’s wooden, obviously homemade, hung with thick rope and a bench seat that fits two. “That’s nice.” I tell him, pointing to the swing. Caleb signals for me to sit down. He follows me over, but stays standing while I sit.