Blood/Lust

First:  5/10/09



         Here I go again, writing to you. I don’t know why I’m doing this, I don’t want to. This feels more like writing in a journal or talking to a therapist than writing a note to a friend. Like some stupid teenage book where the protagonist’s thoughts, feelings and actions are conveyed in the form of private notes and journal entries. Besides Speak I can never bring myself to read them. It feels like I’m invading someone’s mind. I wouldn’t want just some random person to burrow inside my head and extract all my secrets.

         I have a lot of secrets. There are things that I force myself to forget so that when I write down my thoughts those things won’t appear in them. Some of “those things” made me the person I am now. Some of “those things” make me content in my decision to abstain from relationships, sex, and all those other things because no matter how good they are in the short term, afterwards all they do is cause you pain. I’ve seen it enough times to know.

         Sometimes I do wonder what falling in love would be like, though. Like Scheherazade and Shahryar, or Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Logically, I know that kind of love is out of reach for me, but love stories and fairy tales are nice to think of when everything around you is shot to hell. I’ve never really been in love, or even thought I was. I’ve never been sought after or seriously kissed, and I honestly think it is better that way.

         However, from what I understand of human instinct and nature, it’s not natural. I am not natural. I’m a freak. Lucky me. I know you must be a freak too, or you would have never left that letter in my backpack, never sought me out. I don’t know who you are or why you’ve confessed your secrets to me, or how you got me to confess my secrets to you, but I know somehow you must understand.

         This is my last letter to you of the school year. I don’t exactly know how I’ll get through the summer without these confessionals, but I think I’ll have to try. Have a nice summer.





                                                                                                   -LG

6/3/09

         It’s another hot, sticky day in the Southern twigs. We don’t even rate the sticks all the way out here. The winters aren’t so bad, but the summers make you feel like you’re swimming in syrup. I hate this place. Nothing out here but trees and thorns and kudzu.

         You have to respect kudzu. After being taken from its home and being introduced to a totally alien environment, it managed to overtake that environment and create the need for a whole new food chain. Just shows man shouldn’t mess with Nature. She bites back.

         I hate summertime. There’s nothing to do around here but bake and watch TV. Unless, of course, you can drive, which I can’t, even though I have a car for when I finally do. I occasionally go to someone’s house or get a visit from some bored teenager walking by on the road who happens to know me.

         I got a knock on the door the other day from an old friend of mine named Kat, short for Katrina. I’m her summertime best friend, when she doesn’t have physical access to her school year friends.

         Kat is the true product of a southern welfare family. She lives in a four room trailer that looks like it should be condemned and neither of her parents work. However, she has a new cell phone every three months, a new iPod every year, and a big screen HDTV that takes up most of her living room wall that’s complete with DirecTV, a PS3, a DVD-R, and a surround sound system. She also has a car, but with the price of gas the way it is, and the fact we are an hour away from anywhere of importance, she hardly ever uses it.

         She stayed for about twenty minutes, talking about her latest boyfriend. She’s barely 16, he’s 20. She’s been going out with him a week and she’s already slept with him. She is such a fucking slut.

         I’m actually at the point where I miss school. At least school gave me a schedule, something to do. I don’t know why I’m writing in this stupid notebook again. I’ve always hated Journal writing, because I know sometime or another someone will pick up my consciousness and flip through the pages. It’s probably my way of coping with the lack of my mysterious friend.



6/4/09

         I am so bored. I’ve taken up walking, just getting a little exercise and observing the world. I walked to the store yesterday, that’s about a mile, and I saw a moving truck outside the house across the street from it. No people there. Hope that whoever they are, they don’t have any young children. The last thing this world needs is more kids warped by this twisted little town.

         The girls in this town are cultivated sluts. Their mothers make them go out and have sex as soon as they hit puberty, which for some is as young as eight years old, so they can get pregnant and bring more welfare money into the house. Each year there are at least three pubescent pregnancies, maybe more, and each one has more drama surrounding it than and episode of Maury or Jerry Springer where they do paternity tests for twenty different men and still don’t have a definite match.

         If they have teenagers, I hope they don’t have a daughter. A month in this town and she’ll be like the rest of them. We don’t need any more of them.

         Guys aren’t that much better. Who do you think gets these young girls knocked up? They become addicts, dealers, pedophiles, rapists, and ones that move into the cities join gangs and become killers. Some end up marrying whoever they impregnate and end up stuck with someone they don’t love, working two jobs for minimum wage to pay for the rent on their trailers and the liquor that drowns their pain.

         Of course, there is that small percentage, maybe about 2-5%, that actually make something of themselves, but that’s under special circumstances. Like if their parents aren’t from here, or they have enough spiritual strength to resist the temptation. I pride myself on resisting temptation.



6/5/09

         Rumors abound as to who is moving into that old brick house. Everyone figures they must be rich because that house is the oldest, largest, and most expensive in our little town. Of course, it doesn’t register it doesn’t count for much. The house was built in 1900, has two floors, an attic and basement, two car garage that was added in the 1980’s, and about an acre of woods behind it.

         I’ve heard things like a movie star or singer trying to escape the paparazzi, some wrestler from the WWE recovering from muscle damage (that hasn’t occurred yet), and a cousin of Kat’s says it’s Paris Hilton. I mean really? That’s just ridiculous. Even if she decide to rough it the mosquitoes would eat her alive within the week.

         That moving truck is the most exciting thing to happen to this stupid little town since Hope Baptist church had that sex scandal. I don’t know what someone else would think, but I think that’s pretty sad.



6/6/09

         Well, I’m rather disappointed. Kat’s friend Taylor has an aunt who works at the Real Estate agency that sold the house. She told Taylor who bought it, Taylor texted Kat, and they decided to three-way-call me.

         It’s some middle-aged widower from Bob-knows-where who could afford to go into early retirement and decided to move down here to “get away from all the stress.” He has two children with him who have been living separately for the last four years after his wife died. One is a teenage girl named Sophie who is about fourteen, and the other is a son, named Gabriel. Taylor’s aunt couldn’t divulge his age. Kat is just sitting on edge, hoping that Gabriel is a good-looking 18-year-old with his own car and a taste for promiscuity. I’m surprised Kat hasn’t gotten pregnant yet considering she doesn’t believe in birth control.



6/8/09

         Two days until Marcas Lanaghan and his kids move in. Yeah, I finally found out their last name. Katrina’s mother is all riled up trying to put together a “welcome basket” for him. Really, it’s just an excuse to slip him an address book full of names, addresses and phone numbers of all the single women in the town, including the barely legals.

         Mrs. Parker loves playing Emma for our little town. Ever since she messed up her back and got put on disability, she makes it her job to be the matchmaking gossip queen. I wish she would mind her own business. She keeps trying to find me a boyfriend and make Kat get pregnant. She’s an absolute HELL to be around.



6/10/09

         It’s about eleven p.m. I spent the majority of the day up at the store, sucking down bottles of water like I had been in the desert for about a month and watching the moving men across the street move in the last of the cardboard boxes.

         Luckily, Kat was buying, because I couldn’t have afforded how much we drank from the time we started watching at noon until that blue Ford Focus pulled into that driveway, followed five minutes later by a hunter green Mustang convertible. I was in love. At least, I think that’s the emotion I was feeling. It may have been envy, I don’t know, but it was strong, and it was something.

         I was so busy studying the car that I didn’t even notice the people in it until I heard the door slam and was broken from my daze. I saw the girl first, waifish and breast less, with chocolate brown hair and a pair of black velvet eyes. She couldn’t have been more than five foot even, and the light coming off the setting sun made her look like a child Goddess with her salon-painted tan. She was wearing a tight blue t-shirt and faded jeans. I couldn’t see her shoes, the car hid them.

         Then I saw who must have been Gabriel. He looks about sixteen, with straight black ear-length hair and the same eyes his sister sported. He has a more natural tan, one you usually see on people with minimal amounts of Native American genes that spend a lot of time in the sun. Something else I noticed, he is yet another case of Mississippi androgyny. Is he from Mississippi? I don’t know.

         He isn’t really all that impressive to me, but Kat nearly fainted. I noticed his Dad, who I had been told was about fifty, but it was hard to believe. Only the few streaks of gray at his temples and wrinkles that showed when he crinkles up his forehead gives it away. You could definitely see where the two angels got their looks from.

         After talking to his dad for a couple of minutes he started walking across the street, towards us, or rather the store. Kat started asking how her hair looked, which never frizzed at all no matter the humidity and glowed bright gold in the crimson light of the rapidly dying sun. I wish I had Kat’s hair. It’s like finely spun gold silk that curled perfectly every time it dried. I hate my hair, I’ve heard it described as strawberry blond, or red-gold, and this one ad in Teen People labeled it as copper, all pretty labels for ugly orange frizz.

         Anyway, he came over to the store and went inside, not even looking at the two sweaty girls in tank tops and shorts leaning against the wall close to the door. He walked out five minutes later with a brown paper bag full of clinking glass bottles.

         I wasn’t going to say anything. I was going to let him go on his way, but Kat has no notion of privacy. She did her best to fake-bump into him as he exited the store, catching the bag and steadying it to keep him from spilling and breaking the contents. “Sorry!” She said in her most girlishly flirty voice, “Must not have been looking where I was going. Hi,” She stuck out her hand to be shaken, “I’m Katrina Parker, and you are?” As if she didn’t already know. From the way she looked him over it seemed as if she wanted to eat him alive, with a spoon. She adjusted the bag in his arms and shook her hand politely, “Gabriel Lanaghan. It’s nice to meet you.” He said it very stiffly, as if given the choice he wouldn’t be speaking to her at all. This was refreshing. Usually the guys just fell all over themselves over Kat. This one didn’t seem even mildly interested.

         She spoke in his general direction for about 45 seconds before saying, “Oh, how rude of me!” and pulled me into view. I saw some micro expression flit across his face, too fast to determine. Then Katrina said, “This is my friend Lillia Gracen.” She pushed my arm forward, though I tried to fight, and he quickly took it. His hand was cool and he had a firm grip on me. His eyes almost searched for mine, boring into them as if to divulge all my secrets from the pattern of my irises. I pulled my hand away, and lowered my eyes so he could not try to dive into the oceanic blue-green depths again.

         Kat chatted on, apparently not noticing or ignoring the fact that he no longer paid attention to her. I don’t know why, but at that moment I wished that I didn’t sweat so much, that my hair wasn’t so frizzy, that my fair skin wasn’t so marred by freckles and scarred from my jaded past. Then, something brought me out of my self-loathing. Gabriel said something, “It’s just going to be me and my sister for a few weeks after tomorrow. Dad’s heading back home to close up the house and tie up a few loose ends.” I dreaded these words, because I knew what was going to come next, and in half a second, those horrible words came from Kat’s lips. “You should totally have a party while your dad’s gone.” He voiced his apprehension but she paid no mind, and somehow convinced him to take her across the street to his house so she could meet his sister. I tried to stay, but she dragged me along by my arm.

         Sophie is a sweet girl. She went to a Catholic school, per request of her late mother, and was very firm in her faith. She is, however, incredibly naïve, and believed Kat when she said it would be a small and simple party. “Small and simple” in Kat’s eyes is “Large and dangerous” in the normal person’s. He offered to drive us home and Kat took the offer. I, however, tried very hard to decline, saying that it’d be better if I walked. Gabriel said it would be safer if he drove me than if I walked home in the dark, and I realized that no matter my excuse, I didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

         We went outside to the car and he opened the front passenger side door, gesturing for me to get in. After I complied and avoided Kat’s glaring gaze he opened the back door for her. He drove me home and we stayed in relative silence, Kat chattering away in the back seat. It only took five minutes, but seemed so much longer. He dropped me off at my house, an almost triple-wide single trailer with Masonite siding and an attached porch that almost passed it off as a real house.

         I left the car, not waiting for him to open the door, and slammed it behind me, not even bothering to say goodbye or thank you. I went up the steps to the door, taking out my house keys from my pocket and hastily unlocking it. Both of my parents work nightshift, so I’m home alone all night and usually out all day while they sleep. The only day I usually see them is Sunday, when Dad makes chocolate chip pancakes and the three of us eat together before the church bus comes and picks me up at about 9:45. It surprises me they still keep up this tradition, even after….

         I went inside, locking the door behind me, and quickly ran to the bathroom, stripping off my clothes and turning the cold water on full blast. After scrubbing myself raw and nearly making myself sick with cold, I turned off the water, dried off, put on my nightgown and started writing. I am dreading the next few days. Kat will be thinking of nothing but that party and how many people she thinks she can fit into that house.



6/15/09

         I haven’t been at home since the morning after the last time I wrote. I kept trying to come home, trying to get away from Kat and her party planning and makeover madness, but I obviously did not prevail. I spent three nights at her house, and the days were spent house hopping and shopping in Southaven. She made me get my hair and nails done and bought me this ridiculous chocolate brown cotton halter dress and a pair of matching sandals to wear to the party. I hated it. I wanted to burn every piece of girly clothing in the world. Especially anything that involved the color pink. She invited about every single teenager in the tri-county area to the stupid party, even though I told her this was not a smart idea.

         When the actual day of the party came, she slathered my face in makeup, also all shades of brown, and spent almost the entire day on the phone. I got so pissed at her when she came out of her room in what she was going to wear, and I asked her why she got to wear jeans if I couldn’t. She just rolled her eyes and dragged me out to the car. I don’t know why I let her push me around. She’s done it since we were little and I’ve always put up with it.

         We got to the Lanaghan house at about 4, three hours or so earlier than everyone else planned to show up. I stayed silent the whole time, curled up in the squashy armchair while Gabriel sat on the couch and watched TV. They already had the DirecTV set up so he must have flipped through about four hundred some odd channels of absolute crap before he decided to put it on one of the XM channels. Kat and Sophie just disappeared upstairs, every once in a while we could hear loud giggling from the floor above us.

         Soon enough, people started showing up. I tried my best to stay out of the notice of all the teenagers cut from their inhibitions by the lack of adult supervision, but Kat kept drawing me in. I realized soon enough that some of the kids had brought alcohol. People kept shoving plastic cups of the foul-smelling liquid into my hands, but I just left them on the nearest table I could find when they stopped watching.

         I completely lost track of Gabriel, and he was the only person there who I actually knew besides Kat. I snuck up the stairs and into the attic, the only uninhabited space in the building. I sat on the window seat next to the large window facing out to the street, mostly blocked by wandering oak branches from the tree next to the house. I was there for several minutes before the door opened.

         I jumped at the sound of the door creaking open, not knowing who it would be. I relaxed only slightly when I saw it was Gabriel. It’s late, and I’m tired. I’ll finish writing about this tomorrow





6/16/09



         To continue my little story, Gabriel and I sat up there and talked for a few hours. When it hit midnight I said I should probably go home. I opened the window and climbed out onto the wandering oak branches. He asked if I was insane, but followed my example. It would be better than going through the crowd, at least. He actually made it to the ground first because I was on a low branch trying to negotiate a way to jump down without my dress coming up and flashing anyone who happened to be looking through the window inside. He stood beneath me, holding his arms up in a gesture I knew well from childhood. So, sitting on the branch and placing my hands on his shoulders as he put his on my hips, he gently lowered me safely to the ground.

         He got that look in his eyes again, that mix of curiosity and fascination. I realized that he had wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me to him. I had tilted my head backwards by reflex Scarlett O’Hara style, and was frozen for several moments as he leaned over me. I suppose he inferred my wishes from the fact that I didn’t respond to him, and released me, going over to the Mustang and opening the passenger side door for me. I nodded in thanks, both for his courtesy of opening the door and not trying to force himself on me, and quietly got into the car.

         As I looked into the window, I saw Sophie standing in the living room behind the chair at sat in earlier next to Kat. She was smoking something I’m absolutely sure was not a cigarette. Someone blocked the view of her before Gabriel turned enough to notice. He pulled out of the driveway and drove me home, pulling in to the longer driveway next to my house that lead back into several houses in the woods. I thanked him for driving me home and searched through my purse for my keys.

         When I looked up at him his expression was different, unrecognizable to me because I’ve never seen it before, and then he slipped his arm around my waist again and pulled me close. I was scared more than anything, and my pounding heart and shocked expression tried to convey it. I closed my eyes, feeling his soothing warm breath on my face. He had eaten something spicy at the party, something with jalapenos on it that I could smell on his breath. His face was far too close to mine, and it lingered there, his lips barely touching mine. I wished vehemently then that he would either back off so I could leave or kiss me so I could hit him. He did neither, just continuing to hold me and linger at my mouth.

          When he finally moved it wasn’t to do either of those things. He turned his face slightly, taking my free hand and lifting it to his lips, kissing it in a way that real Southern Gentlemen do. Then, he released me, said Good Night in the tones of a lover that I only recognized from the movies, and I quickly got out of the car, walking around it and half running to the steps on my porch and up to the door, fumbling with the keys with my shaking hands. Eventually I got the door open and started writing. It’s early in the morning, about 7 I think, I’m sure I’ll need to come back and write more before the end of the day.













6/17/09



         I’m running on absolutely no sleep and absolute adrenaline. I told Gabriel I didn’t know how to drive because my parents never had time to teach me. I have a car, a rather used rust-orange Mustang GT. Not too sure of the year. Anyway, Gabriel spent all of yesterday teaching me how to drive with a stick-shift. Well, most of the day. For about four hours before the sun went down we went swimming down at the lake, and then we started driving again. Made me nervous to drive at night, but Kat was with us the whole time and she kept telling me to just relax and it would be fine.

         I really wish she hadn’t made me go back over there when she found out I had snuck off to go home. She didn’t realize until like eight in the morning yesterday because that’s when she woke up after three hours of sleep and started kicking the people still straggling out of Gabriel’s house. Sophie had her first hangover, and Gabriel told her off for drinking in the first place.

         Anyway, yeah, it’s about ten and I need to get some sleep. I’m going to stay in and recuperate for the next couple of days, no matter who comes to drag me out of my house.



6/19/09



         Gabriel came over this morning, way early, like six maybe. I had just woken up and was making myself some coffee when he tapped on the door, quiet enough for me to hear but not loud enough to wake my parents. How he knew I would be up this early, I have no idea. I opened the door only slightly, because I looked an absolute mess. Not that I cared what I looked like to him, but my mother would give me hell if she happened to wake up.

         As soon as I saw it was him I remembered why he was there. The night of the party he told me that today was his birthday and that since he couldn’t be with his usual friends and family, he wanted to spend the day with Kat, Sophie and I. However, at the time, I was incredibly tired. Five minutes after I agreed to help him celebrate his seventeenth birthday I completely forgot he had said anything about it, and ten minutes after that I was in my bed asleep.

         I apologized for my forgetfulness and let him come inside, telling him I might be a while. I drank my coffee, which had about six packs of Irish Crème flavored creamer in it from the Exxon that my mom stops at every night on the way home and about four spoons of sugar. After that, I showered and got dressed. I tamed my hair a bit and pulled it back into a ponytail. I didn’t know what exactly we would be doing today, so I dressed in a way that was adaptable. I put on a pair of dark blue jeans, a black tank top, and then a short sleeved black button-down. I put on some black sandals and a ton of sunscreen, and when I was done I told Gabriel I was ready to go. We went out to his car and I got in the front seat.

         We picked up Kat and then went back to his house to get Sophie. The entire time he let me control the radio. Kat was just seething. I couldn’t understand why. I mean, I knew she wanted him, which was obvious. Kat wants every person of the male persuasion that comes into her line of vision. I also was aware enough to know he was paying more attention to me than her. That fact made me incredibly uncomfortable.

         We went into town and caught a movie, then went out to eat at CiCi’s. The food was amazing. I love all you can eat buffets. Especially when I have those…well, I refer to them as spells. Anyway, after that we went back to Gabriel’s house and just chilled. Drank soda and talked about our lives. A lot of things came up in the conversation; Movies, school and social experience, beliefs and wants and needs. After Kat and Sophie went upstairs and passed out on Sophie’s bed, our conversation took a different turn. Somehow it went from religion to love.  I didn’t particularly like that conversation. I said a lot more than I should have. Anyway, I told him to take me home at around eleven. Said my parents would kill me if I slept over. As if they would notice.

         So, now I’m here, writing, falling asleep and stuff. Hopefully I won’t have to do anything the next couple of days. I’m completely wiped.



8/6/09



         Back at school, and man was that a hell of a summer. I haven’t been able to write since last time because of everything that’s been going on. I’m sitting in sixth period study hall right now. It’s the first free time I’ve had in ages. I have three classes with Gabriel, one with Sophie, and all but this class with Kat. She’s acting all cold to me again. It’s alright though, I’m used to it. Though you’d think she’d be a little more grateful….

         I had another episode last week, felt like I was going to die. I locked myself in my room, and then confined myself in my closet for about seven hours while it passed. I was super hungry afterwards, like I always am, so I made steak for dinner. Super rare for me, medium for my parents. I ate the biggest one, two baked potatoes and a mess of mushrooms and onions. The bloody meat was the only thing that really satisfied, though. After that I drank a full half gallon of chocolate milk that was in the fridge and what was left of a half gallon of orange juice, both straight from the carton. After that I fell asleep on the couch watching my Phantom of the Opera DVD and didn’t wake up until two in the afternoon the next day. It’s never been that bad before.

         Gabriel called me after I showered. The timing was almost perfect. He asked me if I wanted to go down to the beach with him, and I declined. Told him I wasn’t feeling well. I wonder how many times I can use that excuse before he gets all suspicious on me. Maybe if I tell him I have a weak immune system or something….

         Anyway, I spent the last few days of summer regulating my sleep cycle back to normal. I have to wake up at five in the morning to be ready to catch the bus at six and ride for an hour to get to school at seven. I get home at about four. School is going to be harder this year. I noticed I’ve been getting worse. Being around all these people, all these teenagers thick in a fog of pheromone smells, all those heavy beating hearts, is not going to help matters any. My skin is losing more of its color, but I’ve been doing that on purpose with this freckle-fading cream and staying out of the sun more. I think I’m the palest person ever to live in this incredibly sunny state.

         I find myself wondering when I’ll get a letter from my mysterious friend. I ask myself who they might be and who I would want it to be. I ponder on whether or not Gabriel would be able to accept my… condition. No. That last one would never happen. Kat thinks I’m a freak; that I’m going through a phase in my developmental adolescence. She kept my secret because, quote, “I know one day I’ll have to ask you to keep something for me.” Now I have that something. We act at school like we barely know each other, but in reality we know each other’s darkest secret. We share a bond that is strong, but easily broken with the slightest act of betrayal. All she has to do is get too wasted and start talking to the right person and my life will be over. Well, if that happens, I can take her down with me.

         I counted up the pregnancies. Ten total, including the miscarriages that happened over the summer. It’s positively insane. At least I have common ground with Gabriel in thinking this little sub-society in Podunk Mississippi is utterly ridiculous. No one else seems to think so. Even Sophie is becoming acclimated to her new environment. I have a strange feeling Sophie is just like kudzu.

There’s the bell.







8/7/09



         Got my parking pass today. I wish I could drive to school every day, but gas costs so much that I can only use it once or twice a week on my bad days. My parents think I’m being cost smart, really I’m just thinking of everyone else’s safety. I got my license last month. Just in time to help Kat in a serious time of need. So now I can drive totally by myself. Gabriel actually taught me how, and my mom had been working so much overtime she had enough hours built up to take a day off to take me to get my license. I’m not going to see my parents at all anymore. They’ll be gone off to work by the time I get home.

         Gabriel came over to my house yesterday afternoon. I didn’t let him in, but he came over and knocked on the door. I had no lights on since it was late afternoon and the TV was off. I was filling out the mountain of paperwork for my mom to sign when she got home. He practically begged to be let in. He knew I was home. I suppose it was rude but I just can’t be alone with him right now, not until I get myself back into the cycle and under control again. Maybe after the first four review weeks I can start hanging out with him again.

         My spells are coming closer together now. I can feel another one coming already and it’s only been a week and a half since the last one. I can’t take this anymore. It’s killing me. The pain, the hunger, that sick burning feeling deep inside me that keeps building and building like a nuclear charge until it finally explodes, it’s become too much for me. There’s no one I can go to for help. No one would believe me. Normal people would believe I’m crazy, and psychiatrists would think I was making it up.

         I have to remind myself to leave a note for mom. I’m going to have to take the ACT this year, and she needs to know how much it’s going to cost and everything in advance.



8/11/09



         I got a letter stuck in my backpack today. It’s from my mysterious friend. At the sight of that clear print handwriting my anxiety melted away instantly, until I saw its contents. It said:



Dear Lillia,

         I will give you one task, and one task only. Do not respond to me until you have completed it and if you try it will be ignored. I’m going to tell you to do something obvious that should have been done already. You have to tell the angel your secret. It is necessary. When this has been done, stick your response in the usual place. I’ll be waiting.



         I was completely flabbergasted. My friend wanted me to tell Gabriel what I was. That was impossible. I read the letter multiple times until the bell for first period rang, then I folded it up and put it back in the pocket of my backpack. I guess I’ll have to figure out a way to tell him. Maybe I’ll be lucky and he’ll think I’m joking. Then I can say that I told him and it won’t be a lie. I’ll risk losing Gabriel’s friendship to keep that of my comforting friend. How to tell him though? That will take some pondering.

         I can’t believe I’m actually considering this. The only person I’ve ever told was Kat, and that was because I thought she wouldn’t remember. She was so wasted that night I’m surprised she could recall her own name.







8/15/09



         Well, he knows. I didn’t tell him directly, but he knows. He just left. It’s about 10 at night. I’m lucky my parents decided to sleep over at my grandmother’s today and visit with her, because it would have been hell if they had walked in on us last night.

         I feel regenerated. I’m full, glowing and happy. The hunger’s temporarily abated and I’m free of that horrible sick feeling. He knows and he understands. Well, not entirely, but he’s being supportive.

         I drove to and from school yesterday because it was a bad day. I had to keep my mouth shut all day for fear of the consequences. Gabriel knew something was wrong when I wouldn’t talk to him, when my hands were shaking and my legs twitching. When I got home I forgot to lock the door I was in such a hurry to get to my room. That’s where I slipped up.

         Gabriel came over to check on me. He was quiet coming in, so I couldn’t hear him over the loud music I had playing to cover any screaming I might do during the process. He opened my door while I was on all fours, facing the door, my skin ice cold and the pain in my heart near unbearable. I told him to get out, and he asked me what was wrong. I thought at the moment that he was so stupid. I screamed at him to get out and I forced my way to my feet, shaking. He refused to leave, and I tried to push him out enough to close and lock my bedroom door. However, I was weak, and he simply grabbed my wrists and shook me, demanding I tell him why I was so sick. He asked me if I was on drugs. “Ha! I wish it was that simple.” I remember saying.

         Then he surprised me. “Tell me what I can do.” I told him he would regret those words. He said, “Never.” Then went on to say how he’d do anything. He reiterated the point several times. Finally, the animal in me overtook the sense. So, I pulled him into my room, closed and locked the door, and then lead him over to my bed and pushed him down on it.

         I have a sort of Catholic-Wiccan sort or Altar in my room. I quickly swiped the sharpened brass letter opener that served as a ritual knife off of it while he was distracted. I think he thought I was going to kiss him, or jump his bones or something. I was panting, and we were both sweaty from the heat and exhaustion of the day. My whole room was covered in gold light from the setting sun. I took a picture of the scene in my head. He smelled intoxicating to me.

         While he was looking directly into my eyes I lifted up his left arm and sliced it with the letter opener. I cut off to the side so it bled enough, but missing any major artery. It was sharp enough that by the time it began to sting my mouth was already on the wound, sucking away at the blood.

         I instantly felt stronger. That pain started fading away and that burning turned into a bright light inside that spread through every nerve. Gabriel didn’t fight me, he didn’t freak, he just let me do it. I don’t know what expressions he was making, but I imagined disgust. Turns out I was wrong. When I was done and the wound had stopped bleeding, I licked his arm clean and then pulled away. I was standing up straight now. No shaking, eyes no longer hungry and scared. I felt…whole. He placed his hand on my cheek and I moved into its warmth. He wiped what must have been blood from my lips softly with his thumb. I could not identify what the look in his eyes was, but I know what it was now.

         The next thing happened so fast that I couldn’t stop it from happening if I tried. He moved hi hand behind my neck, pulled me forward and kissed me faster then you could say jackrabbit. It felt nice. He was warm and his lips were soft and loving. He used his other arm, the one I had cut and fed from, to pull me close, and he winced. It brought me back to reality.

         I pulled away, and said, quietly and as mouse like as I had been when we first met, “I can fix that.” I went and grabbed my first aid kit out of the bathroom and came back. I dabbed some alcohol on the wound, and then put a gauze bandage over it. He winced and hissed a few times, but the wound was clean, so there was nothing to worry about. I turned the music down, and I sat next to him on my bed. We were in silence for the longest time. He was the first to speak.

         “I know what you are, that’s why I didn’t freak out.” This surprised me. I didn’t even know what I was. Not really. I told him that and he explained how he knew quite a few people like me when he went to school in Memphis. They had a sort of club, and he had found out by accident what it was they actually did in their private parties. We talked for hours. He asked me questions and I answered as best I could. Finally he started to yawn, and I made him lay down. We curled up together, spoon-fashion under my blanket. He slept all night. I couldn’t. I had too much energy. However, I was content to lay there with his arm around me, feeling him breathe and his heartbeat against my back.

         Early in the morning I got up and made him breakfast. He asked why I didn’t eat. I said I didn’t need to after I…fed. I made him drink extra orange juice and gave him some blood-replenishing vitamins. He ate a ton. We hung out and watched movies all day. It was a nice feeling, having someone to talk to. He withstood three or four gushy Jane Austen romances and we made out on the couch. Then he finally said he should be heading home before his dad ended up filing a missing person’s report.

         Must remember to write a note to my mysterious friend telling them I completed their task, omitting a few details of how it came about. Plus, I still need to finish my Algebra homework.