For What You Are

Kara’s first day passed by fairly quickly. Barely anyone noticed her, but she didn’t particularly care. She was good at keeping her head down and doing her work. Or at least…keeping her head down. The work was another thing.

As she walked to her car after school she noted with vague satisfaction that the guy she’d beat up this afternoon walked quite quickly in the opposite direction after catching sight of her. Sliding into the red coloured driver’s seat of her car, she found herself sitting next to Kale who almost startled her out of the car.

“Shit! You scared the crap out of me!” Kara attempted to restart her heart as well as her car, to no avail. It seemed multi-tasking was out of the question. “Hang on…how the hell did you get in here? I’m pretty sure I locked the car doors.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” he said with a wide smile, looking up at me.

“Well you certainly did,” Kara replied, breathing heavily. “And you have exquisite timing.”

“All in the genes,” he replied smugly. “My dad was a drummer, my grandmother was a dancer.”

“Yeah, my coordination is pretty much non existent if it doesn’t involve me pummelling somebody. Did you see my major stack this morning? My books went flying everywhere. It was like something out of a comic book.”

“I can imagine,” he replied, making to get out of the car. “It’s a shame I missed it.”

“Wait, do you need a lift somewhere?” Kara asked.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Kale said, sitting back down quickly as Kara finally managed to start up the ignition. “Nice car.”

She responded by shooting a death stare at him as she drove out of the parking lot. “It’s not like you can talk,” she replied stonily. “I don’t see you driving.”

“Touché,” he replied. “Can’t say I’ve ever driven a car, much less owned one.”

“Left or right?” Kara asked as she stared at the unfamiliar roads.

“Right,” Kale said before continuing. “And it’s not like not owning a car is a big deal. I mean, in social status, when you’re as low as me it doesn’t really matter what you own – people are going to beat the crap out of you anyway.”

“Not while I’m around kid.”

“And why do you keep calling me kid?” he asked in annoyance. “I mean, how does that work out if I’m a senior and you’re a junior.”

“How old are you?” Kara inquired as they stopped at the traffic lights. “Which way?”

“Left,” Kale responded promptly. “I’m seventeen, I was born on the 16th July.”

“And how long have you been sevent – actually, screw that. Bringing Twilight into a conversation is the epitome of all hell on earth.”

“I whole heartedly agree,” Kale said honestly.

“Finally!” Kara said in joy. “Somebody who is not obsessed with the whole ‘I’m-a-sparkly-vampire’ thing. Honestly, every time I see Edward Cullen I feel like throwing glitter on his picture and telling him that he is no longer an undercover vampire. Then he’ll get so angry that he’ll have to drink off a human, proving the whole Stephenie Meyer vampire theory wrong.”

“You’ve really thought that through haven’t you,” he said incredulously.

“No, I was just ranting.”

“Oh,” he replied before complimenting me. “Well you’re very good at it.”

“My roommate tells me that all the time,” Kara said. “Left or right?”

“Left, left, then straight for a bit.”

“I mean seriously,” Kara continued. “It’s like the world cannot come up with anything better. First it was vampires and that started off a reboot of the whole supernatural sub-genre which has now branched off into angels, werewolves and immortals.”

“I do have to admit,” Kale replied looking a bit uncomfortable in his seat. “It is a bit over the top. But I mean, not all of its absolute bullcrap.”

Kara found herself scoffing, “What makes you say that?”

“It’s the whole Mystic Falls legend I guess. Stories say this place has been haunted for hundreds of years.”

She laughed at his comment but when she looked t his serious face she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of reasoning inside of her. However she pushed it away as logic recovered its position once again. “Haunted by ghosts? C’mon Kale, I thought you were smarter than that.”

“Ghosts or not,” he shrugged. “The legends were pretty vague. Basically everything supernatural is attracted to this town. It’s like the centre of the supernatural universe.”

“Well I guess we’d all better escape the Hellmouth then,” Kara said in a pretend-fearful voice. But when she looked at Kale he looked at her with a questioning look. “Buffy reference,” she started. “You know the vampire slayer…Hellmouth…”

He still looked confused. “Jeez kid,” Kara replied as she looked out the window. “Have you been living in a hole for the past thirteen years?”

“This place IS a hole,” he muttered as he pointed out the window. “It’s this house here.”

Kara turned into the driveway and let him out. “See you tomorrow yeah?”

“Yeah,” he replied through the open window. As walked to the front door and I reversed out of the driveway, he called out, “You never told me how old you were!”

She smiled before yelling back, “I’m one day older than you!”