An Undead Boy

Danielle didn't leave my house until the sun began to rise over the houses in my street on Sunday morning. I stayed awake the whole night with her, just lying on the bed. We didn't say much because we didn't have to, content with just being with each other; instead, she curled up beside me with her arms around my cold body, my head tucked against her shoulder. I'm not sure where she found the courage from to lie next to the boy who maimed her; she will probably have a scar on her neck for the rest of her life. I wish I possessed even half the bravery she does.

When the sky turned a glowing pink and the beams of light started to expand on my bedroom wall, I walked her to my front door, all the while thinking how it constituted as a sort of bizarre date.

Saying goodbye to her was awkward - whatever strength she had used to endure the night before had dispersed, so we hung about the door, looking everywhere but at each other. When we finally decided that it was time for her to go before her parents figured out the fact she was missing, we were caught in a clumsy embrace - I had leaned in to hug her but she had stretched up to kiss me on the cheek. The result was that my elbow somehow ended up in her stomach and our heads had clashed together. I hadn't felt a thing but Danielle had to check in the mirror to see if she was bleeding.

I don't know what she decided to tell her parents when she arrived back home but her mother hasn't descended upon my home in a furious rage so I think we have gotten away with it.

Danielle had left me with a promise to meet in the library at lunchtime and made me swear to show up at school. True to my word, I took a shower, brushed my teeth, put on fresh clothes and left my house even earlier than I usually would this morning to make sure I got to school on time but I think it's because I'm mostly eager to see Danielle again.

I'm currently standing alone in the corridor outside my classroom, tapping a foot impatiently against the floor so that my shoe slaps against the linoleum.

"Psst."

I turn and see a boy with sandy hair peering at me from between the lockers and an open doorway. He waves at me and, although I wonder whether this is a trick, I hurry over to him. His face seems familiar and it's not until I remember the flash of Arthur's mobile phone in my face that I know who it is and that I'm safe.

"Um...Matthew Wilkes?"

"Matt, please - Matthew is what my grandmother calls me." he says with a laugh, stepping out from his hiding place.

Up close, he's exactly what I expect a former football player to look like. Lean, impossibly tall, with an air of grace that I can only dream of in my zombie state and a face that wouldn't look out of place on the catwalk. For all of that though, he seems to carry some burden on his back, his shoulders a little too taut, and I think this is what makes him almost impossibly handsome - he doesn't seem aware of his appearance, he only cares about whatever problem he is holding close to him. No wonder Arthur likes him, I think he loves the idea of being with someone with emotional scars, someone to look after.

"I just wanted to talk to you but it's been impossible to find you on your own." he explains, casting an eye around the corridor before catching me watching him. A blush creeps across his cheeks. "I don't want it to feel like I only want to know you away from everyone else but - "

I stop him, shrug nonchalantly. "I know what people are like, I wouldn't want you to put yourself in the position of being an outcast. We're ignorant and unfair because the world lets us believe we can be. We don't get a handbook on what's moral and what's not and that's a good thing - if there was one, we'd probably be in a worse state. Better for us to believe in what we want rather than have our beliefs dictated to us."

He nods solemnly and raises a hand to pat my arm but thinks better of it.

"It must have been hard having your friends ditch you. Whenever I see you around school, you're on your own - I mean, until you were with the girl, Danielle. Arthur told me about you and her."

The bell rings and from a distance, we can hear the faint stampede of feet as our classmates prepare to swarm the corridors. Matt is worried.

"Look, I better go." he says apologetically. "She's better than all of us - better than me, or them. I'm glad you have her."

I wave goodbye to him as I walk back to my classroom door.

"So do I." I sigh under my breath, so quiet that I'm sure he hasn't heard me.



"You came." Danielle says, relief evident in her voice.

I drop my bag to the floor as I walk, leaving it God knows where. My sole focus is her. "I promised I would."

The usually comforting smell of books in the air isn't enough to settle my nerves when I make my way toward Danielle. I've been thinking about it all morning and I want to see the damage I've done, even if it will hurt like hell.

My voice is flat, my face blank. "Let me see it."

She doesn't even hesitate. With trembling hands, she unbuttons the top of her shirt, our eyes locked together. To anybody else, this situation would be considered intimate but me and Danielle are carefully watching the others reaction, trying to guess what the other is thinking. Is she shaking because she's scared of me now? A small part of me wants her to be, so that she can save herself. It's like the first time we met, in this very spot, all over again but so much more terrible.

Her hands drop to her sides, her face paler than usual. From beneath her collar, I can see a square patch of a plaster and my stomach twists. I reach up and angle her face to the side as gently as I can, keeping the one hand tucked under her chin as I move aside her shirt with the other. Her breathing hitches but I ignore it, tracing the edge of the plaster with a finger. There's the slightest shadow of bruising there.

"I did this." I whisper, my voice cracking.

Danielle tries to move her head to look at me but I hold it in place, picking at the corner of the plaster with my nail. I have to see what I've done. I pause, gathering myself, and slowly peel the plaster away from her neck. The sight makes me dizzy, I'm utterly disgusted at what I am seeing.

Without the cover of the bandage, there's a pattern of blue and purple stamped across her snowy skin. The indents where my teeth sank into her flesh are still imprinted there, the marks a perfect match for the set of teeth in my mouth and a vile reminder that it was me who attacked her. I lean in and she stiffens, her pulse throbbing under my hand, gentle and quick but I don't want to bite her again, as appalled as I can be by myself. Instead I press my lips against her throat, just above the wound, breathing out apology after apology.

"It doesn't hurt. Really." she whimpers, her hand vice-like on my arm.

After I cover up the bite mark again, I angle my face so that we're nose to nose. I don't care that we're in a public place, even if it is the secluded library, but even if someone did walk in right now, it wouldn't matter. In my mind, there's no one but the two of us.

"You scared?" I whisper, sliding my hands down her neck.

She shakes her head, no.

I want to make amends, I want to make up for spoiling - destroying - our kiss and although I have no way of knowing if the hunger will kick in again, I'm willing to take the risk. It's crazy and senseless to put her in danger time after time but I can't stay away; I want to give us both at least one pure moment.

She holds still, as if she thinks it will make it easier for me but as I feel her lips barely brush mine, I figure something out and my great plan falls apart.

"I am." I tell her. "I'm scared."

I watch her eyes as they blink, see them as they flit across my face - the eyes I can't get enough of. A smile lights them up; I don't have to see the corners of her mouth twitch to know she is smiling.

"Well then..." she says gently, her hands winding up and behind my neck. "It's a good job that I'm not."

I can feel the grin on her lips even as she kisses me. The sheer nerve of her astonishes me. Why has she not ran from me yet? She knows more than the rest of the school, she knows that I bit her and may lose control and do it again. She has more reason than the rest of them to fear me but she doesn't. I tug her hair out of its ponytail and she makes a noise of surprise in the back of her throat, strands of it getting caught between our faces.

"Sorry." I laugh, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I like it down."

When we pull away from each other, there is no hunger this time, just Danielle's heavy breathing on my face.

"It's okay. I like your hair down, too."

And that's all it takes. I hug her.

I hug her like the world is ending. I hug her to assure that everything will be alright even though there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that could make anything alright ever again. I hug her like she's dying, because she is - with every waking and sleeping second and I can't do anything about it. I hug her like I'm dying, even though I know I'm not and maybe never will.

It's a hug that feels like a goodbye and maybe she can sense it too somehow because when I pull away, there are tear tracks down her cheeks.

We stay in the library for the rest of the day, wrapped up in ourselves as I whisper stories to her, my fingers twisting through her hair.