You Fight For All The Wrong Reasons

I've never had to knock on wood
But I know someone who has
Which makes me wonder if I could
It makes me wonder if
I've never had to knock on wood
And I'm glad I haven't yet
Because I'm sure it isn't good
That's the impression that I get
- The Impression That I Get by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

At lunch, I was always faced with the same choice:
A. Sit with Cam and his vampire brothers and feel out of place,
B. Sit with the pack and feel like you belong, or
C. Sit with the humans and feel superior.

Today, Cam caught my eye before Alicia could wave me over, so I wandered over to his table and pulled up a chair between Cam and his “brother”, Constantine.

“Hey, Audrey,” Constantine welcomed, the shine of his dark brown curls illuminating his perfect face. I smiled back. I was lucky to have the majority of the Paynes be so open towards me, majority being the key word there. I had already received three death glares from Vanessa, Ethan, and Liza, as they abruptly stood up and glided away.

“Ignore them,” Cam said as Stella slid into the empty seat that Vanessa had just occupied. She tossed back her golden curls and clasped her manicured hands. “You look troubled,” she observed, cocking her head slightly and smiling just as subtly. “What’s wrong?”

“Well…” I traced a squiggly pattern on the table with my fingertip. Six pairs of eyes followed its path. “You guys all know about our little incident in the shed,” I said, carefully rephrasing “the place where you used to store all of your victim’s bodies” into “the shed”. Six heads nodded, butterscotch eyes intensely attentive. Cam must have told them what had happened.

“Okay. Well, I was just wondering…if you guys had anything to do with it…like,” I pursed my lips. That hadn’t come out the way I had planned.

Constantine’s eyes blazed. “Of course not! We would never harm the pack of Cam’s one and only,” he scoffed.

“Okay, okay,” I said, holding my hands up. “No need to get all excited. I just…Mitch is really sick, and I would love to kill the person who did that to him.”

“Love to kill? Well, you’re in the right place,” said Ella, Cam’s dark and intense-eyed sister. Her hair fell to her shoulders in long, luxurious waves, and her red lips were upturned into a slight teasing smile.

“Ha ha. So, what are we going to do about this?”

“We can take a look in the shack tonight. We’ll clear out any mess that there is,” Constantine offered.

“Maybe we can find the trace of the person who did it.”

“Do you think that Eli had anything to do with this?” I asked.

Their faces darkened. They all knew Eli.

“I sure hope not,” said Stella. “Although I bet he did,” she said angrily.

“Don’t jump to conclusions yet. See what you can find first.”

There was silence for a moment as we all went over the night’s plan in our heads. “So,” Constantine said. “Is he really that bad? I see he isn’t here today.” He was referring to Mitch.

“Yeah.” I looked at Cam. “But he’ll be okay,” I said, regurgitating the words Cam had told me a few nights before.

“Well, we hope he gets well soon,” Ella said, and I couldn’t help but notice a hint of cold sarcasm in her voice.

“Right,” I muttered, and stood up to go sit with the pack.

************************************************************************

An elated Christina met me at Mitch’s door before I even had a chance to ring the doorbell. “I just got off the phone with my dad!” she exclaimed, beckoning me inside from the cold mid-November weather. “And he says that he’ll be home this evening!”

“That’s great! Where’s Mitch?”

“Upstairs in his room.”

“Alright.” I juggled the mountain of textbooks in my hands and started to head up the stairs.

I could hear The Offspring leaking through Mitch’s bedroom door. Not bothering to knock, I pushed open the door and let Mitch’s book bag drop to the floor. “Special delivery!” I let Mitch’s homework slide out of my hands and crash to the floor.

Mitch jumped, startled by the loud bang. He looked up. “Oh, hi, Audrey!” He looked at the heap on the floor. “Gee, thanks. I love writing assignments.”

“Oh, it’s more than that. It’s essays, a science project, and we’ve got a ton of problems in Trig, plus our Spanish presentations…”

“Even better!”

“I knew you would be excited.”

We were interrupted by Mitch’s stereo changing tracks:

My friend’s got a girlfriend and he hates that bitch
He tells me every day
He says, “Man, I really gotta loose my chick
In the worst kind of way.”

I gasped. “I love this song!”

“Sing-along!” Mitch said, right as the chorus rolled around:

I won’t pay, I won’t pay
No way
Now, now, why don’t you get a job?
Say no way, say no way
No way
Hey, now, why don’t you get a job?

“That’s our song,” I said, kicking off my Converse and running over to collapse on Mitch’s bed.

“No, this is our song,” Mitch said, switching the track to Pretty Fly for a White Guy.

I laughed. “That’s your song.”

“Yeah. I am pretty fly for a white guy.”

I laughed just as Alicia peeked her head through the door. “Hey, guys. Having an Offspring marathon?” She immediately recognized the song and stepped into Mitch’s room. “Give it to me, baby,” she sang along with the CD, swiveling her hips and looking directly at Mitch. His face lit up like a Christmas tree.

************************************************************************

It was later that evening, and everyone was crowded around the huge window in the living room, anxiously watching the driveway and the street. “He should be here any minute now…” Christina said for the millionth time.

My phone vibrated from my back pocket. “Hello?” I said, even though I knew it would be Cam. I slowly walked out of the room with my back turned to the rest of the pack.

“We couldn’t find anything.”

“Nothing at all?”

“The whole place is clear. I can’t even pick up his scent. It looks as if nothing happened.”

“But do you think it was Eli?”

“Not anymore! I know it was a few days ago, but I would still be able to pick up his scent…”

“You can’t…like, erase your scent, can you?”

“I don’t think so. That’s virtually impossible.”

“Well, thanks for trying.”

“Oh, we’re going to keep trying.”

“Please, don’t. It’s hopeless now.”

“Someone had to have done this.”

“Cam, it really doesn’t matter who.”

“That’s not how you made it sound at lunch today.”

I sighed. “Whatever. I don’t care…oh!” I nearly dropped the phone as I saw a white Elantra pulling up in Mitch’s driveway. “Christina’s dad is here! I gotta go! Bye!” I snapped my phone shut, forgetting about Cam on the other line.

“Yes!” Christina ran over and hugged me, nearly breaking my ribcage. “Let’s go!” She grabbed my hand and pulled me outside.