Deal With a Vampire

As the boys grew up and went through high school, this continued. Caiden continued to hear Carlee’s thoughts, however unpleasant they were. Both Caiden and Danny had girlfriends, but they never meant anything. At least they never meant anything to Caiden.

He grew feelings for her, but they never dated. Either she would have a boyfriend and he was single, and then he would have a girlfriend to ease the pain of not having her. But then her and her boyfriend would break up. When Caiden would break up with his girlfriend to ask Carlee out, she would have a boyfriend again. So the two never got together.

Over the years, Danny finally figured out what Caiden was, and even on some cases he threatened to expose his own brother. That was unless he agreed to help him with homework, or in most cases actually do his homework since Caiden was smarter.

Everything was going fine until one day in their senior year, Caiden and Danny were at their lockers getting ready for class when Carlee approached them.

“So, are we still on for Friday Dan?” she asked, leaning up against his locker.

“Sure are. I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” he grinned at her. “Hey, you want to sit with me at lunch today?”

“Of course. I’ll see you then! Later Caiden,” she said as she gave Danny a peck on the cheek and headed off towards class.

A pencil that was in Caiden’s hand snapped into two. “So, what’s going on between you and Carlee?” he asked inconspicuously.

“Oh, Carlee and I are going out Friday night. I was thinking about asking her out. Do you have a problem with that?” Dan asked, challenging him.

Caiden held onto his locker and took a deep breath. “No, everything is fine,” he said through gritted teeth. He took out the rest of books that he needed for class and slammed the locker door and mumbled “later,” as he walked away.

Classes through lunch went normal as always. Caiden always sat with Dan and his friends at lunch, but as Carlee approached Dan at their table, Caiden stood up and walked away heading for the library. He left his lunch bag there, letting it be a free-for-all on the contents of his lunch bag.

“You guys, what if he comes back for his food?” said Carlee.

“It doesn’t matter. Caiden never eats his lunch anyways,” joked Dan.

“I’ve actually never noticed it until you said something. Caiden never eats lunch, but yet he’s not skinny as hell. What’s up with that?” one of Dan’s friends asked.

All eyes were turned on Dan. “Well, he eats a huge breakfast and brings a lunch, thinking that he will be hungry then, but he isn’t. But then he eats a crap load at home and exercises and stuff. He’s just weird,” he said laughing.

The rest of the guys nodded their heads and went back to eating while Carlee stared at the door that Caiden walked out. There was just something about him that drew her to him, but she couldn’t figure out what it was, or why it seemed like he wasn’t interested in her.

After lunch, whenever Caiden walked down the hallways, he would see Carlee. He would just keep walking until he saw Dan join her and then turned around and went the other way. This made Carlee frown, because inside she really liked him and it seemed like he was avoiding her for some reason.

It was the last period of the day and Caiden and Carlee had study hall together. In study halls, the students were allowed to go to the library instead of just sitting in the study hall room, so Caiden went there everyday. He went and sat down at one of the tables and took out a book and began to read. A moment later he felt a person on the other side of the table. When he looked over he saw Carlee standing there.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“Suit yourself,” he said gesturing to the empty table.

She sat down diagonally from him and took out a book and began to read. Every once in a while Caiden would sneak glances at her, and she would do the same to him. At one point Carlee just set down her book and stared at Caiden.

“Why are you staring at me?” Caiden asked without looking away from his book.

“Why are you ignoring me?”

Caiden slowly closed his book and set it on the table. “I’m not ignoring you. If I was ignoring you, then I wouldn’t be talking to you right now, or I would have told you to go find your own table,” he said calmly.

“Well, besides now. At lunch you walked away from the table once I got there, and then whenever I would see you in the hallways, you would go in the opposite direction. To me, that would be you ignoring me. Why?”

“You want to know the truth?” She nodded her head. “It’s the fact that you’re dating or doing whatever with my brother. I know how he is, and I just don’t want to see you get hurt. I just don’t like seeing you and him together.”

Carlee was about to say something but instead closed her mouth. Caiden stared at her, wanting to her what she had to say about that. She didn’t speak, but instead he heard her thoughts. “So he actually does care about me. I just wish I knew how much he cared about me, since for all I know they could just be friendly feelings.”

She picked up her book and began to read again. Caiden laughed to himself and picked his book back up to read when he took a look at her book, “Love After Midnight.” Caiden put his book back down and quizzically stared at her book.

“Would you like something?” she asked when she noticed him staring.

“What’s your book about?” he asked still staring at the book.

“Vampires,” she said dreamily as she set it down.

Caiden smirked. “Vampires, huh? What do you think of them?”

Her eyes sparkled with excitement as though she was a little girl describing her dream wedding. “I love vampires! They’re so mysterious, and strong, and sexy. I would love it if they were real,” she said letting out a sigh. “Did you know that vampires have this thing called a Beloved? Their Beloved is the one they will love for all eternity and save them from damnation or something like that. What’s even cooler is that a vampire can hear the thoughts of his Beloved.”

Caiden shook his head, eyes light with laughter. “What would you do if you ever met a vampire?”

“Are you making fun of me?” she asked with fake sadness. “It’s not nice to mock someone and their dreams.”

“I would never make fun of you,” he said smiling.

“Well, if I were to meet a vampire, I don’t really know what I’d do. First I would ask if I were its Beloved. Then if he said yes, then I would ask him to bite me and make me his forever. I would then live on with him forever,” she said dreamily.

She picked up her book once more and began to read. But she wasn’t really concentrating on the words in the book. “How great it would be if there really were vampires. I could go on all day dreaming about them. It’s funny, because when I think of vampires, I automatically think of Caiden. Isn’t that weird? One can dream I suppose,” she thought.

“Carlee, if you only knew the truth,” Caiden thought to himself after hearing her thoughts and smiled.