\\\*/// Vampire Hearts \\\*/// Ch8&9 Pg 3 - Page 2

CHAPTER 6

Jamie

I think it was after PE, when I caught up with Lisa. She was walking in front of me with some of her friends. I called after her. She turned around and waved her friends away.

"I think we need to talk," I said to her firmly. I had decided to tell her that I loved her. Maybe that oughta change her mind.

She sighed. "About?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? We went out for a year and then you just dump me without any kind of explanation?" I was getting angry with her ignorance. She wasn't wearing her glasses. God, she looked pretty.

"No, Jamie, you don't understand, our relationship was just getting too serious. And I knew that any day now you were going to say-" I cut her off before she could say anything

"I love you"

"Yes, that, that's why I had to finish this before you swore your undying love for me or something."

"I just did,"

"Oh god," she was getting frustrated, "Look, Jamie, this is only high school, and we have our whole futures ahead of us, so don't fool around now, ok?"

"I'm in love with you, Lisa, don't you understand that? Isn't that good enough for you?"

"No, Jamie," she looked up at me with a sad smile, "you're not in love with me, you're in love with the idea of me,"

"What?!"

"You've always had a wicked sense of adventure, I know that, and I know that I'm just a chase. Everybody wants what they can't have, Jamie. You're in love with the idea of the two of us. We can't be together, you know that, right? That's why you want it. I've always told you, my parents expect great things from me. They probably got me engaged with some prime minister of Australia or something when I was born." she was trying to be funny, to lighten the mood. But nothing could lighten what I was about to say.

"So you're just gonna go along with your parents? Do everything they say? Everything they expect? When are you gonna start thinking for yourself? When are you gonna start living your own life, huh?"

"Don't you dare talk to me like that!" I could see the hurt in her eyes. Her mood shifted. "Goodbye, Jamie," she started to walk away. The bell rang for the next period. I grabbed her hand

"Don't walk away when we're talking," I said to her

"We're done talking. It's all over! For whatever reason, you can decide. I explained it to you the best I can, now I have to go. I'm late," she walked away. But she stopped a few feet away

"I'm sorry, Jamie, but you will find someone better than me, I know it," with those words, she walked away. And I was left alone in the hall. The world still went on, but my world had been shattered to tiny pieces, that I had yet to find. It would take a long time for me to find the pieces of my world that Lisa had just walked all over. I was alone.

CHAPTER 7

Luna

I was confused about the things that were happening to me. First I can run faster than the fastest person in our school. Then I get hypersensitive ears or something. What's next? X-Ray vision? I already don't sleep. My mom and I've been to doctors plenty of times and they could never figure out what was wrong with me. Sure, they prescribed sleeping pills and shit but it never helped. My eyes are getting even more purple. I decided to ask Aunt Clara about it. She was downstairs making breakfast. I had just gotten up and was getting ready to go to school. I still had about half an hour to spare till I had to get out the door.

"Good morning, dear," she said while flipping a pancake. She was wearing her robe and sipping coffee.

"Mornin'," I said and sat down at the kitchen table. She put a plate in front of me with a glass of milk. Pancakes and bacon. I wished for a split second that the bacon wasn't cooked. Bloody and raw is how I would've liked it today. Then I shuddered at what I was thinking.

"What's the matter? You don't like it?" asked Aunt Clara

"Oh no, I was just thinking something, I always like your pancakes, you know that," I said with a smile and dug into my breakfast. I really hated milk. I just didn't like it's taste, but I always drank it because my mom is a doctor and she would make me drink it everyday.

"Um, can I have orange juice instead of the milk?" I asked and her and explained why. She smiled a knowing smile.

Halfway through my pancakes, I decided to ask about these weird transformations. Maybe she knew something about this kind of stuff. After all, she was a scientist.

"Um, Aunt Clara?"

She raised her head from today's newspaper and said yes.

"What would you say if I, um, was-" I didn't get to finish my sentence, because she gave a little screech and said if I didn't leave right now, I would be late to school. She was right. I decided to ask later. It's not like I had the choice.

***

So on the way to school, I decided to test my speed and I ran like a monster was chasing me. And this time I was even faster. I could feel the wind whipping my hair around and it felt good knowing that nothing could catch me. I was in front of the school steps in 2 minutes flat. It usually took me 20 minutes to walk there. Wow.

I saw Connor heading up the steps and ran to catch him.

"Hey," I said. He turned around and said hi

"What's up?" he said in a casual way, "So how was the mall yesterday?"

Oh crap. Only then did I remember that I totally forgot about the mall thing. He looked at me.

"You forgot, didn't you?"

"Oh damn, what am I gonna do?" I panicked. Joanna would be mad. She sort of had a reputation for being a mean girl. I knew it. And everybody else knew it. But oh well. What can I do now except apologize? Damn. It's not like we even talked before.

Since Connor and I were in different classes, we said our goodbyes. He said good luck.

I entered my first class and I immediately saw Joanna and her friend Allison Miller glowering.

Math was hard to concentrate on, especially when you have someone like them glaring into my back. As soon as I got in, the bell rang so I wasn't able to apologize. Even though she was a freshman like me, she had a well-earned reputation throughout the whole school. Even the seniors knew about her. And I was just a bug on the windshield of her life.

"-and when you multiply that by pi, you get the correct answer," Mrs. Maureen went on and on about pi. Finally, a miracle! The bell rang and I tried to run out of the class the first one, but Joanna was already behind me.

"You got some nerve blowing us off yesterday," she said in a calm voice. I glanced up at her, while gathering my stuff.

"Um, yes about that. I totally forgot about it. Is there any chance we can do it today? I'm really sorry," I said back to her

"Not as sorry as you're going to be," she said with a smile.

"All right, that's enough Jo, we gotta go, we're late" said Allison ushering her out the door.

"I said I was sorry," I told them this time louder. Somehow I wasn't so scared of her, even though she was way taller than me.

"You will be," said Joanna and walked away from me.

"I'm really sorry if she got a little, um, rough here," said Allison to me and then she ran out after her. She seemed nice enough. But what was the big deal here anyway? I forgot, I apologized and why couldn't she let me off the hook? And what was all that nonsense about me being more sorry? Agh! Only then I realized that I forgot my history notes for the test in my locker. I quickly ran to my locker to get it. I set the combination and click, it opened. I grabbed the handle to pull it. But then I couldn't pull my hand back. My hand was stuck. Yea, someone had apparently glued the handle. I yanked my hand and it was glued shut. Damn. I looked like a moron. I was standing alone in the hallway, with my right hand glued to my locker door. Brilliant. So this was their little trick.