“Hey, Dan. Wake up.” Someone gives my shoulder a solid shake and yanks me up into the realm of consciousness.

“What?” I sit up slowly, rubbing my eyes, trying to figure out who is in my room and why.

I turn my bleary eyes up towards my dad. He’s lean and tall, like I am, but with a dark beard and bright gray eyes. “Morning,” I mumble, trying to see the clock on the other side of the room. “What time is it?”

“Well,” he clears his throat and straightens out his posture, “I was thinking, you know, it’s been a while since either one of us went to church, and you’ve been so sick these last few months. I mean, well, you seem to be doing a lot better now, so I thought it might be a good idea to start getting back into the swing of things.”

I blink a few times, trying to kick my brain into gear. Get back into the swing of what things? We haven’t been to church since Mom left. Why are you all of a sudden so interested in God?

“I saw that job application on the dining room table.” He smiles at me. “I’m really proud of you, son. I know I haven’t always really been there for you, but you’ve managed to keep yourself in line and stay out of trouble anyway. I just…I really want to try to be there for your now.”

“Look,” he continues, staring at the floor, “I’m sorry for being such a rotten dad over the years. I was really worried about you while you were sick. I was afraid…” Afraid what? Afraid you’d lose me like you lost Mom?

Dad whistles while he drives us to church. He has never been this happy in my presence before ever. I can only wonder what I’ve put him through since January. I did run away for a couple of days. I must have really scared him. Probably, he realized how close he came to losing me and decided he was going to make every second count, just in case he really does lose me sometime soon. Terrific. I definitely needed an overly attentive parent. Now I’m going to have to work to keep my secret from him instead of just avoiding him.

When we get there, I don’t make eye contact with anyone. I stand up with everyone else and pretend to sing along to the hymns. I bow my head with everyone else and sit down with everyone else. I stare blankly towards the pulpit while the man with the white collar drones on and on.

Finally, it’s over, and I follow my dad impatiently out of the sanctuary, into the painfully bright afternoon sunlight. At least I remembered my sunglasses.

“Hey Bruce!” Tessa’s dad waves us down and gives my dad a hearty handshake.

“You remember Pete, don’t you?” Mr. Barrows puts a hand on the shoulder of a boy with scruffy sandy blonde hair.

“Nine.” The kid sounds like he’s proud of himself. As if making it to nine years old is a huge accomplishment. My head is really starting to hurt.

“Wow. You’ve gotten so big!” Now it’s my Dad’s turn to be the proud father. “You remember my son, Dan, right?”

“Yes, you came by yesterday to check on Tessa.” Mr. Barrows shakes my hand.

“Yeah,” I answer politely, “how is she today?”

Mr. Barrows shakes his head and turns to Pete. “Hey, why don’t you run along to the car. I’ll catch up with you in a second.”

Pete stares at his dad for half a minute, before glancing at me and stalking off towards the car.

Mr. Barrows takes a deep breath when his son is out of hearing range. “She’s not doing too good.” He looks from me to my dad and back again. “I’m afraid it might be what you had this last winter.” My heart tenses. “The doctors are saying they can’t figure out what it was.” Yeah, and they don’t have any kind of cure, either. “She can’t keep anything down, even water.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know what to do.”

Dad glances at me, “Well, Dan recovered alright. I’m sure she’ll be just fine. Give it a little time, Jeff.” He pats his friend on the shoulder.

Mr. Barrows nods his head and then glares at me. “You still planning to stop by this afternoon?”

“Yeah, her mother seems to think you’d be good for her.” He frowns at me. “She likes you too, you know.”

Really? You think so? I nod my head dumbly.

“Just, be gentle with her for now, alright?” Mr. Barrows goes on. “She’s sick, and I don’t want her getting all wound up over anything if she doesn’t have to.”

“Yes, sir.” I answer solemnly, “I’ll try to keep it calm.” That probably means I can’t just walk up to her and tell her flat out what’s going on. She would probably freak out no matter how I tried to tell her what she is.

Dad makes a little more small talk before Mr. Barrows excuses himself and goes to his car where Pete is waiting. I just hope I won’t be too late to help Tessa. I need to let her know that she can trust me with this. Especially if she thinks she’s a monster. She needs to know that she’s not alone.

Dad asks me about college on the way home. I tell him the same thing I’ve been telling everyone – community college for now and I’ll transfer somewhere else later. Maybe. Dad buys it. He tells me again how proud he is of me that I didn’t let my situation keep me from being the best I can be. It’s a relief to know that he feels that way. When your father tells you he’s proud of you, it makes you feel really good. I would never admit to that out loud, but I can’t deny it in my own head.

As soon as we’re home, Dad wants to have lunch together. I dodge that one, saying I really want to go visit with Tessa and see how she’s doing. Dad lets it go. Great. Now I’m going to have to start hiding food or something to make him think I’m eating. I hope he doesn’t start paying too much attention.

I walk quickly to Tessa’s house, anxious about how she’s holding up. She must be so thirsty. So completely starved. She needs to feed. I knock on her door and her mom answers.

“Oh Daniel! Thank you so much for coming by! Tessa has been asking about you all morning.” She smiles and leads me to her daughter’s room. “Her dad and brother went into town after church to buy a new window, so they’ll be out all afternoon.” She winks at me. “You can stay as long as you like, sweetheart.”

Mrs. Barrows opens the door and lets me in. “I’ll just be in the other room, if you need anything.” Then she shuts the door and it’s just me and Tessa.

She’s laying in her bed with the covers drawn up, like she’s freezing cold. I sit down on the side of her bed and glance at the untouched food on her nightstand. Tessa shakes her head at me. “Can’t keep anything down. It’s just like what you had before isn’t it?”

“So what’s next then?” She asks me, just a hint of fear behind her words. “Does it get worse or better from here?”

I shrug. I wish I could tell her this was just a cold and she would recover from it soon enough. “It gets worse before it gets better.”

“Yeah.” I try to look confident. “Of course it does.” I grin and run the back of my fingers from her temple to her jaw. “I got better, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” I whisper and glance around the room, wanting to change the subject.

“Daniel?” She shifts under the blanket and pulls out her arm. There’s a fresh band-aid on the finger where she’d gotten a paper cut a couple of days ago at school just before our last exam. It feels like that must have been years ago. “This is going to sound weird.”

“My blood…” she pulls off the band-aid and shows me the inside of it. “Is this normal?”

I take a deep breath through my nose, knowing that her blood will have changed by now. The smell is sweet and thick like honey, but with a sharp edge to it at the same time. It’s like a perfume I could get lost in. “Mmm. Yeah.”

“Huh?” Oh yeah. I forgot about that part. “Um, yeah. It happened to me too.” You smell wonderful, by the way. Just throwing that out there.

“Don’t worry about it.” I take her hand and smooth the band-aid back over the scabbed cut. “It’s normal.” She doesn’t look like she believes me. “Listen, I know that this is scary. I mean, I was terrified, when it happened to me. And you kind of feel like you’re trapped, or you don’t have a choice. Like you start craving things that you know you shouldn’t crave. You think you’re going crazy.” I’m rambling now, and I know it, but I don’t stop. I want her to know I know what she’s going through, and I want her to know she can trust me. I just hope I don’t sound too much like an idiot. “But you’re not crazy, okay? And if it gets really bad, you can always come to me, okay?”

She looks like she’s going to cry. What did I say? How do I fix it? Her icy fingers tighten around my hand. “Okay.” She whispers. “Thanks, Dan.” She looks terrified, but she’s practically crushing the bones in my hand with that grip of hers.

“Anytime.” Maybe it worked and she trusts me already. Would she believe me if I told her about what was really happening? Or would she scream and yell at me to leave? I take a deep breath and stand up. “I should probably go.” There really isn’t much else to talk about except something she’s probably not ready to hear.

“Do you have to?” Her cold hand is still holding onto mine, like she’s going to die if I leave now.

I sigh, the perfume of her dark blood touching my nose again. “Not yet.” I must have ‘sucker’ written all over me. I sit down again and squeeze her hand, trying to smile.

“Nah, it’s alright. I didn’t really have any other plans for today.” Yeah. ‘Sucker’. Across my forehead. In big red letters.

Her frown morphs slowly into a smile, and then is completely dislodged in a massive coughing fit.

“Sorry,” she whispers, “my throat feels like it’s on fire.”

I glance at the nightstand and the full glass of water. That won’t quench her thirst. How can I help her understand what she is now without sounding like a lunatic?

She shakes her head. “No,” her answer is a croaking whisper. “I’ve tried water, juice, milk, soda, tea, coffee, everything. I can’t keep any of it down, and it just makes me thirstier.”

Well, I could take her out and help her feed. It would be better than waiting for her to try to bite one of her family members. “Um, how about some fresh air? I know that used to help me a lot when I was sick.”

Tessa shakes her head again. “Sunlight’s been giving me these awful migraines lately.”

“Maybe this evening, after dark,” I suggest smoothly. “I’ll take you for a drive. You know, just up around the mountains and back. Won’t be longer than a couple of hours.”

She laughs until it gets cut off by another coughing fit. “I don’t think my dad would go for that.”

Tessa rolls her eyes at me. “Come on, Dan. You don’t really think I would do something like that.”

How can I sell this? “I know, I know. You’re an honor roll student. You don’t sneak around. But when I was sick, there was only thing that made me feel better. And you can’t get it cooped up in this room.” She looks like she might be thinking about it. “Tell you what, I’ll drive by tonight at midnight. I’ll wait ten minutes. If you still don’t want to come, then just stay inside. But, if you change your mind, I’ll be there.”

“Do whatever you want.” Now she’s really smiling. “Just don’t blame me if you sit out there feeling like an idiot for ten minutes.”

I spend a couple of hours with Tessa. We talk about everything there is to talk about. Teachers, grades, movies, friends, the weather. She likes rock music. Her favorite food is, or was, cheesecake. It suits her. Just like the pastel colors.

Then her mom comes in and says that Mr. Barrows and Pete will be back soon, and I had better go before there’s a problem. I glance back at Tessa as I head out the door, and remind her, “if you need anything, I’ll be there.” I hope she knows I’m talking about tonight.

When I get home, I go straight up to my room. My dad is watching TV downstairs. I think he glances at me as I pass the sofa, but he doesn’t try to talk to me or follow me. I hope he’s done with the warm and fuzzy I-want-to-be-a-better-dad stuff. Now I just have to kill a few more hours before I can see Tessa again, and save her from herself. Hopefully it won’t get too bad before then. I was ready to bite my dad within about a day, and she’s been holding on for two.

Midnight doesn’t come fast enough. I waste time on the internet, then try to focus enough to read a book. As soon as the sun is down, I climb out my window and sit on the roof, watching her house. When it’s 11:55, I jump back inside and run down the stairs and out the door to my car. My dad is snoring in his room loud enough to wake the dead. It’s probably his first full night of sleep in at least a year.

My car is idling outside of Tessa’s house a few minutes early. I’m going to wait until ten after. Actually I’ll probably wait an extra five minutes after that. I really hope she comes. I really, really, really hope this doesn’t get messy. Come on, Tessa. Just trust me.

At 12:13, I’m starting to give up hope, but that’s when the front door opens, and Tessa runs out to my car. “Hey,” she says breathlessly as she shuts the door and buckles up.

For a minute I can only stare at her. Somehow, I’m honestly surprised that she came. I want to ask her if she’s sure she wants to do this, but then I remind myself that it’s not her choice. We drive away from the neighborhood in silence, windows down, warm, muggy night air swirling around us.

“So how are you feeling?” I ask when we’ve left the town limits behind us and are heading towards the mountains.

Tessa shakes her head, resting her forehead against her palm, her elbow propped on the car door. “Not so good. You want to know something crazy?” She looks up at me.

“Sure.” I shrug and throw a glance at her, hoping she can see the confidence in my expression.

“I was walking past my brother’s room and his door was open, and when I saw him sleeping there on his bed…it was so weird.” She takes a deep breath. “I could hear his heart beating from the doorway and – I swear this is going to sound crazy – I wanted to walk up to him and…”

“Yeah.” I sigh. This is going to be difficult. “Tessa,” you’re a vampire. Just say it! Why is this so hard?

“Um, I’m going to show you something, and it’s going to be pretty crazy, but it’s the only thing that helped me feel better.” And how did she take that one?

“Okay.” She shifts her weight and crosses her legs. Nervous? I would be. But at least she’s willing.

There’s a spot about twenty minutes into the forest where we can park and then hike until we find something – except Tessa won’t be able to hike too far. There should be some deer nearby, but we need something that sleeps a little heavier. Maybe if I can kill it and bring it in, she’ll be able to feed off it. This is going to be such a long night.