We Will Be Together For Never

[13] Concerned Jordan

My day passed in a blur. I discovered that I was becoming more and more self-conscious of the way I could hear students' hearts beat in their chests, see their clearly exposed veins twining up their arms and around their necks. The longer I was exposed to my peers, the shorter control I would have over letting these meals walk past unharmed.

That sounded awful, even in my head. I hated thinking of my fellow teenagers as food - despised thinking it. To quiet my thoughts, I downed blood packets like Pixy Stix in between class periods, chatted with Sapphire and Sasha when we all had a free moment, and generally survived until lunch.

For some reason, today, the thought of picking at human food truly nauseated me. How could I when I was so hungry, not for the food that they ate, but the people doing the eating?

God, I was so sick, so twisted. I was a monster. I was endangering the lives of everyone at this school just by showing up.

I felt a panic attack coming on as I closed my locker, thinking these thoughts. My face crumpled and tears filled my eyes, and I ducked into the girls' bathroom just as Jordan shambled by. Now embarrassed on top of everything at being seen like this, I locked myself in a stall and sobbed, muffling the sound as much as best I could. I was alone in the room, however, so no well-meaning souls tried to help me again.

The panic attack ripped over me in waves. It took all of my self-control not to dash from the bathroom and clean out of the school, to use my vampire strength and stamina to keep running until I was long gone. Instead, I pressed my palms to the walls of the stall to anchor myself and tried to take deep breaths between my gasps and whimpers. 

When I finally calmed down, I moved through the all-too-familiar routine: exit the stall, clean off my face, leave with a forced spring in my step.

I was not, however, expecting Jordan to be waiting for me right outside the bathroom.

"Hey," he said uncertainly. "Are you okay?"

I wasn't sure how to respond. My heart was beating so fast that I was sure he could see it. He waited for me outside of the bathroom? Why?

When I didn't respond, Jordan hurried to explain, "I just saw you go in there and you looked - I don't know. Sad?" he finished weakly, looking more and more embarrassed.

"I'm fine. I - I get pan - nervous. I get nervous in...new environments. Like this school." I felt like a bumbling idiot. And I had almost admitted to having panic attacks! Rule one of making friends: don't make them think you're a basket case right off the bat.

"Panic attacks, right?" Jordan asked, easily seeing through my stuttering idiocy. I silently cursed myself.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! 

I nodded slowly.

Jordan nodded also, understandingly. "I...I hope they go away." He sounded sincere, and putting aside the fact that he was participating in a very uncomfortable conversation, didn't seem particularly weirded out.

As he hesitantly turned to leave, I blurted out, "Thank you."

He turned back to me, smiling slightly. He had an adorable, crooked smile. "What for?"

I shrugged, deciding to be honest. "That's the nicest thing anyone's done for me since I moved here."

Jordan raised his eyebrows as if this surprised him. "Well, glad I could help." He raised his hand in an awkward farewell gesture and left.

A bubble of happiness rose in my chest. I felt like I was floating. Jordan obviously wanted to befriend me! He had seen that I was upset and waited to check on me. He hadn't found it weird that I had panic attacks.

Shoving Sasha's earlier warnings about Jordan from my mind, I fairly skipped down the hall to the lunchroom, no longer minding the thought of eating human food.

*

The lunch table was already fully in their conversations and meal when I arrived. The focus seemed to be centered on Derek and Christian, however, and so I was saved the awkwardness of explaining why I was late.

Derek was staring at the tabletop with a goofy grin spread over his face. Christian was burying his face in his boyfriend's shoulder, but I could see that the tips of his ears were red - he was blushing quite heavily.

"What's going on?" I asked Sapphire as I sat down next to her. Sasha was sitting on her other side.

"Derek may or may not have asked Christian to junior prom on their date last night," Sapphire replied, struggling with a grin. "I'm betting you can guess what he answered with."

I gasped, clapping a hand over my mouth. "No way! Oh, guys, that's great!" I congratulated the couple. I could barely control my excitement - I had always had a soft spot for "promposals" and had to mentally restrain myself from demanding details.

Derek shot me a grin and Christian said, his voice muffled by Derek's sweater, "It's great and all, but these guys will not shut up about it."

I grinned devilishly. "Count me in."

Sasha whooped and clapped. "Yeah, girl! I knew I liked you!" She stretched her arm across her girlfriend for a high five and I obliged.

"So mercilessly teasing the gay guys is somehow now the initiation for our group?" Derek demanded, but I could tell that he didn't actually mind.

Sasha rolled her eyes and took a bite of her chicken sandwich. Around her mouthful of food, she replied, "Obviously."

I couldn't contain my grin. Not only were Derek and Christian an adorable couple, but I felt so much like I was a part of their group. I felt like I belonged.

Isn't that what any teenager wants, after all?

*

After barely touching my lunch, I ducked into the bathroom for a quick blood snack and then it was on to my next class.

Psychology passed painfully slowly, even with the rapid-fire note-taking we were doing for the second day in a row. After all, I was looking forward to Journalism I - and seeing Jordan - quite a bit.

Finally, the bell rang. I surged out into the hallway with the rest of my peers, hand cramping. It was nearing the end of the day, and as much as I hated to admit it, I just wanted to sink my teeth into someone in the most literal way possible. I was starving - the tiny packets of human blood were barely cutting it.

"Barely" was good enough for me at the moment, however - it had to be - so I slurped down the liquid in the privacy of a bathroom stall before entering my journalism classroom seconds before the bell rang. Surprise, surprise - Jordan still came in behind me.

"Start working on your projects!" Mr. Pollik called. Jordan, having not even sat down yet, changed course and sat in the desk next to mine. "Today will be one of the last days you get in-class time to work on this, so make it count, people! Oh, and exchange contact info so you can complete the project on your own time."

My heart sank. Since we weren't going to get enough time to complete these projects in school, Jordan and I would have to meet outside of school. Of course this was happening to me.

I glanced over our notes from yesterday's brainstorming process. Yikes. So far, we had come up with the vague ideas of, "Interview teachers," "interview students from various groups/activities," and "iMovie," the last of which had several question marks punctuating it.

Three ideas? That's it? I sighed. Turning to Jordan, I prepared myself to once again struggle to get him to talk.

This did not promise to be an easy class period.