Once Bitten

1 - Normal

The shiny blood red nail polish reflected the overhead lights perfectly. Cat could make out everything in the bright lacquer. At the front of the classroom a man droned on and on about what he expected from his history students. However, Cat's mind focused everywhere but the attendance policy. Gazing at her nails she couldn't stop thinking about Esme.

A year passed, but thoughts of Esme refused to leave her mind. The nail polish was hers, the color her favorite. It was very unlike Cat. Esme was the pretty one, the fashionable one, the one everyone always wanted to be around and with. The cheerleader who dated the older varsity football quarterback, and elected both homecoming and prom queen Freshman year. Though they were identical twins Esme and Cat were two very different people.

Cat hated being the center of attention, but Esme thrived on it. For the last year she'd spent most of her time wondering what it would have been like if she had died instead of Esme. The memorial board for the perky, peppy, popular Esme was still there dominating the hall outside of the Cafeteria, it popped into her mind without so much as half of a though.

The bell rang, and Cat was thankful for the distraction. Everyone grabbed their things and filtered out of the class room. Still she ended up staring under that black paper covered corkboard filled with pictures of Esme and all the activities she did.

When Esme was alive Cat never really thought about how much they looked alike. Staring at those pictures she couldn't unsee it. For years she always thought there was something special about the way Esme looked that drew people in despite the fact they were identical twins. But she couldn't play that game anymore, they looked exactly the same—only Cat didn't curl her long blue black hair every day before school, nor did she wake up early to put on makeup that would have put most instagrammers to shame. Cat also didn't carefully follow trends, and teeter around on high heels. No, Cat was a hoodie and jeans kind of girl who on occasion was known to throw in a skirt once in a blue moon to mix it up.

The warning bell for seventh period rang, and Cat sighed, making her way to her last class of the day. She made it to English with time to spare. At the front of the room stood a woman with the palest blonde hair and bright green eyes. Written on the chalk board behind her were the words MRS. KATHY FIELDS.

The bell rang again as everyone took their seats and a tall boy with surreally near colorless eyes and blood red hair entered clutching a white sheet of paper. The world slowed to a crawl as Cat took him in. She'd been dreaming of him for the last month and they weren't necessarily good dreams.

The boy's cold eyes settled on her and they stared at each other as everyone else appeared to move with an inhuman slowness. Seconds passed for the rest of those in the class room but for Cat it was minutes, maybe even hours. As she gazed at him all her dreams stretched out between him. They were all the same, she ran from him through Sutter's wood, the huge forest that surrounded the town of Whisper Creek. As the teacher introduced him, she felt the branches scraping her cheeks and her heart beat at the back of her tongue as she fled from him in that ephemeral dreamscape.

"Class, this is Dorian Midwinter," Mrs. Fields introduced the boy with the translucent eyes as Cat held her breath, whispering a prayer in her mind for him to not sit in the empty seat beside her. "He just moved here from Boston. You can take the seat in middle row, Dorian."

Luckily for Cat, the vacant spot in the middle row was nowhere near her. She heaved a sigh of relief and broke eye contact with the breath takingly beautiful boy, pressing her forehead to her desk. The period moved at a snail's pace, but eventually the teacher passed out copies of Jane Eyre along with the syllabus and the bell rang.