“Genesis Avery.” My Life-Science teacher, whose name I’d forgotten the first class, called. He held out a paper, asking me to come and read it. I looked around me, trying to figure out if I was being punked. No one laughed or giggled, no one even paid me much mind. I slowly walked to the front of the class to read my paper aloud like he requested.
We’d been given a topic – Can Vampires be Real? Prove It or Discredit It – and for some God forsaken reason, my teacher had liked mine a lot. Out of the fifty or so people in my class, he had picked my paper. I honestly hadn’t even put that much effort into it.
“Vampires are mythological creatures, written throughout history in folklore, horror and romance.” I started, my nose wrinkling on the word romance. Vampire romance books were awful, even if some did happen to be well written. Who’d want to fall in love with a blood-sucking creature of the night?
All of the females of the class went giddy and the rest of my report was completely wasted on them as they day dreamed and fantasized about vampires. Most of the guys talked or fooled around, not paying attention. I didn’t mind it that way. I’d always preferred to just be a part of the background, not the spot light.
Once I was finished, the teacher made everyone give a round of applause while I ducked my head and scurried back to my desk. All of the students quieted as the teacher stood in front of them.
He was a young teacher, roughly twenty-five and absolutely gorgeous. All the girls wanted him and all the guys hated him for it. I wasn’t about to claim that I was unaffected by his stunning good looks but I didn’t exactly drool over him either. Personally, I thought he wasn’t a cocky jerk and personality outweighed looks every time.
“Genesis’ essay will be printed in the news paper and featured at a conference and science convention…which she will be attending with me!” He announced it like I was the lucky winner of the lottery. I worked hard to suppress my groan at all the attention I was getting but it slipped out anyway.
As call finally came to a close and the bell rang, signaling our next block, I gathered my things quickly. In the hallway, girls of all shape and bitchiness bumped into me.
One group of nerds brushed passed me and I heard what they were saying. “…Didn’t even deserve it. She doesn’t even care, anyway! The only reason she got picked is because she’s sleeping with him.” It was one of the girls in the group. She pushed her glasses higher on her nose and lifted her chin.
“Yeah,” a guy agreed. “Her paper wasn’t even good.” They all laughed viciously, shooting me looks.
I proceeded to my locker, pretending that I didn’t care about the vicious rumors people were whispering a couple feet away from me. Let them talk. It wasn’t true and it wasn’t getting them anywhere.
My next class was Music Studies, something that I excelled in. There was a small group of us, maybe twenty. We were all pretty close because it was so small compared to all our other classes. Our teacher was nice and she even knew us all by name.
“Hello Genesis.” She greeted as I walked in.
“Hey, Miss Silverstein.” She was the only teacher whose name I actually remembered.
Once we were all gathered, she took out her notebook and had us all sing a couple notes to see how we had improved over the weekend. The class was all about harnessing and using our voices to express ourselves, as well as other instruments.
“Genesis, will you lead the class today?” She gestured behind her to the grand piano. I grabbed my song book and went to it, sitting down. Usually, someone lead the class with a guitar or drums but occasionally she liked to go for the classic taste. I was the best piano player, since I’d been doing it the longest.
There was nothing in the world that compared to this feeling. The feel of the ivory keys beneath my fingertips, the slight vibration each note created inside the big instrument. There was nothing compared to making music, to expressing everything you wanted to say without even using words.
“What selection?” Miss Silverstein asked.
I smiled and gave my favorite, not even having to look for it since I knew the page number by heart. “Thirty-three.”
All the people opened it and started to sing while I played. We usually just decided amongst ourselves who would do any solo parts and every day it was different so I let them decide on their own. When the notes I was playing started to flow into a softer and sweeter melody and still no one sung, I looked up.
Everyone was grinning at me in expectation. I chuckled to myself and started to sing the solo, letting my voice carry out each note, along with the instrument I played softly. I sang it quietly and almost mournfully. It wasn’t really a sad song but something about the melody hinted at a quiet turmoil. It was bittersweet.
~
When I got home that night, I called out to the empty house, “Honey, I’m home," and then chuckled to myself. I knew no one would answer, but one day I was sure that my lonely teddy bear, Mr. Teddy, would walk right off my couch and come and great me.
I put my stuff down and grabbed and apple out of the fridge. Looking through it, I realized how badly I needed to go to the store. I didn’t have any soy or tofu left, nor much good meat for Jace.
Jace was kind of like my ward. He was my only sister’s son. When my sister had died in a freak accident last summer, I’d taken her son in. My parents had thrown a fit but they were never home to bother me about it anymore, anyway.
Besides, Jace was a good kid. He never caused trouble and most of the time he was content to play by himself or colour while I was doing homework. Jace wasn't hard to please, but I still hardly ever made him play by himself. It made me feel guilty to see him playing with his trucks alone. He should have a mom-like figure to play trucks with, at the very least.
And not to sound cocky, but I do make pretty good rumbling engine noises.
I glanced at the clock, realizing almost half an hour had gone by. I quickly grabbed my keys and rushed to my car, driving quickly to the day care. Jace was playing outside with the owner and she looked unhappy.
“You’re late.” The babysitter grumbled. Jace squealed at me and ran to my arms.
“Mommy, mommy!” He yelled. I laughed and picked him up, swinging him around in circles. I sat him down, the sound of his tinkling laugh making me laugh as well.
At first, Jace had called me 'Genny', then he just slowly slipped into 'Mommy' and I didn't really mind. It wasn't as if my mother would ever step up and be his mother figure, so someone might as well do it. When he gets older I'll have plenty of time to figure out how to explain that I'm really not his mother, though I suspect he's smart enough that he already knows that and just calls me mommy, anyway.
“Sorry, I just got home about forty-five minutes ago.” I tried to apologize.
She clearly didn’t like my excuse. “I will not continue to keep him late! I allow him to stay until four, when you get done school. After that, he is not my responsibility anymore.”
The babysitter was older, with wiry brown hair that stuck up funny in the front and wrinkle lines on her forehead and around her mouth. It always made me wonder if she'd spent a lot of time frowning, since there were no laugh lines around her eyes. She was relatively plump, and dressed in clothes that aged her a good ten years.
I nodded. “I know, I’m sorry.”
“One more incident and I won’t keep him anymore, Miss Avery.”
I nodded again. “Yes, ma’am.”
I took Jace home and made us some dinner. I wanted Jace to be vegan, like I was, but I wasn’t about to push him on it and children need more nutrition that adults. I didn’t want to risk him being malnurshed in the least bit. Besides, he could decide if he wanted to be or not later, when he was old enough to choose. I may have been his mother-figure but I wasn't really his mother and I just didn't feel right making that decision for him.
After we ate, I took Jace upstairs. We watched TV in his room for a bit before I laid him down to sleep. He slept in the room across the hall from mine. I gave him a toy animal and he curled up in his bed. This year, when he had turned six, I’d given him a race car bed for his birthday. I'd saved up the money for it for months and prayed every night that the Salvation Army store wouldn't sell it before I could buy it. He loved it.
After he was fast asleep, which was a matter of minutes, really, I walked to my music room. It was the door directly to the right of my bedroom door. It held my old, classic piano and all the other instruments my parents had tried to get me to use. Dad had wanted me to be a rock star, mom wanted me to be a composer for an orchestra. To appease them, I’d learned guitar, drums, flute, violin, clarinet and trumpet. Despite being able to play most instruments fairly well, I’d been playing piano since I was five and I never loved anything more than that. I played the others just enough to remember how, but never really played them just for the fun of it. Most of the time, I played the guitar for Jace, as it was his favourite.
I didn’t try to play a song, I just let my fingers move of their own accord across the ivory keys. The melody I ended up playing was one I knew from memory; one from my childhood. It was a quick, happy melody at first before flowing into a more melancholy and sinister song towards the end. It started with high notes and drifted into longer, lower notes that gave me goose bumps and put a lump in my throat. My father always used to tell me it reflected love; happy and fun, before turning into something dark and dreary.
He never was much for the romance, either. But who could be, having married a women like my mother?
Once I was finished, I decided to head to bed, maybe do some light reading.
My room was simple, fit to my tastes. The walls were rich blue, the plush carpet a lighter shade of blue. One whole wall was transformed into a bookcase and filled completely. I had mysteries, horrors, romance, fantasy, historical fiction, music books. Everything.
There was a queen-sized bed with a cute little quilt that a neighbor had made for me in the center of the back wall. Beside it, across from the book shelves, was a simple dresser with a round mirror. In front of the window beside the dresser was a large oak desk and a desk chair.
I grabbed a book and laid down, getting about two pages read before falling asleep.
~
I sat on a bed of red satin. The color of blood. It was cold here, much too cold. I was only wearing a cocktail gown, which was very unlike me. I hardly ever dressed up, and I certainly wouldn't wear a cocktail dress, even on the best of occasions. But this had been a very special occasion. An important step in my career. And it did complement me nicely, after all.
I noticed the man across from me and screamed. Not because of he was gruesome looking or really that scary, because he certainly wasn’t. He was handsome, beautiful. Almost angelic, but like a fallen angel. There was something creepy about him, something sinsister, but that didn't take away from his beauty. When our eyes locked, I felt an overwhelming sense of déjà-vu. It was after I had started screaming that I noticed his sharp, pearly white canines poking out from his top lip and the bright red eyes that gleamed in the semi-dark room.
He stood and I couldn’t help but look him up and down. Tall, muscular, mysterious and badass. He was dressed in dark jeans and a black button up shirt. He didn't look dressed up, but I sensed that this was dressy for him.
Surely he wasn’t real. I’d read all those corny vampire books. I’d never really been interested in any of them, but I’d still read them. I knew what vampires supposedly looked like, from Stephanie Meyer’s sparkling version to Bram Stoker’s creepy, sadistic version.
He came closer and closer until I was pressed against the wall, the bed sheets clutched in my hand. He flashed his teeth and I saw his elongated canines again. Suddenly, they were all I could see.
He bowed his head to my neck. A scream tore at my throat, just as his teeth did.
~
I sat up, gasping, the dream still fresh in my mind. I’d had it almost every night since I wrote that damn paper a week ago. Stupid imagination. Stupid Life-Science teacher.
I took a shower and then dressed, eying myself furtively in the mirror. My long red hair was wavy and curly and already a tangled mess. Usually, I straightened it before I went to school, otherwise it was crazy all day. My eyes were brown with flecks of gold and green. My skin wasn’t tan nor pale and it was clear, no freckles or blemishes.
I took one last look in the mirror and froze. There, on my neck, the same place that the vampire had bitten in my dream, was a small, red mark. Not teeth marks or two incisions – like that of vampire’s fangs – but a hickey, big and red for all to see.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Here it is, at last! I know I said I wasn't going to start until late August or September but I couldn't help it. Updates may be a little slow, though.
Before I post the next chapter, I need a cast. I need someone for Genesis, Jace and Alekzander. You haven't really met Alekzander yet but I purposely didn't describe him too closely in the dream so you guys could tell me who you want him to look like.
If you were to make a cover, I'd love you forever. Just saying.