Bleh.
I force myself to zone out to Snow Patrol, concentrating on the deep, melodious sounds and trying to block out the overwhelming sadness that’s threatening to take me. A few minutes later I’m so into the music that I almost don’t hear the knock on my door.
“Rayne?”
Mom. Great. I wonder if she’s here to yell or to attempt comfort. I wonder which would be more annoying.
“Go away!” I cry, my voice sounding a bit wobbly. I hope she can’t tell I’ve been crying. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction.
“That’s really nice, Rayne, thanks,” she retorts. “And I’ll be happy to. I just thought you might like to know there’s a boy here to see you.”
I raise my head and look over at the closed bedroom door. A boy? What boy would visit me? “Who is it?” I ask, against my better judgment.
“I’ve never seen him before,” Mom says. “He says his name is Jareth. Tall, skinny. A bit on the pasty side? Dressed all in black, just how you like ’em,” she adds, and I can hear a small smile in her voice. “Just hope he’s not an evil vampire.”
I wince a bit at the dig, but know she’s doing her best to try to lighten things up between us. “Nah, he’s not,” I say with all the false bravado I can muster. “He’s one of the good guys.”
Mom laughs. “So I should send him up then?” she asks and I can hear the relief in her voice after what she thinks is my attempt at humor.
But no time for analyzing. Jareth is here. Here in my house. Soon to be here in my bedroom. Gah! I’m so unprepared. I glance around the room, realizing I have clothes strewn everywhere and that I’m wearing plaid flannel pants and a T-shirt.
“Rayne?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” I say, frantically grabbing discarded laundry and tossing it in the hamper. I’d normally ask if she could stall him for a moment or two, but I don’t want her asking a thousand-year-old vampire about where he goes to high school.
I shed my clothes faster than Superman in a phone booth, tossing on a black-and-white plaid skirt and a Smiths concert T-shirt, then run over to the mirror.
Ugh. Even with the change of clothes I’m not looking so hot. My eyes are completely bloodshot from crying and my makeup’s all smeared. I run my index finger under my eyes to try to get rid of the excess black. Then I apply more of my bloodred lipstick. Maybe that’ll detract from the eyes.
A knock on the door causes my heart to jump in my throat. Why am I so nervous? It’s just Jareth. We’ve been working together for nearly a week now. It’s all business. And that one kiss? Well, it didn’t mean anything. So there’s absolutely no reason to freak.
Another knock. This one louder.
“Come in,” I say, rushing back to my computer, as if I’ve been sitting there the whole time. No need for him to know he was worth reapplying lip gloss for.
He opens the door and steps over the threshold into my room. I’ve had guys in here before. Mom’s cool with it as long as we keep the door open. But this seems different somehow. More dangerous. And since Jareth doesn’t know the door rule, he shuts it behind him before walking over and sitting down on the bed. My bed. Gah! Jareth the hottest vampire ever is sitting on MY bed. I wish I had a web cam so I could have recorded the momentous event.
“So the blood test has come back from the lab,” he says, launching right into business. “And it’s positive.”
Gulp. Good thing he shut the door. If Mom heard the words “blood test” and “positive” in the same sentence she’d be carting me away to the clinic before I could explain we were talking vampires, not HIV.
I turn around in my chair to face him. “Positive for . . . ?”
“Wait a moment.” Jareth studies me with his intense blue eyes. “Have you been crying?”
I scowl. Great. I should have kept my back turned. “No. Of course not. I’m not your typical crying type of girl. Now, tell me about the donor’s blood.”
Jareth frowns. “Your eyes look red.”
“Allergies.”
“And your makeup’s smudged.”
“I dig the Mary-Kate Olsen look, what can I say?”
Jareth shakes his head. He’s so not buying any of this. “What’s wrong, Rayne? What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.” He gets up from the bed and walks over to me, kneeling down in front of my chair, his earnest eyes searching my face. I turn my head to look back at the computer, mostly because his concerned expression has me this close to bursting into tears again.
“I’m not.”
“Tell me what happened. Did someone hurt you?” He takes my hand in his and squeezes it lightly, his thumb caressing my palm. “You can tell me. It’s okay.”
And that, my friends, is the point that the dam breaks and the tears cascade down like Niagara Falls. How embarrassing. How pathetic. I can’t believe I’m so weak. So vulnerable. He’s going to think I’m the biggest loser on the planet. Maybe in the entire universe. If there was any chance he was at all interested in me, it’s so gone now. I’m just another whiny, teary-faced human girl.
Jareth reaches up and swipes a tear away with his thumb. His touch is cool against my burning cheeks. “Tell me,” he says in the most gentle voice you could imagine.
“Okay,” I agree, realizing at this point I’ve got nothing to lose. I close my eyes resignedly and try to find my voice. I open my mouth to tell him the story of Mike Stevens, but something completely different comes out. Something I hadn’t meant to share with anyone, let alone him.