Eternally Blue (Sunset Cliffs Vampire #1) (Paranormal Teen Romance) (6 page)

“
Oh, I’m sorry, he um, took me to get food”.

She shook her head “It’s nothing, I put your bags on your bed, there’s an extra one there too”. She grinned at Lindsey. I couldn’t imagine what they were up to, but I grinned back and then took off up the stairs with Stacey on my heels, both of us giggling, trying to push each other out of the way. She beat me by a split second to my room, which I mock regretfully informed her was only because she knows the house better than I do and therefore the angles to take the stairs at. She rolled her eyes and sorted through the bags on the bed until she found the one she wanted and threw it at me. I opened it up to see the cutest bathing suit I had ever seen. It was a two piece, light yellow with small silver charm hearts on either side of the waist.

By that time Lindsey and Courtney were in the doorway watching “Did we do good?” Lindsey asked, she was really so innocent and wide eyed, I couldn’t see why Stacey or Lindsey hung out with Courtney. I smiled and shook my head yes, as Stacey walked over to the door, and before closing it said “Well try it on and let us see”.

I took a deep breath of Noah’s shirt and was just getting ready to take it off when I realized my curtains were still open. Embarrassed, wondering if he could possibly have seen that, I hurried over to the window to look across the street and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw his car was already gone.

As I closed my blinds and changed I thought about how stupid of a thought that was, he was just giving his neighbors freak charity case a ride home, not sitting in front of his house all night watching my window. I looked down at myself and couldn’t stay glum for long, the yellow bathing suit looked perfect somehow against my skin, and made my limbs look even longer, leaner, if that was possible. Spending the day shopping with Stacey she got to know my size and maybe style. I gave her credit for not getting me some pink polka dot bathing suit like the one she was wearing.

Her door was open and I heard talking so I went in, Lindsey noticed me first and stopped talking, which caught the other girl’s attention.

Lindsey’s mouth dropped in appreciation and Stacey tried to whistle, but unsuccessfully which resulted in a fit of giggling between the three of us. Even Courtney laughed at that, but when she stopped and finally looked at my swim suit her face briefly showed a hint of panic, but she turned it into a smile so quickly even I couldn’t be sure I caught it before turning to Lindsey and asking sweetly “What were you saying?” Stacey jumped in before Lindsey could respond, “she said lets go swimming!” and jumped off the bed.

We swam and talked for a good hour, well, mostly laid on rafts singing whatever song was on the radio at the moment. I was in my own world for the most part, and looking at the stars I couldn’t help but wonder what my family was doing right then.

Sue silenced the girls laughter by turning down the radio and saying it was getting late and that we had school tomorrow, she didn't point out that I was home finally but I did see the look of relief on her face when she spotted me in the dark pool. I quickly got out, grabbed a towel and followed her in, “I’m sorry about this afternoon Sue, I spilled lunch all over myself and Noah and he offered to bring me home so Stacey could shop with her friends but then-“ She put up her hand to silence me. By now we were in the kitchen. “It's not a problem Blue, I trust Noah, but that made me realize we don't have a way to contact each other, what if you had lost Noah…” Her voice trailed off. Good point, how would I find my way back.

Before I could think about that horror too long, she interrupted my thoughts with more cheer in her voice “That’s why I went out and got you a cell phone!” she held it out proudly to me. “I already programmed everyone in the family’s number in there in case you ever need to reach us”.

I had half a thank you out when Stacey grabbed it laughing. She playfully pouted “heyyy, hers is newer than mine”. She continued “Well, we might as well put Lindsey and Courtney’s numbers in here; they are practically part of the family”.

I had a cell phone at home but of course I couldn’t bring it with me. Hard to convince people you have nowhere to be when you have numbers like “Mom” programmed in your phone. Plus I was strictly forbidden to call anyone back home during my stay here. I would be putting my new family in danger if they could trace my location. Not that my family would want to hurt my human family, but I am basically human now too, and they might be curious how I am doing. I shuddered as I thought of the other reason; even though our clan kept my secret, even vampires have enemies and I am now a prime target as a weakened member of our society, and not just any member being that my parents had serious pull in the council.

The thoughts of home and of Sue buying me a cell phone were so overwhelming my eyes welled up. Sue saw and looked alarmed as she came to hug me, “Are you ok honey?” She patted my head and I could see Stacey and crew watching me, and I realized how silly I looked and collected myself. “Yeah” I sniffed, “I’m touched, that’s all”.

She seemed to believe me, because she let me go and smiled “Alright, well Stacey is going to drive you to school tomorrow and show you where the office is for testing, and I’m going to pick you up since she has practice, so just call my cell”.

Lindsey perked up “Could I drive her home Mrs. Lacey?”

“
You’re not staying for practice?” Sue looked at her suspiciously but Lindsey just shrugged “No I still haven’t been cleared from my doctor for my knee injury from the last game”.

“
Oh, ok then, well that’s fine, you have her number now Blue”.

Stacey and I walked them to the door before going upstairs to get ready for bed. She came into my room with her laptop and sat on my bed and started trying to free my iPod from its excessive packaging and for the next half hour I got a lesson, until my yawns were so frequent even she couldn’t ignore them any longer and with a sigh she got up and said “We’ll continue tomorrow”.

Getting ready for school the next day I could hardly contain my excitement, sure tests were horrible but after that I could relax and enjoy my vampire sociology experiment as my dad likes to call it. I nervously picked a pair of great jeans, I didn't so much like the straight leg tight style of them but Stacey had gushed I had to have a pair to compliment my long legs, and a yellow and white silky tank top. Right before we left I grabbed a blue sweater to bring since it looked like rain.

The threat of rain didn't stop Stacey from leaving her jeep top down and when we pulled in the parking lot we took turns using her brush to fix our windblown hair. She warned me to keep my phone on silent but to take a bathroom break after my exam to call and tell her my class schedule in a voicemail so she could find me later.

She quickly showed me to the office and once she told the administrator who I was there was a flurry of excitement among the older ladies who were obviously excited at the circumstances in which they got a new student and they clucked over me pityingly. Stacey, hearing the first bell ring, grinned and waved as she headed for the door.

After I took the test which was easy, just required some recall on my part, I realized having the pity of the administrators was a good thing. Very good. I accidently got carried away and tested too high, college level in math and science, but since I “am only 17” and don't have a car, or money, nor would I probably be here for long, they were probably thinking, they stuck me in 12
^th
grade and gave me an extra fun class of my choosing since I couldn’t exactly leave early without a car. I chose a cooking class, might as well make good use of my time spent with these extraordinary taste buds after all.

I got my class schedule and a tour of the school and then as promised, ducked in the bathroom to call Stacey before going to my third class. I came in 15 minutes after it started, and when I opened the door, the silence was deafening. The teacher smiled, took my slip and nodded as she walked over to her desk and pulled out a packet for me and directed me where to sit. After I did, I noticed it was the class syllabus and started flipping through it to see where the class was, and trying to ignore the rest of the class sneaking glances at me at the same time.

“
Page 4!” I heard a whisper. I looked up and was surprised to see Lindsey there and laughed a little too loudly I suppose because the teacher turned from writing on the board to join the rest of the class in looking at me. “Sorry,” Lindsey rescued me “I was just telling Blue what page we are on”. The teacher shook her head and turned back to the board, I smiled thankfully at Lindsey and she mouthed for me to hand her my schedule, and I passed it to her.

On a separate piece of paper she wrote

1
^st

2
^nd
-

3
^rd
- - me, Courtney

Lunch - all

4
^{th - Stacey}

^{5th – me}

^6th

Courtney? I looked around and saw her diligently taking notes near the front of the room. That leaves me with only 1, 2, 6 periods with no already friends. I smiled at Lindsey and turned to pay attention to the teacher. After class I followed Lindsey to her locker with Courtney and Stacey came bounding up behind us. They all keep their lunches in Lindsey’s locker and walk together to lunch Stacey explained. As we were walking we were getting a lot of stares, friendly and curious mostly but still we were getting more attention than I would have liked. Stacey and her friends seemed to know everyone, people were stopping us and saying hi, and I was getting introduced far more than I could remember names.

When we got to the lunch room the smells made my stomach growl so when we sat down at what they explained was ‘their’ table and introduced me to the few other people already sitting, I was grateful when Stacey pulled a second sandwich out of her bag for me. It had a note on it that said only good luck and had a smiley face. I looked at Stacey who was watching me and she shrugged and angled her sandwich so I could see, hers had a note also that read pay attention! Xoxo and said “Mom”. We both almost fell apart laughing at that for some reason, but collected ourselves quickly when we saw Courtney looked irritated we weren’t listening to her when we were apparently supposed to be.

She turned back to the other girls and continued “Yeah, it was really embarrassing, but funny you know? I tried to help clean them up but…” She shrugged as if at a loss, and the other girls looked at me sympathetically and one whose name I learned during introductions earlier but forgot, spoke up “I would be sooo embarrassed if I did that in front of Noah, but he is such a nice guy for such a hottie!”

Whattt??? Courtney hadn’t tried to help me, had she? Now here she was playing the… I don't know what part she was playing but it made me feel slightly less hungry.

The lone boy at the table, Jake had his arm slung around another girl Kelly’s shoulder, shrugged, took a bite of his apple and purposefully with his mouthful said "You think Noah cared? Men get food all over themselves all the time." And with that he let little bits of apple come out of his mouth as he was talking, into his girlfriend's hair.

She elbowed him and started swatting her hair as she whined "Ew, seriously Jake your disgusting. I should have appreciated us having a separate lunch than you last year a little more".

Now he pretended to look hurt and everyone laughed. Courtney changed the subject to pep rally which was next Friday and the other girls at the table got deep in excited discussion about the final touches on their routine, even Lindsey who was unable to participate. That gave me plenty of time to look around. Lots of curious faces smiles at me, a few walking by stopped to introduce themselves, and Stacey turned to me for a second and cleared things up for me by reminding me that I was big news here at school. I excused myself to the bathroom and that’s when I saw there was an outside student lunch area which was pulling me towards it and I was regretting wearing jeans so I couldn’t take full advantage of the sun.

I sat on an empty bench, laid my head back, and closed my eyes, letting the sun touch my face and warm me. Before I was ready, the bell rang and startled, I opened my eyes. Noah was standing in front of me with a confused look on his face.

“
Jeez! You scared me!”

“
Could you not sleep last night because you were thinking about me?” He teased, his face turning into a lopsided smile.

I rolled my eyes and went to reach next to me for my schedule of classes but it was gone. Before I could panic he waved the paper in front of me.

“
Litterbug”.

I rolled my eyes again and snatched it as I stood up, he didn’t move, so now he was so close I could smell him breathing and was struck by it. He was so lucky I’m not a vampire for now. He snapped me out of my daze by saying “You should really get your eyes checked out. It’s not normal for them to roll around like that”. I couldn’t help it, I rolled them again. He shook his head and started walking away from me towards the building. “You better follow me” he called without turning around “or you’re going to be late to Mrs. Buck’s class and she doesn’t take that lightly, I’ll show you the way”.