Trish walked up as I walked away. I could hear her exclaim, “Adrian! By golly, what on earth are you doing here? Y’know what? I was just thinking about you…”
I smiled as I opened the door to the truck and climbed in. I really shouldn’t let Trish interrogate him. But she deserved to have a little fun, and he deserved to be uncomfortable for twenty minutes. I set the alarm on my cell phone, laid my head down on the seat, and immediately passed out.
*
“I got to hand it to you, Mystic, that boy is not easy to read,” Trish said, plunking her book on her desk after lunch. “I mean, I never really knew Adrian, but I’ve had more animated conversations with brick walls.”
Thank God, I wasn’t crazy then.
“What’d you talk about?” I asked, feeling weirdly excited, or maybe nervous, or maybe afraid. Probably all three.
“Trish?” Mr. Warren called out, looking up from his roll sheet.
“Here,” she answered, looking up at him. She turned back to me briefly. “Sixth, ’kay?”
I nodded, and tried to stay awake. Mr. Warren was an interesting teacher, but even the most violent, bloody Civil War lecture wasn’t going to keep my brain functioning on the amount of sleep I’d been getting.
Forty tired and uncomfortable minutes later the bell rang and we headed off to choir where we could pretty much talk as much as we wanted. As long as some kids had some sound coming out of their mouths, Mrs. Leckenby was satisfied.
“So?” I prompted once we’d sat down in the back.
Trish frowned. “He said you’ve been dealing with a lot and haven’t been able to sleep well.”
She paused, and I asked, “Is that it?”
“I also mentioned that you two had seemed kind of distant, and asked if everything was okay, and he said something like ‘every relationship has its ups and downs’ and that it was none of my damn business.”
I stared at her, shocked. “He told you it was none of your damn business?”
“I know!” she whispered as Mrs. Leckenby looked in our direction. “I’ve never seen him so riled up before. It’s like all this time he’s been pretending to be a really attractive teddy bear but he’s actually a porcupine I poked in the eye with a stick.”
“Well, what’d you say?”
She looked pleased with herself. “I told him you were my friend first and it was sure as hell my business to see that you were happy and being taken care of and if you weren’t, there’d be some answering to do and I had three brothers and a boyfriend who’d be happy to take care of the questioning.”
I stared at her in shock again, this time because I wasn’t sure Adrian had ever been talked to like that before, outside of Julian or me.
“Well, wow,” I stuttered, “thanks, Trish. For sticking up for me, I mean.”
She shrugged. “You’d do the same if Ben were neglecting me.”
Actually, Ben kind of intimidated me. He was, as Trish had once put it, a sweetheart, but he was a massively built sweetheart with arms the size of fire hydrants. I still couldn’t believe Trish had gone up against Adrian. Adrian was slimmer than Ben, but just as tall and, well, ripped. And he was a vampire. She didn’t know that, but still.
It suddenly struck me that Trish was really my friend. Not just the girl that had treated me nicely when I’d shown up as an orphan, but a real friend; somebody I’d think about fondly ten years from now; somebody I’d try and keep in contact with if either or both of us went off to college; somebody that was there for me without my asking her to be.
“You okay, Mystic?”
I broke out of my reverie. “Yeah.”
“You tell me if he needs to be slapped around a little. I’ll take care of it.”
The great thing was she was totally serious.
I grinned at her. “I might just take you up on that.”
*
“Mystic!” Trish called to me happily as I sat down next to her in first period.
“Morning,” I mumbled. I felt glued to my chair. I was so tired my arms and legs didn’t even want to work.
“Trish Fields,” Mr. Warren called out in a voice that did not belong to Mr. Warren.
My hackles rose.
I looked up. He was wearing his loafers, his khaki pants, his collared shirt, and sweater vest. But he had dark, wavy hair and piercing silver eyes.
“Present,” Trish responded, smiling.
He took a few steps toward her, returning the smile. “I just received word that Oxford is willing to offer you a scholarship, on one condition.”
Trish looked ecstatic. I tried to warn her, but I was so tired, so heavy, I could barely move.
“What is it?”
“Nothing much.” He shrugged. “Just a little blood.”
I managed to let out a mangled curse. Mr. Warren/Adrian glared at me. “This is none of your damn business.”