My Immortal Phantom

The Angel Living in My Room

Chapter Seven: The Angel Living in My Room

Within a week, Ember was fully my second best friend, I discovered that Liz was saving up to buy a plane ticket to come here, and I was completely deceived by Jasper's illusion that he was a man that lived in my house, even though neither Peter nor my parents ever caught sight of him. If Liz knew of the deceitful lie that was stuck in my head, she would do everything in her power in order to show me that Jasper was not a human man...not fully, at least.

Yet, ever so conveniently for Jasper, the subject somehow hadn't rolled around between Liz and me.

At school, boys began to tease me about not having any friends or a boyfriend. "Poor little emo girl," they would sneer. "She can't find any other little sluts to hang around, or even a guy ugly enough to like her."

If I had been back in New York, Liz would've chased them down until she caught them and made sure she kicked them or smacked them--hard.

"Shut up!" Ember screamed at them, smacking one with her Invader Zim jacket, and another with her Hello Kitty bag. "You stupid jerks are just mad because you don't deserve June!"

Once they were behind us, I said, "You didn't have to do that. They're right anyway."

"Girlie, I will send Fred after you, and he will eat your face off! They were so wrong--"

"Who's Fred?" I cut her off.

"My evil zombie that lives under my bed. Well, he used to, but then he killed my magical llama so I banished him from my house."

I began to question her insanity. Which was cool with me, because instead of imaginary llamas and zombies, I had a angel/vampire/lying demon boy living in my house, so.

***

"I think you're really going to like Ember when you come down here," I was telling Liz over our daily phone call. "And Jasper, too."

"Well, I already love Ember because you love her. But Jasper..."'

I felt my mouth turning down at the corners. I just couldn't imagine someone not liking Jasper. He never showed up when Ember came over, though, which means that he may not show up for Liz. I wanted my two best friends to meet him, but he never showed any interest in either of them. Sometimes I would say something like, "My friend Ember is coming over today. Maybe you should introduce yourself," or "In a couple months, my friend Liz is going to come stay with us for awhile. I'm so excited!" But he never showed any interest in it. He never showed any interest in leaving my room. It would bother me before, but with this cloudy illusion of Jasper being real, it never even struck me as odd, just sort of disappointing.

I'd been living here for a full month when Liz arrived. At first I didn't think she'd changed at all when I first opened the door and she threw her arms around me, but then I saw her.

"Oh. My. Gosh. Your. Hair."

Liz had always had beautiful brunette hair that hung to her shoulders and was so straight--oh, so straight. How I envied Ember and Liz's straight hair. So glossy, smooth, and soft! I could never understand why they said they'd rather have my mass of thick, impossible to tame curls.

Not only had Liz curled her hair, since that wouldn't have been a big deal, because it would go back to being straight the next day. She had gotten permanent red streaks, and not aubern-ish red, no. Bright, firey color-of-blood red. It looked awesome; I just couldn't believe she'd done it!

"You like it?"

"Holy crap," was all I could say.

"Yo, L--whoa!" Peter exclaimed as he came to greet her. "Did you dip your hair in ketchup?"

"Shut up!" she snapped, picking up a pine cone and throwing it at him. "There are pine cones here," she muttered. "Huh."

Peter and I took her suitcases as she grabbed her backpack off the sidewalk, and shut the door behind her. We took them to my room, where Jasper was lying on my bed, his head hanging off the side, reading a Stephen King book upside down. Peter cursed, screamed like a girl, then grabbed a baseball bat out of his room.

"Who the hell are you?" he screeched.

Jasper sat up, extendinghis right hand. "Jasper Collins," he introduced himself perfectly in his Brittish accent. "Pleasure to meet you, Peter."

"How do you know my name?!?"

"Your sister talks about you often. Quite a brother-sister relationship the two of you have. If only I'd had a sister..."

"June, you know this nutcase?"

Smiling sheepishly, I nodded. "He kind of lives here."

"Oh, you're dead! When I tell Dad, he's gonna kick your a--"

"Please, no!" I whimpered. "Leave Jasper alone! He's harmless!"

"No boy living in your room is harmless!" Peter snapped. He dropped the bat and exited, and for a second I thought he was giving up, but only for a second. He returned, gun in hand. Turning to Jasper, he said, "You have ten seconds before I pull the trigger."

Jasper chuckled, putting his hands in the air as if being arrested. "Go ahead," he said. "I'm bulletproof."

The gun fired once, twice, then three times, but the bullets bounced off Jasper like they were made of rubber.

"Who are you?" Peter questioned in awe, lowering the gun.

"I've already told you," Jasper declared. "So the question is not who am I, but rather what am I, wouldn't you agree, Peter?"

Peter gulped, then nodded in horror.

"Good question!" he boomed. "I am a creature of many names. Some might say I'm a vampire, others demon or devil, others say angel or specter. I say that I'm just a boy trying to get out of hell. But how about you, Mr. Peter? What do you say I am?"

"Um..."

"It's alright; you won't hurt my feelings." (As if that was what Peter was worried about!)

"Well...you were holding a book, and the bullets didn't actually go through you, so...not a ghost. And you're kind of a jackass, so not an angel. And--thank God--you haven't drank my sister's blood, so not a vampire. And you want out of hell, so you can't be the devil himself. I think you're some kind of demon."

Jasper chuckled. "Unfortunately for you, your sister seems to think the opposite."

I felt my face turn crimson.

"I don't think you really want out of hell," Liz spoke up.

"Brave statement, miss with the outstanding hair. You must be Liz. I hear you're quite a character."

"It's Elizabeth Wells to you," she snapped. "And bullets may not hurt you, but belive me, there are tons of other things that can."

(That night I saw Liz on the computer looking for ways to kill demons.)