Growing Wildflowers | WLW

Aster

Jamie's knee is pressed against mine as we sit at the dining table in Aurora's kitchen. It's been there for hours, for as long as we've been slouching over textbooks and newspaper articles, and I can't help but wonder if she's as aware of her body heat melting into mine as I am.

"Okay," she drops her hands against the tabletop and pushes the book away from her. Usually, the sudden movement would make me jump, but I've been watching her for longer than I care to admit. I could tell she was going to take a break soon by the way she started stretching her back and rubbing the tension from her forehead. "I'm losing my mind. I don't even study this hard for my classes."

"Let's take a break," I suggest.

She groans and rests her head in her hands. "Can I make a confession?"

I nod and her eyes meet mine. Even after weeks of digging through mythology books with her, I could melt under the intensity of those eyes.

"I don't want to do this at all anymore."

I nod again, trying my best to keep my excitement at bay. "Maybe we should put a nail in it?" I suggest. The faster she drops this, the sooner her life will no longer be in danger. But what does that mean for me? If I tell the elders that Jamie Mae Vanderbilt is no longer a threat, I'll have to move back in with John. I'll never see Jamie again and I'll miss Aurora too.

She stretches her neck and digs her fingers into her shoulder. "I'd feel like a terrible person if I gave up on my friends that easily." She lets her hand drop. "God, my neck hurts."

I angle my body toward her without thinking and push my palm against her shoulder, right at the base of her neck where she was trying to rub the knot out. Her body relaxes into my touch and I'm massaging her shoulders, not even thinking about the way her blood makes my head spin until she lets out a soft moan and says, "that feels so good."

I freeze, my hands refusing to move even though my heart is pounding against my chest a million miles an hour. For once, it's not because I might drain her.

Jamie snorts. "I'm sorry, that sounded—" We burst out laughing before she can finish her sentence. Her cheeks flush a deep shade of red and the breath hitches in my chest but I'm laughing so hard that, for the first time ever, I'm not afraid of losing control. "Oh my god. I'm so dumb. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make it weird."

"It's been a long night," I offer. "Did you find anything helpful?" I motion to the stack of books in front of her.

She shakes her head. "Not really." She lets out a long sigh. "I need the bodies."

I can't help the expression on my face. "The bodies?"

She's nodding like I've missed something so glaringly obvious. "This mythology doesn't really help unless I can determine the way they were killed. If the bodies were mutilated, werewolves. If their bodies were eaten, skinwalkers... In some cultures," she adds. "If they were drained, vampires."

I focus on keeping my expression neutral at her last suggestion.

Her shoulders slump over a bit as she adds, "But I was too busy running away to get a better look at the creatures or what they were doing to my friends."

My chest clenches at the word 'creatures' and I look at the ground to hide any emotion that might flitter across my expression. "It was probably better that you ran. You might not have survived if you'd tried to be a hero," I say. "Maybe it's time we stop with all of this. How much can we really do if you didn't see anything that could be helpful?" I meet her eyes and try to read her expression.

If she thinks my question is odd, she doesn't show it. "Maybe you're right... You know, I wasn't even supposed to be on that trip." Her voice takes on a new edge, dark and sullen. "I was supposed to go with Kelsey to her family's ranch out of state, but...she hit me the morning we were supposed to leave."

"What happened?" I ask and then immediately regret it. This isn't vital to my investigation.

Jamie blinks back tears as she opens her mouth to answer, closes it again.

"Sorry, you don't have to—"

"It's okay, it's just... I haven't talked about any of this since the day they were murdered." She clears her throat. "Kelsey was mad about..." She shakes her head, "I don't even remember now. It seems so insignificant." She shrugs. "But I broke up with her. It was my last straw and, if I'm being honest, we'd been toxic for a really long time."

"Anyway, I called my best friend to talk about the breakup and she practically made me go on that camping trip with them. She said nature would heal me." She chuckles to herself. "I didn't even really like the other people who were there. One of the guys kept telling me he could make me straight." She fake gags. "The only other girl who was with us was actually my bully way back in third grade."

"Third grade? You hold grudges for that long?" I joke.

Through laughter, Jamie holds a hand up. "You don't understand. The drama was strong with that girl." She pulls her phone from her pocket and unlocks it. "Here, look." She scoots so that her side is pressed against mine and I fight the urge to pull away. "We took this the day everything happened." She shows me a photo of five college students in Patagonia windbreakers and hiking boots. "That was my best friend, Olivia." She points to the woman in the middle of everyone and my heart stops.

I killed her. I killed her best friend. Gunner was going to turn her into one of us and I killed her. What would have happened if Gunner was successful? Jamie would be dead, for starters. I would have drained her that night. My heart lodges itself in my throat. I open my mouth to speak, close it again as hot tears push at my eyelids.

Luckily, she's still looking at the photo on her phone and doesn't notice my reaction. "That's the guy who kept harassing me." She points to the man I drained first, the one with way too much cologne. "And that's the girl who bullied me." She points to the girl Bri drained. "I didn't really know him." Her finger moves to the guy John drained.

I swallow the lump in my throat. "So," I pause, trying to word my question delicately. "Why are you so determined to figure out what happened to the people you were camping with if you didn't really like any of them to begin with?"

She shrugs and shoves her phone back into her pocket. "To distract myself, I guess." She stops speaking but I can tell she's deciding whether she should continue or not. "I don't have anything left. Well, I didn't have anything left until I met you." She plays with the hair tie on her wrist and hesitantly meets my eyes. "Sorry if that's weird."

"It's not."

The oxygen is sucked from my lungs and for once it's not because someone got a papercut in the next room over. It's the way she's looking at me, her eyebrows pulling together as her eyes glance at my lips and back, but I can't keep the image of me draining her out of my head. Would she have made eye contact with me as I drove my teeth into her neck? Would she try to fight back? Would I even be able to commit to draining her? She twists the hair tie in her fingers and after a silent moment, clears her throat.

"Do you want to show me your favorite horror movie?" she asks, and I nod because I don't think I can get words out, let alone make them make sense. I lead her to the living room and flip the TV on, click over to the movie app and start scrolling the horror category. But I can't stop thinking about the look on Jamie's face while we were in the kitchen. The way her eyes locked onto my lips, the way she leaned forward like she wanted to kiss me or maybe she wanted me to kiss her. What's bothering me more than any of that is the feeling in my chest. I wanted to kiss her back. I want to kiss a human.

I'm so mad at myself that I'm not really listening when Jamie speaks.

"I'm gonna grab some water. Do you want anything?" And I'm still so lost in thought that I don't realize the severity of Jamie looking in Aurora's fridge until she says, "What is all this?"