Seven Minutes to Midnight

20

I visited Veronica after school, hoping to tell her, even though I knew she would get mad. I figured she probably wouldn't even let me in to see her after yesterday's debacle.

But she did let me in.

"Amy, you have to convince my mother to let Lane in," Veronica moaned. "I can't stand being apart from him!"

"Lane stopped by?" I asked, suddenly not so thrilled. Phrases like two-timing cad came to mind.

"Oh, Amy, you don't know what it's like."

Today Veronica was at least sitting up in bed, although she had put on her vampire makeup so that she looked as pale as usual.

"He stopped by twice last week. Twice, and my mother wouldn't let him in either time. It's been so hard these past four days without him."

I smiled on the inside. Lane hadn't been to see her since he hung out with me at the art museum. "It's too bad you're still sick, because Lane started school today."

"He WHAT?"

Mrs. Resmini probably could have heard Veronica from downstairs, if she'd been home.

"He started school. He said there was some kind of delay in the paperwork, but this morning he showed up at my locker. If you weren't sick you could have seen him today." I couldn't suppress the smile in my voice at Veronica's reaction.

Veronica appeared torn between attempting to pretend she was still sick and admitting she hadn't been sick at all. Finally she said in her sick voice, "I have been feeling a little better. I think I could manage school tomorrow."

I pushed a pile of black clothes off of Veronica's desk chair and sat down. I even took a deep breath, preparing to tell Veronica about the big news in my life. But she spoke first.

"I wonder what classes he's taking. Is he a junior, do you know?"

I shrugged. I'd been too lost in a cloud of happy hormones to notice.

"Hopefully he is. Then maybe we'll be in some of the same classes! What did he eat for lunch?"

"What?" I was beginning to realize that there would be no telling Veronica of my first kiss.

"Did he eat anything for lunch?"

I tried to remember lunch—it was difficult because, as usual, my mind had been forced into that weird Lane-worshipping haze. "I think he only had a drink. It was in a thermos, though, so I couldn't see what it was."

"Blood!" Veronica crowed. "I'll bet it was blood. REAL blood."

"Why would he hide what he was drinking in a thermos, when he wanted us to drink red juice out in the open so people would think we were drinking blood?"

She rolled her eyes. "Because we are not vampires," she explained slowly, as if to a retarded child. "Lane IS a real vampire. If anyone saw him drinking blood, he might get caught. But if we drink blood, no one cares. Okay?"

"Okay, but why would he hang out with a bunch of fake vampires if he didn't want to get caught?"

She heaved a giant sigh and flopped back on her pillows. "To blend in! Use your brain, Amy!"

I wasn't sure what to say to that. It wasn't like me to bite my tongue; more than anything I wanted to tell Veronica that possibly if she used her brain she'd realize she was living in a fantasy world.

Lunch that day had been a strange affair. Lane sipped from his thermos—it appeared to be something hot, like soup. Frank chattered inanely while I stumbled over the most basic of responses. My face was hot the entire time, my heart pounding, because Lane often smiled in my direction. Later, as I sat in math class watching the clock tick, I was gripped with a sudden fear that he wasn't quite smiling at me, but rather smirking, which in my lovelorn stupor I had misinterpreted.

"So... are you going to give me a ride to school tomorrow, then?" I asked.

Another huge sigh. "Of course."