Chapter 3

I woke up to the sun beaming in through my window. The dreams I had last night were amazing. I was back at my dad's house and I had to get up and get ready for school. I actually like the idea of going to school now that I get to see Zach every day without making myself seem stalkerish. I don't think that hanging out with Zach so much would be considered stalkerish considering we've already kissed but still.

 

I haven't stopped texting Zach since the kiss. We actually haven't brought up the kiss. Is that normal? I was walking down the stairs texting when I ran into James. "Again, who would be texting you?" He asked.

 

I rolled my eyes. I kind of get easily tired of his crap. "A friend." Then I left for school. I really didn't even talk to any of my family about Zach. No one knows about him really. If James does know about him, it's because he's seen Zach around school.

 

I was walking to school. This was one of the days that walking to school felt amazing. The sky was clear and the birds were singing their usual songs. A silver mustang pulled up beside me. I was too distracted to notice who the guy in the car was. Until he said, "Do you need a ride little lady?"

 

I think it's just disgusting how men could just ride up to some girl and say something like that. I also think it's disgusting how they think that someone will just walk into some stranger's car. It makes me so mad. I looked over to tell them off but when I looked over, "Zach, what are you doing?"

 

He laughed. He acted like I was expecting him to pull up next to me. He opened the passenger side door and said, "Just get in. I want to talk to you about something." I was confused. He seemed really serious about whatever he wanted to talk to me about. We haven't really talked about anything serious since the day we've met. It kind of scares me to talk about anything serious with a guy.

 

I got in the passenger side and closed the door. "Okay, what is it you wanna talk to me about?"

 

He sighed. He looked nervous. "Listen, I need to tell you something. You have to promise me that you won't tell anyone. Can you do that?" He was really nervous and he was also starting to make me nervous. I was afraid that he didn't want to be with me anymore. I nodded. "Okay, my family and I..." He seemed like he didn't know how he wanted to tell me what he wanted to say. "Okay, here it goes. My family and I are vampires." He started explaining himself to me.  He explained that they only go out in the sun for short periods of time but they had to wear their sunglasses. He started to explain everything that I needed to know about being a vampire.

 

I stopped him. By this time, we were at school. We were just sitting in his car talking. He's a vampire I kept saying to myself. I know he wouldn't want to kill me or he would have done it by now. After all he did have many chances to do so. "Vampires?"

 

He nodded. He looked scared. He looked like he just ruined everything about our relationship or whatever this thing that we had was. "Are you mad at me for not telling you before, you know, we kissed?" Is that what he was nervous about? He was nervous about the fact that he didn't tell me before we kissed.

 

"No. I'm not mad. I just- I don't know. Could you just give me a little bit of time or something?" I had to think this through for a little bit. I wasn't sure what I felt anymore. The world I grew up in is not the world I live in now. He nodded. Obviously he realizes that this is all just a little bit too much for me. I can't get over how much of a gentleman he is. I nodded and got out to meet Sarah.

 

As I walked up to Sarah, she looked at me weird. "Yea I just got out of the car with Zach. Get over it and get over it now." I was still a little worked up over what Zach and I talked about in the car.

 

"What did he want?" You know she's always telling me that I need to find a guy but when I actually find a guy she starts judging him. It's amazing how that happens.

 

"Nothing." I couldn't tell her that he just told me that he was a vampire. I promised I wouldn't tell anyone. Keeping a secret like this is not the easiest thing in the world to do to your best friend. Sarah and I told each other everything. I don't know what to do.

 

She shook her head. "Okay. Guess what?" I rolled my eyes. Usually when she tells me to guess something it usually is something that she's excited about and that I would never really cared about. It's always something stupid. "I'm running for homecoming queen!" She was jumping up and down. She was really excited about this. I guess as her best friend; I'd better be excited about it too.

 

"Good for you!" This kind of thing was always Sarah's thing to do. She always did this type of thing.

 

"Are you going to vote for me?" She looked like a puppy dog begging for a bone or food. It was kind of funny.

 

I laughed and said, "There's no one else more worthy of my vote!" She smiled and hugged me. I feel bad that I haven't really hung out with her since last year. There were the vacations from the summer that I just had to go to. And now there is Zach.

 

"Oh! I just remembered! There's talk going around saying that Mark Mason likes you!" I was about to throw up at the sound of the name Mark Mason. We have been enemies since like kindergarten. I've never really know why we've hated each other so much. It was kind of funny.

 

"Ew! Gross!!!" Sarah rolled her eyes. I think she secretly likes him. She has a boyfriend though so she would never admit it.

 

"Aww come on! He's supper hot, super sweet, and, if it's true, he's the first guy who actually likes you!"

 

I wanted to say, "Not true. Zach likes me!" But I couldn't. So I said, "Look, Mark and I have been enemies since kindergarten. He's ugly. Also, if it's true, I don't like him back." I was still overwhelmed with what happened this morning with Zach. I didn't know what to think about anything.

 

"Sorry. What made you so cranky?" I didn't actually realize that I was being cranky. Maybe I snapped on her a little bit. It wasn't her fault he liked me. She was just passing on the news to me which I appreciate.

 

"Sorry Sarah. My mom and I had a bad weekend." I couldn't tell her anything about Zach until I was sure that I knew what was going on between Zach and I. It wasn't a total lie. Now I had to get to the bottom of this Mark business.

 

When I got to lunch, I went up to Mark. "Hey Mark, can I talk to you?" I wanted to get this over with as fast as I could so I didn't have to worry about anything other than what I was going to do about Zach.

 

He laughed and looked at his buddies and said, "Sure, Goth Girl!" I rolled my eyes. I see that James and Nick have been showing him some of their signature name calling that they use on me. Oh well, that's another day's problem. I had to focus on the problem at hand.

 

"Did you start anything about your liking me?"

 

His hazel eyes got supper wide. You would have thought that I convicted him of murder. It was only the answer that I needed but he kept talking. "How did you know?"

 

"Wait, so it's true?" He must have thought I said it excitedly but I was really worried of what I had to deal with.

 

"Yea! I've liked you since the seventh grade!" He got all excited and pulled me into him. It was not what I was expecting at all. He pulled me closed and then he just kissed me.

 

It took me a few minutes to react. I actually didn't even know how to react. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do now. I pushed Mark off and said, "What are you doing?" Right now all I could think about for some reason, was Zach. I didn't know why. All I wanted was the safe feeling I had when I was in Zach's arms. I knew he would have been here if I didn't push him away.

 

"I'm kissing you!"

 

"Why would you do something so stupid like that?!"

 

"Because I love you, and I want to be with you. It's not stupid. That's what you do when you want to be with someone. You kiss them."

 

I shook my head this was all just too much for me. First I found out that the only guy that I've ever liked is a vampire and now I find out that the guy I've hated my entire life is in love with me. What is this? Opposite day? "No. I don't want to be with you. I've never wanted to be with you! We are nothing alike!"

 

"Opposites attract." I was about ready to puke. I didn't know what to do. I thought he was seriously going to make me start dating him. Then Mark came in for another kiss but this time something stopped him. It was a fist.

 

I looked over to see who the first belonged to. It was Zach. "Zach, what are you doing?" For a moment I forgot that Zach was a vampire and all I could think was that Mark was going to beat the crap out of him. That's when the thought came back that he was a vampire and no human could beat the crap out of him.

 

"I'm stopping this dick from doing something you don't want him to do." He was standing up all protective like. He seriously acted like we've been dating for months. I didn't even think that we were dating. It was sweet that he was so protective.

 

"Dude, what was that for!?" Mark yelled when he recovered from his punch.

 

"Leave. Her. Alone." Zach said and for a moment I was kind of scared of him myself.

 

"Who are you? The Katie police?"

 

Zach looked at me. There was something in the way that he looked at me that made me laugh and shake my head. Why was I saying that I needed time? I already knew how I felt about Zach. Now that I actually have what I want, I'm pushing it away. I tend to do that a lot. Just then Mark interrupted my train of thought. "Katie, you can't be serious about this guy."

 

That's when I knew I didn't need any more time. It was obvious how I felt about Zach and now it was obvious about how he felt about me. "I actually am very serious about it." Then I hugged Zach. For once in my life things looked great.