There Has to Be a Morning After
The next morning I woke groggily to the sound of my cell phone playing Alice's ringtone (Play That Funky Music White Boy). I didn't rush to get it, Alice never gave up after one call. She was persistent to the point of being annoying, which given my aversion to social interaction was an essential and delightful quality. When I finally made it to the phone, Alice launched immediately into her plan for our day, not wasting any time with hellos and how are yous. That's the great thing about Alice, she always has plans, because every second of the day there is always something she wants to be doing, whereas I sometimes have trouble imagining I will ever want to do anything again. I half-listened to her chattering about going swimming at the springs, or maybe at the pool, but on the way getting some pictures developed, and going by the gas station that had blue raspberry Icees, and dozens of other things that might or might not actually happen today, and then agreed for her to pick me up in an hour.
The night before seemed distant and surreal, it was tempting to pretend it has been some strange dream. I had only seen him for a second. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe I'd just been really drunk. Maybe someone had slipped LSD into my drink.Maybe I'm finally going all-the-way full-blown hallucinations crazy, instead of pussyfooting around with this lack of affect, mild eating disorder, half-hearted substance abuse kind of crazy. Maybe if you're a good girl your next hallucination will last longer.
It was a pretty good day, considering. We went swimming at Bartram Springs, and the cold water cleared my head. I had definitely imagined last night. Edward was not the only pale good looking guy around, my drunken mind had just collapsed under the stress of my birthday and painted his face on an innocent guitarist. Edward was nothing if not careful, and he would never be so reckless as to risk fame by being in a band. He wouldn't even visit a sunny locale like Austin without some kind of urgent mission. Later that day, back at my room, Alice suddenly brought up the previous night, catching me off guard with the seasick pitching of her conversation as she went straight from the many advantages of thong underwear (which I refused to wear) to last night's concert. "Hey, you know, we should definitely go see that band again, let's Facebook them!" I cringed. Yeah, and then maybe I should punch myself in the face repeatedly. I wasn't really too worried though. Number one, it wasn't Edward. Number two, even if it was, Edward had been ridiculously good-looking at too many high schools and I knew from pathetic experience that he was immune to cyberstalking. He was too careful.
But I was wrong. Alice pulled up the band's page in no time, and there he was in half a dozen photos. Though he had taken the small precaution of changing his name to Edward Masen. As soon as I saw the first picture, I knew I'd been wrong about a lot of things. Staring at his beautiful features, I suddenly realized with a jolt what was different about him the other night. I felt a thrill of fear. His eyes were green.
I couldn't believe it. I felt like I had just found out my friendly little pet kingsnake was in fact a venomous coral snake. There was only one reason for vampires to wear colored contacts. To hide their literally blood-red eyes.
"Bella! Bella, wakey wakey!" I slowly dragged my eyes away from the screen and struggled to close my gaping mouth. "Hmm? What?"
"I said, do you want to go see them again tonight? We missed half the show last night. Jasper has some group project to work on, but we could go back." Did I want to see him again? If Edward no longer valued human life, a sick self-involved voice inside of me immediately saw some advantages. If he was killing humans, it seemed safe to assume he wouldn't be worried about protecting me anymore either, and I could see that going a couple of different ways. Maybe now he won't be afraid of touching you. Or maybe he won't be afraid of biting me. Maybe he'll kiss you. Maybe he'll kill me. Maybe he'll f-. Shut up.
"Okay, yeah, let's go tonight."
This was a short chapter, but I'd still love to know what you think. Reviews?
