Chapter 24. Lorena #2
I don’t understand why this hurts so much. Of course William and I wouldn’t date—he’s a fucking vampire. Being his Familiar is a sacrifice, not an honor. So what is this piercing pain in my chest?
I’ve done everything he’s asked—fed him, kept his secrets, helped him adapt—and he repays me by mortifying me in front of my friends?
The bell can’t ring soon enough, and I’m glad I don’t share any morning classes with William. I’m even more glad when the vampire doesn’t show up to lunch. None of my friends asks about him, but his empty chair makes his absence feel pronounced, and I can’t stop looking at it.
After everything I’ve done for him, the lies I’ve told, the blood I’ve given, he still has no respect for me.
By the time English class comes around, I’m livid. At first it seems like he’s going to skip, but when he shows up right at the final bell, everything takes on a reddish tinge.
She certainly did not hate him. No; hatred had vanished long ago, and she had almost as long been ashamed of ever feeling a dislike against him …
It’s my third time ever reading Pride and Prejudice, and when I get to these lines, my eyes keep straying to the back of William’s head. Why did he humiliate me like that? Especially when he seemed so … tender with me Sunday night.
I thought things were changing between us for the better, but clearly it’s for the worse.
“Books down,” says Minaro when our forty-five minutes of reading are up. “What do you make of Pemberley and the scenes set there?”
“I see it as a turning point,” says William, who’s usually the first to speak.
“Before Pemberley, Elizabeth underwent her trials—Collins, Wickham, Darcy—and now it is Darcy’s turn to be tested.
His challenge is to open up and dare to be seen, vulnerabilities and all.
That is why he writes Elizabeth a letter, and he helps Lydia when—”
“Mr. Pride,” says Minaro in a warning tone, “how many times must I ask you not to spoil the upcoming scenes for your classmates?”
“Screw Pemberley and screw Darcy,” I say.
One of the girls in the front row gasps, and Salma whispers, “Lore!”
“Miss Navarro, language, please,” says the director. “Explain yourself.”
“It’s a timeless tale,” I say, burning a hole into the back of William’s head. “Darcy gets forgiven for his bad manners and general disdain of others just because he’s rich and powerful and white and male and cisgender and straight—”
“Once again,” says Minaro, “I have to ask you not to spoil anything—”
“We all know what happens, Director,” interrupts Tiffany. “Raise your hand if you don’t know how the book ends.”
Not a single hand goes up.
“We’ve seen the movie,” Tiffany tags on with a shrug.
“Okay then,” says the director. “Finish that thought, Miss Navarro.”
“I just don’t find Darcy likable, and I don’t know why he’s so romanticized,” I say, and I don’t dare to look at Salma because I can feel her incredulous gaze on me. Mr. Darcy has been my fictional boyfriend since I met him in ninth grade. “He’s rude, prejudiced, and arrogant.”
“He is also loyal, protective, and misunderstood,” says William.
Of course he’s defending Darcy. Assholes have to stick together.
“He’s only in a position to help because he’s a rich man,” I point out. “That’s his only real accomplishment, and he didn’t do anything to earn it.”
“Do you think you are being kind of hard on Darcy?” asks Minaro. “After all, Elizabeth makes mistakes, too.”
“It’s not a mistake when you’re being manipulated,” I argue. “Darcy deliberately misrepresented himself for the worse, just like Wickham did for the better. They’re both liars and manipulators. Elizabeth’s only mistake was wasting her time on romance in the first place.”
WHEN WE get to the dining hall for dinner, the wall outside the entrance is covered with photos from the dance.
“We look fucking hot,” says Tiffany as she and Salma find their photo.
I look around for mine with William, but I don’t see it. He probably got rid of it.
The vampire doesn’t come to dinner, and a thought crosses my mind: What if he’s gone for good?
The question plagues me all evening, while reading Pride and Prejudice, doing my homework, studying for our history test … I should be relieved he’s gone, not worried I might never see him again. I wish I could shout those words at myself, but there’s no privacy in this damn place.
I go with the girls to the bathroom, and while they shower, I wash my face and brush my teeth. Then I start to head back upstairs—
Bands close around me, and my surroundings melt away.
It takes my mind a moment to settle, and then I’m face-to-face with William in the folds of those velvet curtains again. As his arms fall away, I demand, “What the hell do you want, Darcy?”
“I will take that as an upgrade from Rochester.”
“I don’t care how you take it, just leave me the fuck alone.” There’s a roaring in my chest that makes my voice sound raw and primal. I don’t know where all this emotion is coming from.
“You are hurt,” he says, his tone almost gentle compared to mine. “I did not mean for that.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I was merely stating facts. This whole school seems to be under the impression that there is something romantic between us—”
“Who cares, as long as they don’t know the truth?” I hear my voice rising again, but I don’t tamp it down. “You basically humiliated me just for being your cover! And after I’ve had your back this entire time—”
“Only because you mean to save yourself and your friends,” he reminds me in a low tone more lethal than my loudness. “We have a symbiotic arrangement. That is the only reason you are still alive.”
“And here I thought it was because I was your Familiar.”
“Familiar does not mean friend. Given the deterioration of relations that took place in my day, it has become clear to me that vampires and humans should not become emotionally involved.”
“You’re prejudiced?” I ask, with a mirthless laugh.
“It should be me, the human, who should not want to be friends with a vampire, not the other way around!” I feel tears burning in my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall.
“You’re just like Darcy! You feel superior to me and want credit just for letting me and other humans breathe your air. The way you treated Trevor—”
“Trevor is different,” says William, more icily than usual. “He is Legion.”
All the words I was going to fire off abandon me, and I’m left with a baffled “What?”
“He had a green book that he took from the LUB.”
My heart pounds harder, and I hope the vampire doesn’t detect that I already knew and had been keeping this from him.
“I compelled him to give it to me, and I found the Legion’s symbol buried in its pages.”
That’s why Trevor was so insistent that we search all the books. He had already found something.
“That doesn’t mean he’s Legion,” I say. “He might not even know what the symbol means—”
“I asked him, and he said it was his family crest.”
Trevor’s family is part of the Legion.
I can’t believe it.
“I could not risk him saying anything suspicious about me to his parents,” says William, “so I erased his memory of the conversation.”
Something distantly clicks for me, like finding the missing piece to a puzzle I’d abandoned. “Did you compel him not to ask Salma to the dance?”
William doesn’t answer out loud, but the way his lips thin into a line tells me he did.
“Why?” I ask. “Why did you have to pull a Bingley and Jane on them? They could’ve been good for each other, maybe even fallen in love—”
“Are we suddenly back in English class?” he asks, sounding bored. “Because I thought we were talking about real life.”
“What do you know about real life?”
“What do you know about falling in love?”
I feel prickly hot shame rising to my cheeks, and I say, “I renounce my role as your Familiar.”
Then I storm through the curtains, done with him for good.