Chapter 26. Lorena
lorena
As soon as English class ends, I stride up to Minaro’s desk and start to say, “Director Minaro, I want to drop Shakes—”
“Oh good, you are both here,” she interrupts me, and I look back to find William standing over my shoulder. “I want to talk to you about your presentation.”
“We’re not—”
“So did we,” says William, and again I’m cut off. “We will no longer be performing the death scene. Instead, we will reenact Romeo and Juliet’s first meeting at the masquerade ball.”
“Such a better choice,” says our instructor. “Will you bring the masks you wore on Halloween? It would make the whole thing so much more entertaining.”
“No—”
“Absolutely.”
“Great!” says Minaro, ignoring me completely and getting to her feet.
“I wanted to tell you that I have set a date for your presentation.” She starts walking away as she’s speaking, like she’s running late for something.
“Since you have the full week of Thanksgiving off, you will present in three weeks, on the Friday before break.”
She’s gone before the last word, and I’m left alone with William.
“Why did you do that?” I demand, rounding on him. “I was going to quit the club—”
“I would rather you did not.”
I shut my eyes because his mood swings are making me seasick. “What do you want from me, William?”
“I want to…”
He doesn’t finish speaking until I open my eyes.
“Apologize.”
He says the word like it’s in a foreign language, and I hear it that way, too. Like I’m not familiar with the concept.
“Why? You want another drink already?” I ask, crossing my arms.
“Because you are the only ally I have left.”
It takes me a moment to really hear him. “I thought you didn’t believe in any kind of interspecies friendships.”
When he offers no retort, I study him. He looks different, and I get the sense I’m missing information. Something must’ve happened since we argued.
“What’s changed?” I ask.
“I…” He seems to be struggling to find the right words. “I have learned that I am the last of my kind.”
A gasp grows inside me, but I stifle it. “What—I mean, how can you know that?”
“There is writing on the back of the portraits I took from the LUB. On mine, it says: The last.”
I don’t immediately react.
I can’t imagine how crushing it must feel to learn you’re the last of your species. That kind of devastation is beyond my comprehension, and it makes me sad for him—still, I’m more relieved to know there are no other vampires out there.
“I’m sorry,” I say after what feels like a while.
“I know you have no reason to trust me.” Something is different about his demeanor, as if his guard has come down. “Yet if you are willing, I would like a second chance to earn it.”
Every time the vampire has offered me a choice, it’s been performative because we both know he holds all the power. Even now, the only reason he’s being generous with me is that he has no one else in the world. But at least he’s no longer acting threatening.
“If you’re going to be living among us forever, you’ll have to work on your vampire-human relations,” I say.
“Will you help me?” he asks.
At this point, I’m just as invested as he is in uncovering the truth about his kind. Zach flits across my mind, but I can’t bring up what he discovered because I don’t want William to keep messing with my friends’ memories. I’ll have to handle that on my own.
“Fine,” I say at last. “I’ll let you sit next to me on the bus to Hanover. I know that’s the real reason you’re apologizing.”
Then he does something that makes time stop: His purple gaze fills with light and a starlit glow emanates from his skin as William smiles. “Were you truly going to make me sit next to someone else?”
I can’t think of anything, much less a witty retort.
“Want to work on our Romeo and Juliet scene?” he asks when I don’t answer. “Or would you rather we focus on our presentation for history club on the Roanoke Colony?”
The vampire’s friendly overtures are so strange after everything we’ve been through. It feels like we’re crossing a newly built bridge and testing if it holds. Just to say something, I ask, “What actually happened to those colonists? I bet you know.”
“A vampire named Leonardo the Bloody killed them all.”
I hold my expression, waiting for the gotcha. Only it doesn’t come.
“But—the Treaty—” I stammer.
“He did not live by anyone’s rules,” says William, as if that explains the murder of an entire community. “He disappeared after that, and no one knows what became of him.”
As sad as it is that William won’t be reuniting with his family, all I can feel right now is an intense relief that all the vampires are gone.
All but one.
WILLIAM AND I show up to the dining hall together. I feel Salma’s gaze drilling into my head, but I pick up my plate and head to the buffet.
“What are you doing?”
It’s not Salma, but Zach, who follows me to the table of food. He picks up a dinner roll.
“Let’s talk in Hanover,” I whisper, knowing that William can hear us. “Meet me at noon in that chocolate café Tiffany mentioned.”
Then I walk away before he can say more.
“What is he doing here?” Salma intercepts me before I make it back to the table, Tiffany in tow.
“He apologized.”
“What was his explanation for his rudeness?” Tiffany demands.
“He’s got some health stuff going on with his parents, and that day he was just struggling.”
It’s the first lie to occur to me, and it seems close enough to the truth—after all, he did just find out his parents are gone. But I didn’t even consider how it would affect Salma.
“Oh no,” she says, her eyes growing soft with sympathy. “Are they going to be okay?”
I am such an asshole.
“I—I don’t know, but he doesn’t want to tell people,” I add quickly. “Act like you don’t know.”
In bed at night, I toss and turn, trying to think of a bigger story to feed Zach that will make him forget the one on William. And I keep coming back to Ma.
I’ll have to offer him an exclusive with her. She doesn’t give many interviews these days, so it would be pretty newsworthy. Then of course I’ll have to call Ma and beg her to do this for me.
My roommates are taking forever to get ready in the morning, so they decide to skip breakfast. It’s just the three guys and me at the table, and I notice that William is paying Zach more attention than Trevor.
He must have heard me set the meeting in Hanover. The vampire is probably wondering why.
“We’ll wait for the girls,” Trevor says to me when Minaro announces that the bus has arrived. “You go ahead.”
This time, Director Minaro doesn’t offer us a vote—she simply chooses the movie for us, and I recognize it from the first frame.
The camera zooms in on a reporter speaking on an old television set, the words star-crossed lovers printed on a graphic by her head. William looks at me. “Is this—?”
“Romeo and Juliet,” I say. “Real subtle of Minaro.”
Once again, William is glued to the movie on the screen. It’s a somewhat modern and musically inclined version of the play that Salma and I love.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I look down at a text from Sal: U OK?
Yes, I send back.
“Are you sure?” William asks, his eyes straying from the screen right as the two main characters are looking through the glass of a large fish tank, moments away from locking eyes.
“Keep watching!”
Ms. Floreville comes down the aisle, handing out sandwiches, chips, and water bottles. William puts his away as if he plans to eat it later. I rip open the paper bag and bite into my sandwich, smearing garlic aioli across my mouth, half a tomato slice dangling from my teeth.
William turns his head fully toward me. “Your eating borders on indecent.”
“Jus keep wa-ching,” I mumble with my mouth full.
He turns away in disgust.
The bus ride to Hanover is shorter than the one to Cambridge, so we make it only as far as the wedding scene. We’ll watch the rest of the movie on the ride back.
“You are to return to the bus by five o’clock,” says Minaro, “and check in with me so I can mark you present before taking your seat. We have arranged a meal credit at Hanover Pizza, and each of you can spend up to twenty-five dollars there if you show them the coupon we will be handing you as you get off the bus. Enjoy yourselves!”
As soon as we are on the ground, Salma announces, “We’re going shopping.” Tiffany is already locking arms with her, and Salma offers me her other elbow.
As I loop my arm around, William says, “Lorena … would you meet me at the Chocolate Bar at noon?”
I know he’s only doing this to make amends, but Salma squeezes my arm as hard as if he’d just proposed marriage. That’s the same time I’m meeting Zach, so I say, “Twelve thirty.”
“We’ll be sure to deliver her to you on schedule,” Salma says to William with a sweet smile. She’s being sensitive to him because she thinks she knows what he’s going through.
My roommates and I move away as a six-legged organism, and Tiffany says, “I thought he said he would never date you.”
“We’re just friends,” I say. “Like you and Zach. And you and Trevor.”
“Point taken,” says Salma. “Let’s find one of the cute shops you scouted,” she tells Tiffany. Sal’s extension of her dad’s credit card is her only way of reminding him she exists.
As we go from shop to shop, I keep consulting my phone screen to check the time.
I already mapped out where the chocolate shop is, so it should only take me three and a half minutes to get there.
That means I have forty-two minutes to go until my meeting with Zach and an hour and twelve minutes until I meet William.
The new store we’re in has pink walls, pink furniture, and pink artwork. It feels like it was specially designed for Tiffany, and she immediately starts pulling items off the rack.
“You’re screwed,” says Salma, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s talking to me.
“What do you mean?”
“You really like this guy,” she says, not exactly sounding pleased about it. “And I mean a strong like. A like that feels a lot like lo—”