The Purity of Blood: Volume I (43 page)

He paused for a
second as he looked at me appraisingly, disapprovingly.
 
“I’m not exactly sure what went on in my
absence, but let me assure you it
will
stop
now that I am back.
 
Sara has a bright
future ahead of her, Daniel, I’ve made sure of that.
 
And I can guarantee you it does not include
you.
 
If you care about her at all,
surely you can see this is for the best.”
 

Sitting back
down on the sofa, he picked up my notes and continued reading over them as if
nothing had happened.
 
He’d laid down the
law and expected I’d go along with it.
 
After all, I always had in the past.

I left without a
word, storming out the back door and off into the woods.
 
Without thinking about it, I ran up the path
to the old orchard and dropped down in the grass where we’d sat not so long
ago.
 
It was where she’d looked at me
with eyes full of longing and I kissed those soft pink lips, only to feel her
body responding to my slightest touch.
 
All here in the tall whispering grasses on our hillside.
 
Sitting there by myself, I watched the wind
blow the grasses, watched them sway and was reminded of the way the wind moved
through her hair.

He was
right.
 
I knew he was right, but I also
knew I didn’t care anymore.
 
It was far
too late for logic to have any sway over me.
 
He was too late.
 
But, in the end,
I think the hardest part was knowing deep down, that Randall was right about
how wrong I was for her.

I was shaken
back to reality by the sound of my phone, and pulling myself out of the memory
of her kiss, I fished it out of my pocket.
 

Sara,
it said on the display.

SARA

“Sorry
I didn’t call sooner.
 
My
parents kept pestering me with questions and watching me do laundry.
 
I couldn’t break away from them for even a
minute.
 
How are you?”

“Good, but I
miss you.
 
I’m glad you called.
 
I needed to hear the sound of your voice.” He
sounded down about something.

“Yeah, me too,”
I mumbled.

“How are your
parents?”

“Fine.
 
My mother is actually staying pretty calm,
well for her anyway.
 
I guess she got so
excited after I hung up the phone saying I would come home, that my Dad made
her promise not to say another word about it until I arrived.
 
Other than that, not much else seems to be
new.”
 

I reached over
and scratched my arm.

“What was that?”
he asked.
 
“What was that noise I just
heard?”

“You heard
that?
 
That’s a little spooky.
 
I just scratched my arm.
 
I think I’m getting a rash.”

“You
think
you’re getting one?”

“Well, to be
honest, I’ve never had one before, but it looks like stuff friends of mine have
had.
 
Probably just allergic to
something.”

“Your mother’s
coming,” he said quickly.

“Sara?
 
Lunch is almost ready,” I heard from the
hall.
 

Bionic
ears.
 
Of course, I get the boyfriend
with bionic ears.

“I’d better be
going.
 
I’ll call you later.
 
I Love you.”

After a pause,
he said “I love you too, Sara.
 
Always.”
 
Then he hung up the
phone.

Something was wrong.
 
I
could hear it in his voice.
 
He’d
probably grown tired of me already.
 
Just
the thought of it caused an unexpected tightness in my chest.

I opened my bedroom door, and
walked into the hall just as Mom was about to come in looking for me.
 
Trying to stay on her good side, I did as she
asked and went out on the back deck to join my father for lunch.
 

“And the
neighbors keep finding dead animals on their property so keep inside the house
at night.
 
I think there’s some sort of
bobcat or the like wandering around the area.
 
The
O’Dwyer’s
dog was even found dead on the
edge of their property last week.
 
Nobody’s
been hurt yet, but until we catch this thing I wouldn’t take any chances.”

“Sure thing,
Dad.
 
I’m tired so I’ll probably go to
bed early tonight anyway,” I answered as I turned and looked down the hill into
the line of trees at the bottom of the lawn.
 
A bobcat?
 
Here?

“So how’s school
going?
 
Have you made lots of new
friends?”

“Yes, a
few.”
 

I told him all
about Darcy, Tabitha, Mike, Ryan and Ben.
 
I also casually mentioned Daniel at the end as a guy in my Art History
class I’d been studying with but left it at that.
 

“Well, that’s
good.
 
So this Ben guy sounds pretty okay.
 
Are you ever gonna bring him home with you
one of these weekends and give your mother a heart attack?
 
If you are, give me some advance notice.
 
I want to make sure I have my camera
ready.”
 

He was playfully
teasing me, or so I assumed.
 
I sometimes
thought it was his favorite past time and blushed uncontrollably as my mother
came through the back door with lunch.

“Don’t worry,
Dad.
 
I can pretty much guarantee I won’t
be bringing Ben home with me anytime in the near future – or ever for that
matter.”

“Who’s Ben?” my
mother asked as she placed a tray of sandwiches on the table and sat down.

“A friend of
Sara’s.
 
Sounds like a nice boy.”

Mom’s ears
perked up.
 
“She’s too young to be
bringing boys home to meet us.”

“She’s nineteen,
Vivy.
 
I think the parade is about to
begin whether you like it or not.”
 

Almost unbearably, I listened as the two of them argued in
jest about my love life all throughout lunch.
 
It would have been almost laughable except for the unspoken truths I was
carefully concealing from them.
 

After dinner we played cards for
a while, but I begged off after a few hours.
 
They’d be at it all night and I wanted to try to catch up on my
sleep.
 
It felt like a sin and a shame to
admit, but it was so I could stay up a little later with Daniel tomorrow night
if he wanted to do something.
 

Before heading
off, I got my clothes out of the dryer and neatly folded them in the corner of
my room to repack tomorrow.
 
Deep down, I
felt guilty that I hadn’t even finished unpacking and I was already packing for
a quick getaway.

Sitting down on
my bed, I looked back at my pillow remembering how Daniel had looked under the
light of my reading lamp, reclining on the bed in my dorm room.
 
I sighed and turned my gaze on the rest of my
room.
 
Somehow it looked different now,
smaller maybe.
 
I couldn’t explain it.
 
It was as if in the few weeks I’d been gone,
I had outgrown it somehow and it made me sad.

After changing and brushing my teeth, I climbed into my super soft bed,
so much more comfy than that uncomfortable dorm mattress.
 
Settling in under the covers, I pulled out my
phone.
 
I wanted to call Daniel, but
somehow felt like my call before had made him sad.
 
So instead I texted him.

Going 2 bed now.
 
Love U.
 
C U tomorrow.

I put my phone
on the nightstand and turned off the light.
 
I saw that I had a missed call from him during the day and hoped he
wasn’t mad that I hadn’t picked up.
 
It
seemed either one or both of my parents had shadowed me all day long, like they
were afraid I was going to run away or something.
 

It took a while for me to get to sleep, but when I did I
dreamed of Daniel.
 
We were walking in
the woods.
 
We weren’t talking, just
holding hands and following a trail that led off into the distance.
 
I wondered where we were going, but all I
could see in front of us was a misty, lush green forest full of signs of life.

The next morning after breakfast
we went to church and then out to lunch at my favorite diner in Riverhead.
 
When we finally got home, I waited an hour
then did my best to tactfully begin my retreat back to school.
 
I didn’t want my parents to feel like I was
ditching them, but of course I was.
 
I
gave them the excuse that I wanted to get back before it got dark because I
hated to drive at night.
 
In all
fairness, this was true, but it wasn’t the truth.

Before I pulled
out of town and got on the highway, I texted Daniel that I was on my way.
 
I was hoping he’d be waiting for me when I
got back.
 
I could easily picture his
chiseled body leaning gracefully against his car in the parking lot just
waiting for me to pull in beside him, the sun reflecting in his sandy
hair.
 

Pay attention to the road, Donnelly
I
had to say to myself as I started to glaze over, the vision of the sexiest man
I’d ever seen dangerously clouding my mind.

Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t have left
him.
 
In my absence, he was sure to spot
some other coed who’d catch his eye.
 
After all, how could I possibly ever hope to hold someone like him?
 
As I drove along, I had the nagging suspicion
that he was only a temporary gift, a loaner that God would most likely pass on
to someone else just when I least expected it.

I turned off the thruway just
before dinner time and driving down Manheim Boulevard through town, I found
myself wondering if my vision would be true.
 
Rounding the last corner, I parked behind Capen Hall, but I was utterly
disappointed when there was no sign of Daniel.
 
After turning off the ignition, I opened the door, got out and began to
stretch out my stiff shoulders and back.
 

Suddenly I was
startled by the sound of the hatchback opening behind me.
 
Surprised, I spun my head around to see the
tops of Daniel’s broad shoulders pulling my duffle bag out of the trunk.
 

Oh, those sexy shoulders,
I thought to
myself.
 
I wanted to feel them, to trace
their contours with my hands and lips.

Slowly shaking
my head back to reality, I found myself exhaling as if completely unaware I’d
been holding my breath for the past twenty four hours.

Walking back to
him, I reached up, put my arms around his neck and laid my head on his
chest.
 
After a pause, I heard my duffels
hit the ground and felt his arms gently close around me as he buried his head
in my hair.
 
We stood there motionless
for a minute just holding each other as if words were completely unnecessary.
 

For me, this was
always my favorite part of the day, when I was in his arms with no other agenda
other than enjoying the security that awaited me here.
 
In my whole short life, I had never felt as
safe as when I was here.
 
The rest of the
world and its problems didn’t exist for those brief moments.
 
It was my paradise.
 

Still in his
arms, I felt him lean down and kiss the top of my head.

“I hope this
means you missed me,” he said softly.

“Well, maybe a
little,” I told his shirt as I dropped my arms, curling them up against his
chest so he encircled me completely.

A few precious
moments later, he loosened his grip, allowing me to slip out of his grasp.
 
Feeling completely relaxed, I needed to sit
and took a seat on the rear bumper of my car while I looked out on the water
across the road.
 
Taking a seat beside
me, he reached over and took my hand in his.
  

“Randall came
back while you were gone.”

“The Professor?”

He nodded yes
without a hint of a smile.

“Did he say
where he’s been all this time?”

“Not
specifically, no.”
 
He paused for a long
moment, then after taking a deep breath continued. “I should probably tell you
that he doesn’t want me to see you … socially.
 
He may cause problems.”

“Why?” I asked
unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.

He hesitated
before answering as if searching for the right words.
 

“I’m not exactly
sure. – But I promise I
will
find
out.”
 
He reached over, and placing his
arm around my shoulder pulled me close.
 
“Don’t worry, Red, everything will be fine.”
 

Then he smiled
reassuringly as he fondled a lock of my red hair in his fingers.
 
He must have seen the lingering questions in
my face, and leaning over he gently kissed my lips to erase them as best he
could.
 

After a minute
he leaned back and got to his feet as if to head inside, but I didn’t
move.
 
Looking down, he saw my concerned
frown.

“What is
it?
 
I can read your expressions pretty
well by now.
 
Something’s on your mind.”

“It’s nothing
really.
 
I was just thinking about
something my Dad said.
 
Something about
me starting to bring boys home to meet them.”
 

Daniel shifted
his weight from one leg to the other and raised an eyebrow.
 

“He was joking,
but it made me wonder … well, where all this is going.”
 
I was looking at the ground, too afraid to
see the expression he wore.
 
“I know I’m
only nineteen, and we haven’t known each other very long, but our relationship
is so … I mean if you were … human, I guess I’d figure there was a possibility
of us getting married someday, and spending our lives together but …”
 

“But – I’m not
human,” he said calmly as if to continue my train of thought.

“So where does
that leave us?”
 
Unable to resist any longer,
I looked up to meet his gaze.
 
“I’ve
never been so happy in my whole life as I am when I’m with you, and I want to
feel this way for the rest of it.
 
Tell
me, what does a vampire want when his future is virtually limitless?
 
Why would you want to be tied to a mere
mortal who will only die on you someday?”