The Purity of Blood: Volume I (45 page)

“Well, I hope
you can catch up enough to go out to dinner tomorrow evening.
 
I’m going to plow through all this so I can
finish and take my girl out.”
 

The tone of his
voice softened.
 
I could tell he was
smiling on the other end of the line, making me think I might be catching a
glimpse of what I suspected remained of the young man who’d died back in
1905.
 

“How about that
Italian place in town that you’re always checking out through the window when
we walk by?”

“That would be
nice.
 
Pick me up at 6:30?

“Alright.
 
Until then.
 
And, Sara?”

“Yes?”

“I love
you.”
 
He said it so quietly that I
hardly made out the words.

“Good night,
Daniel.”
 

Then I heard a
click as he hung up.

I felt better
that he’d called, knowing that even though he wasn’t here in my room with me,
that he was up in his house on the mountain thinking about me.
 
Lying back in bed, I thought about how I’d
felt when I’d heard his voice on the phone.
 
To be honest, it scared me, like I was an addict getting her first fix
of the day.
 
Some part of me was addicted
to Daniel, I could see that clearly now.
 
Was this a bad thing?
 
Alright,
I’ll rephrase that.
 
How
bad a thing was that?

Although I felt certain some part of him loved me, I doubted
he felt about me the way I did about him.
 
He was always so in control and sure of himself.
 
While every time I was around him, I felt
reduced to nothing more than a blubbering mess inside.
 
We were in love with each other, but my love
was consuming me and if its flow ever stopped, I wondered what would be
left.
 

At seven in the evening I called
his phone to find out where he was.
 
We’d
said 6:30, hadn’t we?
 
I got his voice
mail.
  
I tried again at seven fifteen
and again got voicemail.
 
This was unlike
the extremely punctual Daniel I knew.
 
At
7:30, I dug through my desk for the scrap of paper I’d written the house phone
number down on last week and dialed it.
 
The Professor answered.

“Oh – Hi, can I
speak to Daniel please?”

“He’s not
here.
 
Can I take a message?”

“He was supposed
to meet me a while ago.
 
I was just
trying to find him.
 
He isn’t answering
his phone. – This is Sara.”
 
I was
hesitant to say my name remembering what Daniel had said before.

“I’m sorry he
didn’t take the time to call you, Miss Donnelly.
 
Daniel went out of town this afternoon.
 
I suspect he probably won’t be back for a few
days.
 
It was very rude of him not to let
you know if you had plans together.”

“Out of town?” I
couldn’t hide the surprise in my voice.

“Yes, our friend
Lucy needed some assistance and he volunteered to go help her out.
 
I think they’re both coming back here in a
few days, but I’m not sure of their exact plans.
 
She’s an old friend and once they get
together, well – who knows when they’ll show up.”
 
His voice was overly friendly, amused almost.

“Oh.
 
Alright.
 
Sorry to bother you,” I said weakly as I hung up.

A few days?
 
I was stunned.
 
I suddenly felt as if I’d been hit with a
lead pipe.
 
Seemingly out of nowhere, my
knees gave out and I fell down onto my bed.
 
Sitting there, I blankly stared at Darcy’s vacant side of the room for a
long time.
 
I didn’t want to move.
 
I’d always known Daniel didn’t feel the way I
did, but I never thought he’d do this.
 
I
never thought I wouldn’t even be a phone call he’d make on his way out of
town.
 

Needing to hide, I curled up and pulled the covers over my
head.
 
As hard as I tried not to picture
his face, Daniel relentlessly invaded my dreams that night, hour after endless
hour.
 
As painful as it was to admit,
perhaps his absence was a good thing.
 
I
think I needed to get clean of him, if only for a little while.

When I
checked my emails the next morning I had one from Daniel.
 
He’d never emailed me before.
 
We’d never been apart so long that it was
necessary.
 
It read:
 

To: Sara Donnelly

From: Daniel Simmons

Sara, Sorry I didn’t call when I left, but
this trip came up so suddenly.
 
Had to
leave town to help a friend.
 
Not sure
when I’ll be back.
 
Things are a little
messy here.
 
Will try to explain when I
return.
 
Sorry I missed our dinner.
 
Talk to you soon.
 
Love, Daniel.
 

I emailed him back with an acknowledgement of his message but
that was all.
 
I wasn’t sure what to
say.
 
I was still hurt that he hadn’t
called me to cancel our date and tell me what was going on.
 
I mean, how long does a quick phone call
take?
  
If he came home with some
reasonable explanation I was sure I’d instantly forgive him, but something just
seemed off.
 

The next morning Tabitha and I
took our usual seats in the lecture hall.
 
I was not looking forward to class.
 
I had a feeling seeing the Professor was only going to serve as a
reminder that I wasn’t seeing Daniel.
 
Not only that, but I still felt mortified by our phone conversation, not
to mention uncomfortable in the knowledge that Professor Walker has some kind
of window into my mind.

“Back to Rodney,
I see,” Tabitha whispered, when he and the Professor entered the hall.

After class, we
walked out of the lecture hall into the sunshine filled atrium of the
building.
 
Tabitha paused for a moment to
soak up the sun on her face as it filtered down through the skylights.
     

“You’re very
quiet today,” she commented, eyes still closed with her head tilted up.

“Daniel’s gone
out of town for a while,” I muttered.

“Oh, I
see.”
 
She paused before continuing.
 
“Don’t get me wrong, but maybe this might not
be such a bad thing.
 
I didn’t say
anything before, but – you’ve been a tad overly preoccupied with him
lately.
 
I’m thinking a little distance
might not be such a bad idea, at least for a little while.
 
A few of my friends were planning on hitting
The Gryffon this evening for ladies night.
 
Why don’t you come along?”

“Sure, why not,” I answered without thinking about it.
 
What did it matter anyway?
 
If I didn’t go, I’d just sit around my room
and sulk all night.
 
Might as well sulk
in public for all to see.

I
walked over to Bevier Hall early.
 
I’d
been hopelessly staring at the walls of my room in Capen for over an hour.
 
When they started to close in on me, I
couldn’t take it anymore and had to get out.
 
In the crushing silence of Darcy’s absence the four walls of our room
were beginning to feel as if they were shrinking, sucking the oxygen out of my
lungs and I had to escape into the fresh air.
  
Of course, Daniel’s ghost haunted me constantly as I walked along.
 
In the short time we’d known each other we’d
roamed every inch of campus together.
 
There
was no corner where I couldn’t hear the sexy sound of his voice, vividly recall
his masculine scent or the tingling sensation his touch elicited in me.
 
Looking for a fix, I’d broken down about
lunch time and tried to call him again, but just as before it went straight to
voice mail.
 

As I approached the door of
Tabitha’s suite I could hear high pitched female voices laughing inside.
 
Perhaps this was a good idea.
 
I knocked.
 
A moment later a bubbly blonde I recognized as one of Tabitha’s
suitemates answered the door.
 
Still
laughing she ushered me in.
   

“Sara!” I heard
Tabitha’s excited voice exclaim over the laughing girls.
 
There was about six or seven of them in the
room all lounging about laughing at something that had them in stitches.
 

“Everybody, this
is my friend Sara.
 
Try to cheer her up
tonight … She’s got man troubles.”
 

When she said the last part out of the side of her mouth,
they all started nodding their heads and greeting me warmly.
 
Feeling their communal sympathy, I felt like
I’d just joined some sort of all female club I’d never known existed before.
 
I had to admit, it was
kinda
nice.

After a while we walked into town
to The Gryffon, a college bar that I hadn’t been too before.
 
As we stood in the line down the sidewalk to
get in, I turned to Tabitha and whispered “Don’t you have to be twenty one to
get in here?”

“Probably, but
they never card the girls, especially on ladies night.”

Normally I’d
have been a good girl and stayed away, but part of me wanted to be bad
tonight.
 
Feeling uncomfortable in my own
skin, I didn’t understand exactly how I felt, and quite frankly I didn’t want
to examine it very closely either.
 

Just as Tabitha
had predicted, the bouncer never carded us.
 
Instead, he winked at us suggestively as we walked in, leaving me to
feel his lingering stare on my behind as I walked past him.
  

Even though it
felt late to me, apparently it was still on the early side which was why it
wasn’t that crowded yet or so I was told.
 
Fortunately, we managed to find one of the last free tables off in a
back corner that was large enough to accommodate all of us.
 

The interior of
The Gryffon was dark, with blacked out windows and stale air permeated with the
lingering scent of last night’s beer and cigarettes.
 
It was an odd mixture of aromas, not
pleasant, but at the same time surprisingly not unpleasant.
 
Every surface I could see seemed worn or
distressed in some form or fashion, and a general sense of uncleanliness
prevailed throughout.
 
Quite frankly I
didn’t understand the appeal of such a place to the girls.
 
That is until a few minutes later when a bar
tender came over with a tray of drinks for the table.
 

“Complements of
the gentlemen over there,” he said with a charming smile as he indicated to a
table of guys at the other end of the room.
 
They were holding their drinks up and smiling in our direction.
 
Apparently this was normal for this group of
ladies.
 

It wasn’t long
before the guys came over and joined us, and in an attempt to be more friendly
tried to make the seating boy-girl, boy-girl.
 
The girls outnumbered them by one so I quickly cozied up to Tabitha’s
side, not wanting to be separated from her.
 
Before I could protest, a tall guy named Steve pulled up a chair and
dropped down next to me.
 
He was nice
enough looking, but a bit on the greasy side for my taste.
 
I guess I preferred Daniel’s more polished,
perfectly groomed look.
 
He asked me
about the classes I was taking and where I was from.
 
I answered and tried to be polite by asking
him these same questions in turn, but in truth I really wasn’t interested in
his answers.
 
I didn’t want to be there
and I’m sure it must have showed on my face.
 

I glanced around
the table.
 
Everyone seemed to be having
a good time.
 
Why wasn’t I?
 
Hearing his voice in my ear, I turned my
attention back to Steve and watched his mouth move as he rambled on about how
much he hated his classes, but I suddenly felt lonely.

“You haven’t
tried your drink?” he asked.

“I’m not sure
what it is,” I answered honestly.
 
I
could have added it didn’t look very appealing either.

“It’s a Long
Island Iced Tea.”

It sounded
innocent enough; I mean I’m from Long Island, so I took a big sip.
 

“What’s in this
thing?” I asked, shocked at what must have been an extremely high alcoholic
content.

“Good, huh?” he
said, taking a swig from his glass.
 

My head started
to feel a little strange, but I did my best to ignore it.
 
Steve talked on for a while without needing
much encouragement from me.
 
I continued
to pretend to be listening, but that was the best I could manage.