Cursed

  “Do you think if your parents get divorced, you become a curse on their lives?” she asked. “Just living baggage that prevents two people from ever really moving on from something they regret?”

  It had been months of these semi-frequent visits and I was starting to wonder when she was going to get tired of coming up here.

  During my first year of middle school, I spent most of my lunches on the roof of the school gymnasium. Students weren’t allowed to come up here and so I decided this would be the perfect place for me to keep away from the watchful eyes of other students just in case one of my “accidents” happened during school hours. After a week of sitting on baking hot concrete, under an awning that covered the roof access door, Vivian Luo burst through the door, found the nearest corner, curled up against the parapets and chain-link fence combo that stood along the edges of the roof, and sat there in unsettling, blank stare silence.

  It took her several minutes to notice me sitting on the left side of the door—had I chosen the right side that day, it would have hit me when she flung it open—to which she promptly rubbed her eyes dry, awkwardly stood up, and left the roof. I was thankful that she didn’t seem to notice the bloody, industrial-sized ventilation fan blade resting on the wall opposite me, or the fact that the back of my skull was leaking blood and brain fluid. I was even more thankful that she hadn’t run up here twenty minutes ago, when the fan blade had spun out of control, fallen off its mount, busted through the metal grate, and flew across the roof to cut a horizontal line through my skull.

  A week later, Vivian came to the roof again. Her eyes were red from holding back tears as she peeked her head out onto the roof and looked down to find me squatting along the ventilation shed, playing Pokémon Diamond on my Nintendo DS. She looked annoyed by my existence.

  I didn’t know what to do, I hadn’t really talked to many people my age and my mind raced to find some adequate words of consolation to give to this distraught crying girl who seemed to want some privacy. Unfortunately, my mind was coming up blank and instead decided to chastise me for not properly socializing it for these situations.

  “Do you come up here every lunchtime?” she asked, her voice cracked a bit, but her tone was biting.

  “I…I do…” I admitted. Her gaze made me feel as if I’d done something wrong.

  “Why?”

  I strained my brain to think of a reason that would make sense, feeling my credibility diminish with every passing second—unsure why it even mattered to me that she believed my lie. “I’m…not great with people…” I decided on a true statement, even if it wasn’t exactly the real reason. 

  “Well…” she scoffed, playing something out in her mind. Her tone shifted lighter. “What do you do up here?”

  I looked down at my game boy and raised it towards her. “Play games…eat lunch…sometimes I take a nap.”

  She crouched down and looked at the game screen. “…Can I try?”

  I nodded awkwardly, she sat down next to me, and I handed her the portable console. We played for the rest of lunch—beating the Eterna City Gym and moving on towards the next gym badge. I wondered if I should ask about her tear-stained face, but something in the back of my mind told me to leave it alone. Whatever it was, my prying wouldn’t do anything to fix it.

  Four days later, on that Friday, Vivian appeared again. We played video games again, and left it at that. Another day, she came up, sat near me, and scribbled in her journal—a flimsy spiral-bound notebook—in silence until the bell rang. We didn’t have any classes together, but we did see each other in the halls sometimes—her with her friends, me alone—and she would wave to me quietly as we walked by each other. The first time, I was surprised. Due to my circumstances, I try to look and feel as uninteresting as possible. When I walk around, I try to go unnoticed. In class, I never speak and when called upon, I try to be as boring as possible. So, Vivian choosing to spend time with me, multiple lunch periods, confused me. However, if something up here could ease those tear-stained eyes that I saw the first time we met, then I wouldn’t question it further. I assumed she didn’t have a DS and knew the addictive qualities of a Pocket Monsters game.

  Eventually, Vivian would visit me at least once a week during lunch, sometimes twice. We never really talked about our real live. We would played games together, or she would write in her journal and I would play games, or she would play games and I would be finishing my homework, and then went our separate ways once the bell rang. Then—just after we came back from winter break—she asked me the question.

  “Do you think if your parents get divorced, you become a curse on their lives? Just living baggage that prevents two people from ever really moving on from something they regret?” She asked. “And if you’re a curse on them, then what if you eventually become a curse on…” 

  I sat there quietly for a while, thinking about the question. She didn’t make eye-contact—staring out, past the chain-link, at the suburbia around us—but I could feel her apprehension having just asked a complete stranger such a personal and existential question. I looked for something sage or impressive to say, something that would garner me some sort of praise, but I looked up at the back of her head and something about it forced my mind to switch gears. “I…I don’t really know anything about divorce, my father died when I was young, and my mother still seems to love him. But I do know about being cursed and, from what I can tell, it depends on the person.” She looked at me quietly. “Some people will think you’re bad luck and that if they keep you around, that bad luck will spread to them. Others will see past the circumstances around you, for the person you are on the inside. But…honestly, I think…that the only one who can decide my significance is myself…your significance, yourself.” I chuckled sheepishly, realizing that I’d gotten ahead of myself. “I guess I don’t even know that, but that’s what I want to believe cause I…cause…yeah.” I stopped, realizing how awkward that sounded. “I’m sorry, I think I messed up your question…” I hesitated, stammering a bit. “But I…I don’t think you’re cursed. I actually really enjoy the time we play games together.” My face got hot as embarrassment spread throughout my head, clogging my brain, and I stopped abruptly. “Um…I mean…”

  Vivian smiled. “You’re really bad at this.”

  I chuckled lightly. “I guess I am…”

  Her weekly visits soon became a highlight to my days, while—at the same time—her life was changed irrevocably. Through the next semester and summer break, Vivian’s parents finalized their divorce and her mother moved across town. Vivian—through their shared custody agreement—now lived in two houses, switching between the two every three or four days. Throughout the entire process, Vivian seemed unaffected. We continued to play video games and hang out during lunch once a week and sometimes even talked—conversation topics ranging from new games to shows we’ve watched, to our opinions of the teachers—light stuff. Our friendship or whatever you might call it continued on like this until the beginning of the next school year.

  “My dad is starting to date…again…like a serious girlfriend.”

  “That seems…” I stopped myself. “How do you feel about it?”

  She sat there for a moment in silence. “I want my dad to be happy. And I’ve met Elena, she seems like a…nice person. But…I don’t know…” Vivian sighed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I thought about patting her shoulder as a show of sympathy, but decided against it.

  “He says it’s for me. That I need a mother,” Vivian said. “A complete family…but he was the one who got a divorce without thinking about…And now…now my dad is never home at night, always gone to see Elena. My mom…she’s always sad now and I know it hurt her, but she doesn’t want to talk about it…and I…” I could see her eyes redden.

  I didn’t know what to say, but my body moved on its own and hugged her. Suddenly, I remembering a time where I had almost lost hope and my mother had hugged me. I felt Vivian’s head rest on my shoulder and we stood there for a while until she suggested we start playing games and eat something before the bell rang.

  We ate in silence and, before I knew it, the bell for fifth period rung. On our way down the stairs, Vivian stopped me. “Hey…um, I’m having a kind of birthday party next Saturday, my dad is really trying even though I told him it was fine, but if you want to come…”

  I hesitated and fiddled with my hands. “I’m not…great with crowds.”

  “Oh yeah,” her face looked so downtrodden. “Oh yeah, that’s why you’re up on the roof every day,” she chuckled trying to lighten the mood, “makes sense—”

  “I…umm—”

  “—I totally get it, you don’t need to—I was just—”

  “I want to come,” I said. She stopped rambling. “I do, I really do. I have to ask my…my family if we have any plans that day, but if they don’t, then I can go.”

  “Cool, I…cool,” she said. Vivian’s face brightened and she smiled before rushing down the stairs.

  “Yeah…” I smiled, trying to hide my anxiety. “Cool.”

—   —

   Sev—official designation: Death-007, reaper under the order of Azrael—sighed after I asked. He was silent for a moment and then sat up from the massage chair and stared me in the eyes. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  I hesitated.

  “A party usually means anywhere from twenty to thirty people, a middle school birthday party runs for roughly six to ten hours. I respect the fact that you’ve been taking precautions and no one’s seen you die at your new school, but—"

  “Is this a friend?” my mother cut in, her voice was filled with excitement. “A friend invited you to their birthday party? You made a friend at school?” 

  My grandfather sat quietly, reading a book on the couch.

  “Uh,” I looked from Sev to my mother. “Yeah, Mom, I guess I made a friend.”

  “That’s wonderful.” She held my hands in hers. “You’re going.”

  “But—” Sev started.

  “You’re going to need to bring a present if you’re going to go,” my mother said. “No child of mine is going to show up to a birthday empty-handed.”

  “I…I guess I can find something off Amazon,” I said.

  “Good idea,” my mother said. “Do you know what they likes? Do you need my credit card?”

  “Um, she likes to journal…and play video games…”

  “She?” my mother’s eyes sparkled as her excitement reached a new level.

  I looked over at Sev. His eyes were closed in silent frustration as the massage chair continued its work. However, I noticed my grandfather looking up from his book. When our eyes met, he nodded at me and, with a shooing motion from his hands, I reluctantly walked out of the room.

  “Have you gone insane, woman?” Sev asked in a hushed, but outraged tone. I heard their conversation clearly from my room. “We just moved a year ago, do you want to move again?” Sev was referencing the time an industrial air conditioning unit—roughly two-hundred and fifty pounds—fell and completely crushed my head in the middle of history class in sixth grade. My mom somehow convinced the school and teacher that I survived the accident, but since then most of the kids kept away from me and some of them started bullying me, calling me “zombie boy”. I tried to hide the bullying, but my mother eventually found out and we moved school districts right before middle school.

  “I am not,” my mother said, “because if that curse activates at any time during that party, you,” she poked a finger into his dark robes, “will be there using your reaper magic to make sure nothing kills my son.”

  “I have a job, I’m a reaper, I have souls to collect.”

  “The dead will stay dead, does it truly matter if you collect them immediately or if you wait five hours to let this kid be a kid for once?” They continued to argue about the dangers of my social interactions until I felt something boil over inside me and slammed my bedroom door closed, then put headphones on and blasted the loudest music I could find. I felt an overwhelming pressure on my chest and my mind swirling with a chorus of near-unintelligible thoughts as I laid in bed and tried to lose myself in the music. The next thing I knew it was morning and my alarm was telling me to get up and go to school.

  At this point, one might be asking why I have a grim reaper living with me and why I’ve died—twice mentioned, roughly once every two months by the time I was thirteen—in the story already and it’s still going. It seems that my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather insulted the honor of a traveler one day—the story has changed throughout the generations, but either he refused them shelter from a harsh, storm or he publicly humiliated them at a tavern as they were passing through or he stole a large sum of money from them while at that bar—and that traveler turned out to be a witch or wizard, some form of magical being, who was so offended apparently, that they cursed his descendants to “die innumerable deaths”.

  My family at the time didn’t think too much of it since nothing immediate happened and they didn’t really believe in magic. Nothing happened to the next generation of children or the generation after that or any of the following generation until I was born and, at the age of three when I could crawl around, the grand piano collapsed on me. 

  The one nice thing about my curse was that it didn’t seem to hurt anyone other than myself—besides possibly the mental trauma of seeing a classmate or child get mauled by everyday appliances or runaway vehicles. The curse itself was always contained to me and even if people around me were caught in an explosion or head-on collision or whatever other Looney Tunes-esque death scenario (Yes, I was once killed by a falling anvil. No, I do not know where it came from) or if they tried to save me from one of the numerous ways I’d be temporarily murdered, these people would miraculously escape, completely unharmed—not even a single scratch or bruise. This allowed me to live with my family and go to school and allowed my parents to live near their work instead of us having to quarantine me out in the middle of nowhere with the worry that I might amass a body count purely from collateral damage. 

  The next few nights I cycled between excitement, anticipation, stomach-crumpling anxiety, and paranoia. The idea of me attending a social event with my peers was something I’d always dreamt of doing, playing games, hang out, talking about our hopes and dreams while staring up at the stars. However, the fact that I’d never been to a gathering like this and my history of being bullied carried with it a complicated set of emotions that a week’s notice slowly magnified until I just stopped sleeping.

—   — 

  “What is that?”

  “What is what?”

  “That,” Sev pointed to the single manicured rose that sat on top of Vivian’s wrapped birthday present.

  “A rose.”

  “I know it’s a rose, why are you bringing a single rose to your friend’s birthday party?” 

  “Mom gave it to me to give to Vivian,” I said. “She gave it to me this morning and told me: ‘girls love flowers’.”

  “Seems overtly romantic.”

  “Yes, I know it’s overtly romantic,” I said, impatient and already feeling the heat of embarrassment on my face. “What was I supposed to do with it, you know how much mom loves these roses.”

  Sev shrugged as he finished off the corndog he insisted on stopping to get at the Wienerschnitzel on the way to Vivian’s house. He turned to stare at the front lawn as he clapped the food dust off his skeletal hands. “Where did you say Vivian’s parents were from again?”

  “I think they’re from China.”

  “I gathered that from the surname, I meant the province.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Her parents’ ancestral home never came up.”

  Sev was silent as he watched Vivian’s house.

  “Why…do you ask?”

  “Something smells dead…”

  “Can you even smell without a nose?”

  “You know I can have a physical human form, but I just don’t like the one I was allocated.”

  “I know,” I said, “I’ve just never seen it.”

  “You wanna see it?”

  “I mean if you’re not comfortable with putting it on, that’s fine, I just kinda don’t understand what would be worse than a skeleton in a black cloak.”

  “I’m a grim reaper, this is a classic look.”

  “Alright,” I shrugged.

  “Just go to your little birthday party,” Sev said, pushing his door open. “I can’t believe I did overtime for three days just to be your chauffeur on my day off.”

  “…Thank you,” I said, looking down at my feet.

  “Well…” Sev started, but things were strangely awkward and I scampered off towards Vivian’s front door. He sighed and looked around. “There’s definitely a weird smell.”

  Vivian’s father answered the door. A hulk of a man, at least six feet tall and padded with more muscles than I knew the human body could have. He was stuffed into light khakis, a white button up, and a vest that made him look like a shark in an aquarium, where the mismatch between clothes and physical form seemed only to accentuate the fact that he could snap my neck with a twist of his fingers.

  As he greeted me, there was a split-second where I thought I saw his eyes turn from dark brown to red, but they turned back to brown so quickly that I assumed it was a trick of the light. He smiled at me with half his face. “You must be…one of Vivi’s friends.” 

  I introduced myself and held a hand out.

  He shook it and brought me into the foyer of their high-ceilinged, castle-like home. I looked around in wonder at all the antiques that populated the open floor plan.

  “Your house is—” I turned to find him sniffing me. My mind raced to embarrassment. “Do I smell?” I pulled my shirt up to my nose.

  “Oh no,” Vivian’s dad said, “not at all, I just couldn’t help but notice the scent of that Munstead Wood Rose you have with you.

  I looked down at the flower my mother had given me.

  “Quite a unique and beautiful scent,” Vivian’s father said. “Did you get that for my daughter?”

  “Oh, umm…” I scratched the back of my head. “My mother insisted I give it to Vivian. She’s kinda old-fashioned and said that all girls liked flowers.” I gave a nervous chuckle.

  “I see,” he said. His eyes examined me carefully as his nose seemingly pricked at some unsettling smell. It was so intimidating and I was already so nervous, that my mind stalled into blankness as he stared down at me. “This way, to the others.” He showed me towards the backyard where voices could be heard and I marched stiffly behind him.

  I quickly realized I had never met any of Vivian’s friends—besides passing introductions in classes we shared—so, when I walked out into the backyard, the twenty other middle-schoolers standing around just stared at me in confusion. After a beat, we all politely introduced ourselves and then the group split back up into two groups—some played pool volleyball while others sat around the large assortment of snacks Vivian’s dad had put out on the patio table and talked about school social politics.

  The day went smoothly until a roof tile fell from two stories up and crashed into my head, but it didn’t even knock me unconscious. There was a lot of blood coming out of the laceration, but—as I tried to explain to Vivian and the others—that’s just because there’s a lot of blood circulating in your head at any one time, so a small cut normally produces a lot of blood. Vivian still called her father out—a doctor by profession—to examine me and make sure I wasn’t suffering from a concussion. The entire time my mind raced with apprehension that the roof tile had garnered too much attention, something you generally shouldn’t do at someone else’s party. However, Lawrence, the apparent leader of the male group, clapped me on the shoulder when I returned with a clean bill of health and called me a “beast”, which—to my thirteen-year-old self—felt amazing.

  The sun went down and, with dinner not quite ready, the group decided it was a good time to open presents. Clothing, CDs, make-up, and a pair of comfortable, albeit seemingly-ugly, shoes were opened to warm reception. When Vivian reached for my present, my heart beat into my ears. My present didn’t seem to hold a candle to some of the more expensive items that were opened. Suddenly, we all saw it and I remembered the rose. Vivian stared at the rose in confusion and everyone fell into awkward silence—no one spoke for the longest minute I’ve ever experienced. Then, Vivian quietly placed it to the side and started to neatly undo the wrapping on my present. Her eyes paused when she saw the leather-bound journal and her face made a split-second reaction that I didn’t quite understand. She quickly thanked me and then moved on to the next—it seemed, at least, that she didn’t hate it.

  After everything had been opened, I slipped away from the group to go to the bathroom, not being used to so much social interaction, to take a short break. To my surprise, when I came out of the bathroom, I found Vivian standing outside. “Oh, um, sorry I took a while,” I said, self-consciously, as I made space for her to pass me. “Here you go.” 

  “Oh, no problem.” Vivian walked up to the door, then stopped. “Are you having fun?”

  “Oh yeah,” I nodded with more verve than I intended. “I’m having a great time, never been to a pool party…or even a birthday party before. Well, for someone my age.”

  She looked up at some of the dried blood that I had missed while cleaning up after the roof tile had hit me, concern written all over her face.

  “Oh, I’m doing fine, nothing to worry about,” I knocked lightly against the side of my head—an act that caused more pain that I’d expected. “I’ve been hit on the head more than a few times in my life.” I smiled jokingly.

  She smiled in return. “Thank you for your present, by the way,” she said. “I really love that brand of journals, but I could never…um…I could never ask my parents for one.”

  “Oh, well,” I said, “I’m glad you have one now.”

  “Yeah,” she smiled and made eye contact. “Yeah…” she suddenly looked down. “Anyways, thanks for coming, I feel…better since you’re here.”

  “Oh, umm,” I didn’t know exactly how to respond, “yeah, of course.”

  “Viv,” her father seemed to appear out of nowhere. I looked up and found him towering over the two of us. “We’re all waiting for you to start dinner.”

  “Ah, I’ll be really quick,” she closed the bathroom door behind her. “Five minutes!”

  I looked up at Vivian’s father, standing between me and the hallway back to the party. “Hello, sir.”

  His nose seemed to prickle every time he was near me, his stare seemed to bore holes through me, “Are you having…a good time?”

  “Um, yeah,” I nodded. “Thank you for having me.”

  “Yes,” he continued to stare at me for a moment. “That…”

  “What was that?” I leaned in close.

  “Nothing, nothing. Why don’t we go to the dinner table, I’m sure Viv doesn’t want us standing here, right in front of the door while she relieves herself.”

  I agreed and followed him out to the dining table where Vivian’s friends were standing around. Vivian returned quickly and her father served several different types of pizza—all homemade. Sitting around the large wooden dining table, something that looked like it had been pulled straight out of a movie about medieval lords and ladies, this group of thirteen-year-olds gossiped about their classes and some of the couples cropping up in our year. One of the boys proposed we play spin the bottle after dinner, but quickly rescinded his suggestion after Vivian’s father walked in, offering everyone more to drink.

  As he finished a round of pouring drinks, he grabbed my shoulder. “I’d like you to help me with something. Could you come with me?” Vivian noticed and made eye contact with her father, to which he smiled and waved her off. “I’ll just be borrowing your friend for a quick second.” She looked unsure, but relented as I smiled at her, quietly got out of my seat, and followed him into the kitchen.

  He was putting the finishing touches on a homemade birthday cake, covering it in a light pink passion fruit and guava frosting. He pointed to a tray of cups next to a large punch bowl filled with a dark-red liquid. “I’m running a bit late with the cake, so I need you to fill all those cups with the sparkling punch.” I nodded and started filling the cups. I was going to ask about the drink given that we’d already had a large choice of drinks at dinner, but before I could even speak, he started. “May I ask, is that your reaper standing outside my house?”

  I froze for a moment and a cold sweat formed on my brow. “H…How…what?”

  “I was wondering if you sensed me when you walked in,” Vivian’s dad sighed with relief. “I guess you’re too young to know a vampire when you see one.”

  “A…a vampire?” I stammered, frozen in place in front of the punch bowl.

  He let his eyes flicker red a few times and then showed me his fangs. “Your heartbeat tells me your surprise is genuine, which means you were unaware of myself and Vivian,” he smiled for a moment before grimacing. “I thought you were taking advantage of Vivian’s innate attraction to your blood, but I can see now that I was mistaken.”

  As my mind processed his meaning, a slow beating sound grew loud and suffocating in my chest. “What do you mean?”

  He sighed. “It is a bit embarrassing to say out loud. I apologize, Vivian is my first child in several centuries—child by natural means—and I must admit that I am perhaps a bit overprotective of her—”

  “About my blood,” I cut him off. “What do you mean about my blood?” I shook a bit as I stared at the ground.

  “Oh, I guess most people wouldn’t pick up on this. Blood, as most know, is a specialty for vampires,” Vivian’s father said, “but special beings or, in your case, cursed being have a unique vintage of blood—both in smell and flavor. At first, I was unsure. There aren’t many cursed beings at your age, humans tend to gain curses in adulthood. But your blood is quite pungent compared to a normal human’s and the fact that you have your very own reaper assigned to you verified my suspicions. What I didn’t know if whether you were aware of your effect on my daughter or not.”

  “My blood smells…pungent?”

  “Oh yes, quite strong indeed. Even without drinking it myself, I can already tell it would taste quite delectable.

  “I…” I instinctively backed away.

  “Oh, you have nothing to worry about,” Vivian’s father said. “I do not enjoy drinking from males, nor would I ever lay a hand on one of my daughter’s acquaintances.” Without even looking, he continued decorating the cake with expert accuracy. “I brought you in here today to make a somewhat…selfish request of you. You see, as you might be able to tell, Vivian does not know she’s half-vampire. My wife and I…well, my ex-wife and I, we were lucky that Vivian could live in the sunlight like her mother. It gave her a chance at a normal life, away from this curse of mine.”

  My mind reeled from the amount of shocking realizations happening in quick succession—my blood smelled different, vampires were real, Vivian was a day-walking vampire, My curse existed at seemingly a genetic level. However, one thought, the thought that Vivian might not actually like me, repeated loudly over everything else I was thinking.

  Vivian’s father continued. “To that end, I would like you to stop seeing my daughter.”

  I knew it was coming, the words hurt all the same.

  “I know this is unfair to you. I see now that you did not know about us. You thought she genuinely liked you,” he said. “But my ex-wife and I agreed to tell Vivian about her…heritage at the right time and becoming close to you and your reaper runs the risk of her discovering the supernatural world before she’s lived the normal, quiet life that we want for her. As you may know, the supernatural world is not a kind, and thrusting this reality onto her so soon…it would not be fair to her.”

  I was silent as my body shook and my eyes clogged with tears. Vivian might not actually like you. She’s just attracted to your blood. You don’t matter, it could have been anyone. I nodded silently, keeping my eyes out of view.

  He sighed with relief. “I am sorry you have to do this,” he said, “but, given the way she acts around you, I can already tell that your blood is irresistible to her. If you were to continue your friendship, she might even awaken to her hunger earlier than normal.” He patted me on the shoulder. “For you and your emotional health, this relationship is not one you should humor.” My body went rigid against his words. “She’s acting on pure instinct, like when an animal chases its prey. She mistakes her hunger for attraction or friendship, it is not. This relationship is built upon a misunderstanding and, had you learned the truth later down the line,” Vivian’s father sighed, shaking his head, “it would have hurt you in truly painful ways.”

  I finished pouring the drinks, walked out with Vivian’s father to server the cake and drinks, tried to act as natural as possible for the rest of the night—I didn’t even remember if I was successful or not—and then left with the first group who were picked up by their parents.

  Even before I sat down in the passenger’s seat of Sev’s car, he was already talking about how Vivian and her father were vampires and how he knew by the ominous aura around the house. “A family of vampires!” Sev shook his head. “You really know how to find them, you know that? Vampires! Did they suck your blood? Your blood is like cocaine to these people…” He finally looked down at me. “What’s wrong? Why are you so quiet?”

  I wiped my face and looked out my window. “N…nothing. Let’s go home.”

  Sev took a more serious tone. “What happened? I saw you talking to the father, did he say something to you?”

  “I’m just tired,” I shook my head. “Can we go home?”

  There was silence in the car for a long while, then: “Sure kid, let’s go home.”

—   — 

  The next day, Sunday, I felt a heaviness and fatigue like nothing I had ever felt before. Vivian’s father’s words clung to me, repeated over and over again in my mind, as I lurched through the day in complete silence.

  What were you thinking? Did you think a random girl would just come out of nowhere and play video games with you, then invite you to her birthday party? You’re cursed. No one likes you. Everyone in elementary school stayed away from you. Sev hates you. The universe hates you. What stupidity made you think you could…make a friend…You’re such an idiot.

  Monday came, and I decided I would look for a new place to spend my lunches. However, on my way to the old, neglected basketball courts that everyone ignored in favor of the newer ones that were closer to the cafeteria, Vivian saw me and ran up to me. “Hey, where are you going? The roof’s that way.” She pointed in the opposite direction.

  I mumbled an incomprehensible excuse and continued walking.

  She followed. “What was that? I—”

  “I…I got something I have to do today,” I thought something vague would be better than an outright lie. “Sorry, I can’t hang out today.”

  The look on her face dropped and she nodded. “Oh, okay, I guess I’ll see you next time then.”

  “Yeah…” I nodded, unable to make eye contact.

  “Is…is something wrong?” She asked.

  “No—no,” I said a bit too quickly. “I just…I have something I need to do.” I turned around before she could say anything else and walked on towards the abandoned courts.

  For the next week and a half, I spent my lunches in absolute silence. Past the old basketball courts was an open park access that led right to a baseball diamond. During school hours, it was basically deserted and I sat in the dugout, eating my lunch, trying to block out any thoughts of Vivian or her father. I didn’t even like that roof, I told myself. It was hot and uncomfortable and the fans kept trying to kill me.

  On the Friday of my second week at the dugout, I found Vivian already there, waiting for me. “So, what game are we playing today?”

  “What…what are you doing here?”

  “You’re avoiding me,” she said.

  “I…I’m just busy.”

  “Busy what? Sitting alone in a park?”

  “What…what do you mean?” I couldn’t think fast enough. “I—I’m not allow to hang out in the park or something?” 

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, I just—"

  “Something happened at my birthday, right? My dad said something to you. What did he say?”

  “Who?” I asked, not making eye contact. “I don’t know—”

  “My dad,” Vivian said. “I know he said something when he called you in to ‘help’ with the cake.”

  “Nothing. Nothing happened, I just—I…”

  “Tell me what he said,” she pushed.

  “I’m telling you, he didn’t say anything.”

  “I know he said something,” her voice got louder. “Tel me what it was.”

  “I just…You have such a good group of friends and a caring father, what are you doing out here with me? You don’t need—"

  She slapped me before I could finish—the hand crashed across my face with the force of a runaway truck. “No,” I could hear her breathing turn ragged as she trembled in front of me. “No, not you too.” She wiped her face as tears welled up in her eyes. “You’re not allowed …”

  I felt a twang in my chest as something rose up into my throat and my vision began to blur behind tears of my own. “Vivian, I’m not…You have such a good group of friends and a caring father, you don’t need to bother with something like m—”

  She slapped me again, nearly knocking the wind out of me, and I staggered back. “You—” her voice was resolute through the sniffling sobs, “you don’t get to abandon me—not you.”

  “You still have good friends, there were so many at your party Vivian, you can—”

  “No,” she shouted. Then quieter: “no.” Her hands continuously wiped the stream of tears from her eyes.

  “You’re not allowed. You’re the only one I…You’re not allowed.”

  “Why?” I asked, a bit of desperation in my voice as her father’s face flashed its disapproving look in my mind. “Why me?” My blood, the thought sat in my head. It’s my blood, not me.

  She wiped her face again and looked down at the two-slat wooden bench in the dirt-covered dugout, avoiding eye contact. “I’m…I’m stronger than most other kids I know. I can sense things before they happen and smell things others can’t.” She sniffled in between sentences. “I took me three years to get people to forget about that time in first grade when I told the teacher I could smell blood in between her legs and asked if she need to go to the hospital…” She closed her eyes in embarrassment. “My family was the only place I felt safe and normal and then they got divorced and everything just…” She traced a circle in the dirt with her feet. “When I saw you alone on that roof…I don’t know, I just knew you understood—then we hung out and—I…I…” I could see more tears forming in her eyes.

  More on instinct than with any specific thought in my mind, I hugged her. Held her tight in my arms. “Okay…I’m here,” I said. I was too embarrassed to say any more, so instead, I just held her close until the bell rang.