Big Vamp on Campus - Molly Harper Page 0,17

latest social-media celebrity scandal. I felt a craving for it, like an intellectual bloodthirst. And being able to share that with Kenton, faux glasses and all, was intriguing.

No, Ophelia. Lead paint. Eclairs. This way lies madness.

I exited the English lecture hall and entered the muggy warmth of a Lexington September. The campus below was a twinkling fairyland, a scattering of well-lit diamonds on a velvety black expanse of landscape. It was quiet, other than the occasional thump of car stereo bass or an echo of exuberant laughter. In the good old days, I would have used this idyllic setting as a hunting ground, blending in with the students, finding a straggler, cornering him with a feigned ankle injury, and then enjoying a lovely and lively meal.

Now I took the extra-long route home and hoped the pleasant surroundings would help quell the unpleasant feelings churning through my middle. I was unsettled. I hated this sinking, strained anxiety over Jamie and why he wasn’t making time for me. My anxiety over Jane and her judgments was like an ulcer in my belly. And I had midterms coming up in a month. I did not do well on standardized tests.

I wasn’t used to this sort of frustration. I was used to needing a skill, acquiring said skill, and then using said skill to make my life easier. Weaving, marksmanship, small-engine repair, finding a vein. How could I not master something as simple as matriculating or making friends? When my life literally depended on it?

I nimbly climbed onto the strange yellow modern sculpture installation outside the White Hall Classroom Building and sat in the crook of two metal struts. I leaned my head back against the beams and stared out over the campus. In this relative quiet, I could make out the pulse patterns of humans in my range, their weak hearts pumping toward their inevitable ends—a thought that Jamie said I shouldn’t find soothing, but I did. If I concentrated harder, I could hear smaller life forces: mice, squirrels, and birds. And somewhere, farther away, a thrum of a different kind, mechanical and steady and reaching out to me—

This train of thought derailed when a possum, tenacious enough to want to make his home on one of the most densely populated patches of land in a relatively large city, toddled up to the monument, pausing to stare at the strange creature perched there. I bared my teeth and hissed. It hissed back but turned away and lumbered toward the trees.

All of these little hurts and irritations seemed to be linking themselves into a heavy chain around my neck. I wasn’t this girl. I wasn’t this crazy, needy, self-destructive vampiress who centered her whole life around her relationship. I didn’t let anxiety rule my life or my decisions. I was Ophelia freaking Lambert. I was the Terror of Amsterdam and the inspiration for the Hall and Oates song “Maneater.” And I was going to stop feeling sorry for myself.

I wasn’t going to waste this chance that—pause for internal gagging—Jane had given me. I wanted to finish college. Maybe it hadn’t been my idea, and I wasn’t necessarily happy about how I’d wound up here, but my punishment from the Council could have been much worse. I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself. I needed to stop worrying about what Jamie was doing and find something for me to do. I needed a project more challenging than my class schedule.

I would start with a more earnest effort at planning this silly mixer for Tina.

And getting to know my idiot roommate.

4

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Overcome your distrust of new situations. Most of them are opportunities for growth. Except for camping. Vampires should not sleep outside unless it’s unavoidable and involves a cave.

—Big Vamp on Campus: Strategies to Successfully Integrate the Undead into Postsecondary Education

I tried to cooperate with Brianna. I did. I was committed to a healthier new outlook, focusing on my own personal growth and building connections with fellow students.

For two whole hours.

I’d come back from my literature class and found Brianna in our room stuffing clothes into a black duffel bag.

Correction: she was stuffing my clothes into her duffel bag.

“Oh!” Brianna squeaked when she saw me coming through the door, hiding my favorite Alexander McQueen scarf behind her back.

My eyes narrowed, and my lip curled back into a sneer. Brianna’s feet flexed as if she was about to dart around me and fling herself into the safety of the hallway.

Right, I needed