class wussier than Nutritional Science.
Then Kayla turned to look at me, too. And she let out the most incredible scream. Seriously, a horror-movie scream. It reverberated through the classroom and hallways. It was louder than any fire alarm I’d ever heard.
“What’s going on here?” Einstein asked.
I wanted to know myself. I stared at Kayla, completely bewildered. But when I met her eyes, I saw this raw, primal fear. Where had I seen this look before?
Chris Perez. Chris Perez was scared of me like this. He was scared of me because I’m a vampire.
Kayla couldn’t even speak. She pointed to me with a trembling hand, and Einstein, scurrying back with gauze in hand, asked, “What? What did Finbar do?”
For my part, I backed away nonthreateningly. I made every “safe” gesture I could think of. I held my hands up where Kayla could see them, like I was surrendering to the police. I crossed my hands in front of me, like I was an umpire above a runner sliding into home plate. I kept my distance from Kayla. But I was still looking at her. And I was still seeing all that blood gushing out of her face. Oh, God, that nonstop blood. Don’t think about how creepy it is. Don’t think about how disgusting it is.
But, only five feet from the door—my escape—I passed out.
As I became conscious slowly, I realized I was in the nurse’s office. I could smell the scent of disinfectant and of girls faking migraines to skip gym. I also became aware of the doubtfulness that anyone believed I was a vampire anymore. Vampires didn’t faint like Southern belles at the sight of blood. Shattering my own vampire myth could possibly be a good thing at this point. I meant to frighten guys like Chris Perez, but I didn’t mean to frighten girls. I meant to attract girls.
“Finn?” Jenny whispered.
I opened my eyes and squinted. Jenny looked extra pale under the lights. And she looked legitimately worried, like I was a soap opera character in a coma.
“Hey,” I said.
“Are you okay?” Jenny asked.
“Totally fine,” I said. “Sorry about that.”
“You kind of freaked everyone out,” Jenny said.
“Did I?” I asked. “What happened?”
“No, no, no,” Jenny reassured me. “Kayla got stitched up. And she’s not scared of you anymore.”
“What?” I tried to sit up. Some blood rushed to my head. Jesus. “How is she not scared of me anymore?”
“Ashley and I explained it to her,” Jenny said. “You know, the reason you passed out.”
“What?”
Once again, I was completely confused. Ashley and Jenny, Jenny, my biggest vampire groupie, had told Kayla that I was scared of blood and wasn’t a vampire?
“Sure,” Jenny explained. “We told her that you don’t… you know, eat your meals… in school.”
“What?”
“Well, isn’t that why you don’t have lunch with the rest of us?”
“Uh…”
“So,” Jenny chirped brightly, “we told her you just passed out because you’re hungry!”
I had to recover super fast from my fainting spell, because I had an important night that night after the roller coasters. I was going to dinner at Kate’s house.
She’d claimed it was because her dad was a really good cook.
“He ordered all these new weird pots and he’s cooking Thai food,” Kate said. “Do you like Thai food?”
I was from Indiana. I’d never eaten Thai food.
“Yeah, I like it,” I said.
“Good!” she said. “Come over tonight at, like, eight? You can meet my mom.”
“Oh, okay, cool,” I said, completely thrown. “Is… anyone else coming?”
“None of my siblings are home,” Kate said. “So it will just be us and my parents.”
“Oh,” I said. “Cool.”
“Is that okay?”
“Cool,” I said again.
As I got dressed, I reminded myself that the more times you use the word cool in a five-minute conversation, the less cool you are. And I couldn’t afford to be uncool tonight.
This was a very important night. This was a make-or-break night for me. Impressing Kate’s parents could be a big step toward making me Kate’s boyfriend. Actually, it was a make-or-break night for me because I didn’t know if I was Kate’s boyfriend. We’d gone out to a movie, and she’d acted like we were just friends. But I’d met her dad when I dropped her off. Then she’d kissed me in the hallway. The kiss wasn’t even as important as where the kiss took place. This wasn’t a back-porch, beer-smeared, hidden, drunken, mistake kind of kiss. It had been deliberate. It had been public. It had declared to people, “We are together!”
But were we together? As I drove to