My best friend is a vampire.

How do I know, you ask?

Umm...well I don't know for sure...but I will prove it! 

Take right now for example.

It’s lunchtime at our wonderfully torturous school. Food is flying from table to table like bullets flying in a war zone. Football players are running back and forth like little puppy dogs chasing the ball and competing to see who can make the best catch. A group of computer techies sit bickering about what game is better and which operating system works the best, using big words that no one but they can understand.

Meanwhile there’s our small gaggle of friends, firing conversations back and forth in no real order or sense. A menagerie of all kinds of ideas come together to make a large nonsensical mosaic. Really we are just kids looking for a good time wherever we can get it.

“It was epic! I totally had that jump on my bike!” I brag with a huge smile

“Yeah, until you didn’t.” Eve quips without missing a beat as she glances at my scratched arm and heavily bandaged knee.

I roll my eyes and sigh.

“I’ll get it next time.”

I stick my fork back into my garlic and cheese ravioli noodles and Eve (my best friend) cringes as I fill my mouth with as much ravioli as it will hold. I can’t tell if she’s cringing at the disgusting scab on my arm and knee, or the fact that I’m lacking in the table manners department.

Then again it could be because garlic will make her burst into flames at any moment.

“Why would you attempt something like that in the first place?” Samuel my very good friend asks as he pecks at a semi smashed PB&J sandwich that looked like it had seen better days.

“You know that saying ‘when life hands you lemons’? When life hands you a bike, a nice berm that shoots into a new dirt jump and a fantastic ridding hill you make lemonade…or in my case you go splat.”

I notice that Eve is the only one without a lunch so I push my tub of yummy tasting ravioli her way. We used to always share lunch, but nowadays

“Hey you can have some of my lunch if you want Eve.”

She shakes her head and puts as much space as she can between her and the ravioli as if I had put a nuclear bomb in front of her face.

“I’m good.” She shrugs as I pull it back.

“You never have lunch anymore.” I say as I stare down at my ravioli.

“I do, I just eat it before we get to the table. Besides you know I don’t really like garlic.”

I nod and narrow my eyes at my fork, as if it had just stolen my favorite pair of lucky mismatched socks.

You see, there’s clue number one and number two. She doesn’t like garlic, and her meals are a total mystery. Okay I know what your thinking, so most high school kids do without lunch, I mean just look over at the cheerleading table (Blech), still who eats their lunches while walking out to lunch? Logic says you would wait until your seated to consume whatever meal you have to eat.

Unless you’re Bryan McCullen, football wonder and non-stop human garbage disposal. He’s always eating in class and on his way out the door to lunch and during lunch.

“Julian at six o’clock.” Eve says and I spin around watching as the cutest boy in school comes strutting in like he owns the world. He has sandy blonde curly hair and sparkling brown eyes that could kill any teenage girls heart with one wink. He’s wearing a graphic tee with some cool design on it and a pair of nice fitting jeans.

If I could roll my eyes any harder they’d fall right out of my face.

I stare at Eve as she stares at Julian and I sigh. He’s actually pretty cool for a popular jock, he’s athletic and chill (and I caught him once smoking pot behind the skate park bathroom) and he’s got a pretty killer taste in music, but I don’t see why other girls are so attracted to him.

I shake my head and turn back to my wonderful lunch. Eve just stares like he’s some pulled pork sandwich she so desperately wants to consume.

“He’s got a nice neck.” She whispers and I nearly choke on a mouthful of food.

“Wha…?” I say hacking up my cheesy pasta.

What in the holy Amelia Earhart is this girl thinking?

I take a deep breath and clasp my hands together before pointing them at her.

Eve blinks twice as if she’s been snapped out of a trance and looks dumbly at me as I stare back at her. Meanwhile I’m still trying to get the small burning piece of garlic out of my esophagus.

“You know most people would say he has a cute butt or sexy eyes or a nice hair cut.” I say waving my fork in the air for emphasis.

You see now why I say my best friend is a vampire? I mean she looks a guy’s neck! Who dose that?

“Whatever floats your boat Eve.” Samuel rolls his eyes and goes back to talking with Garret across from him.

Eve blushes as Julian passes by and smiles at her, heading for his own table of friends that I know but don’t really hang out with. She flips her light brown hair nervously and I lower my head against the table. My leg bounces up and down with a mind of its own as I try to come to terms with the fact that Eve Likes Julian, and I…

“If you really like him, you should talk to him.” I said nonchalantly, as if she hadn’t mentioned anything about the guy’s neck, or you know stared at him in the first place. Yeah I’m just cool like that. You’re a vampire? You like the coolest guy in school? No biggie.

Let me just finish choking and die in a corner in peace.

“Maybe I will…” Again she has this look like Julian is a tasty meal and she’s the person holding the fork.

“You should.”

I stand up and move to throw away my trash when a stray jock comes running at me full force down the line, his hands outstretched ready to catch a flying football. Before I can take a step out of his way we collide and my trash is sent one way and I fly the other. My eyes catch the table a second before I’m about to hit and I close my eyes for impact as the football player grabs the ball out of the air and sends a mocking glare at me and my forever terrible balance. 

I take a deep breath and brace myself.