I’m a Vampire. I can prove it.

Many girls avoid direct sunlight because it ruins their complexion and won’t eat garlic because it gives you bad breath. Holy water isn’t something you need to avoid because, well, it’s not something you can stumble upon in a vending machine. And if you want vampire fangs, there’s always a file or some whacky doctor.

I’m different though.

I avoid direct sunlight because it could kill me and won’t eat garlic because I’m also deathly allergic. I’ll admit to never encountering holy water but I can guarantee the same result and I was born with vampire fangs. Well, they more like grew in, like adult teeth after your baby ones fall out.

There’s just one thing I’ve never done before. Something that differs humans from vampires: Sucking Blood.

“Ever tasted blood?” Izze asked casually as she tied up her long green hair. She came directly to my house after her salon adventure, hours before the scheduled sleepover, to avoid seeing her mom’s outraged face on her radical new style.

“I want to have a color that people don’t really wear,” Izze explained the morning before her legendary green event. “You’ve seen people with pink and blue but you don’t really see a GREEN.”

Izze is quite possibly the most fanatical woman I’ve ever met. I’m still debating whether her personality has been built from her mother’s overbearing rules or just born senseless. Still, she’s my senseless friend who’s one of the few that don’t care I’m an actual vampire.

“Everyone’s tasted blood,” Payton, my other close friend remarks as she concentrates painting her right big toe pink. “Duh.”

“I was asking Page,” Izze snapped. “Well?”

I hesitated and mumbled, “Not really.”

“But,” Payton looked up, “you’re a vampire. Isn’t that what vampires do? Drink?”

I blush and start gnawing what’s left of my nails.

“Yeah, well, I want my first,” I shove my face full of popcorn, hearing Tyra Banks, the worldwide famous model talk on TV, “to be special.”

“I’m confused,” Payton said.

“She probably means virginity,” Izze teases.

“No, first bite,” I squeak. They blink; now even Izze is lost.

I lick my salted fingers. “I don’t want my first blood taste with some looser. I want it with someone special. A first bite is serious, you guys.”

“Oh!” Izze beams. “I get it. Like a first kiss, right?”

She dives down into a long story of her first kiss, detail for detail. Usually I stop her because Izze doesn’t know the meaning of TMI, but this was the best way to ease the burn of my ego.

“What about you? Ever had your first kiss?” I ask Payton, who caps the pink polish and pushes it to the side.

She wiggles her toes for a moment, admiring them before she answers, “Nah. All guys are losers. Besides, me and you have the same taste so when you find the right guy to bite, let me kiss him when you’re done ‘kay?”

“Oh, scandalous!” Izze throws popcorn at Pay, who catches it with her mouth.

“I don’t think she means it,” I say.

Pay shrugs, playing nonchalance, but I know. I’ve always known her disinterest in men.

“So, Page,” Izze sips her remains of virgin strawberry margarita we made in the kitchen. “What do you want first? Kiss or bite? Seeing how you haven’t had neither yet.”

“It’s either. And bite,” I say without second thought. “I put vampire needs before human ones.”

“Right on.” Izze punches the air. Pay says nothing and I can’t tell if she’s envious or annoyed at talking about this stuff.

“Hey, you know,” Izze laughs, scooting towards me, “you can drink my blood whenever you want. I’m type O, the best kind.”

I smack her wrist from my face and smirk at her lame joke.

“Sorry, O’s aren’t my type.”

“Hey, Pay, how about you? Want some?”

Payton shakes her head and scrunches her face. “You smell like alcohol.”

I furrow my brows at the remark and lean into my green friend. “Are you drunk, Iz?”

She laughs and flops onto my lap.

Payton plucks up Izze’s glass and sniffs it. “Smells like Izze snuck some stuff to the party and didn’t share.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Mmmm,” Izze groans, letting me stroke her lose ponytail. Her hair, even through it’s now green, is just as soft and pretty as ever. “Mom’s gonna kill me. Mom’s…gonna…”

“Let’s take her upstairs,” I suggest, picking her up with Payton’s help.

“Ever tried alcohol?” Pay questions as we stomp up the stairs. Izze is surprisingly light.

“Nope. You?”

“Nah. I guess we’re virgins in practically everything, huh?”

“Guess so.” I shrug, which is a mistake because I almost drop Izze.

It was quiet for a moment after we lowered our no longer lucid friend onto my bed.

“Do you wish you already had one?” Pay asks as we look down at Izze.

“What? A kiss?”

Pay nods.

“Nope.” Liar.

“Same.”

I think she was lying, too.

...

I zip on my white hoodie, tossing the hoodie over my head and place my sunglasses properly over my sapphire eyes.

“Another unbearable morning,” I sigh as I kick my way down the stairs. My sister hands me a bagel at the bottom and ushers me out of the house.

So much for the most important meal of the day.

“We’re going to be late. Again,” she adds, rushing to our crap red truck Mom bought for both of us to share.

When we’re seated and she’s driving, Lee glances over and says, “You look like a clown with all that sunscreen on.”

“It’s the latest fashion.”

“I’m just saying-”

“Nothing. You’re driving,” I snap, irritated. It’s been ten years of this crap of her trying to convince me to tone down the sunscreen. If there’s even a .5% chance doing so will make me experience that park episode when I was six, then Hell will have to freeze over first.

Lee rolls her blue eyes and looks forward. “You aren’t a vampire, Page. Far from it. All I think is that you have sensitive skin and slight brain damage.”

I fold my arms and look down at my scuffed black boots. With one swift kick to the shin I can bring someone down to their knees.

I’m not even aware we’ve reached our school until Lee orders, “Get out,” and reaches forward, pushing my door open.

I hiss like a cat and cover my face with my mailman bag.

“I almost got burnt!” I accuse as I jump out of her car.

Students from school look at me, but with weariness, because they are all used to my tantrums.

“Sorry,” Lee says insincerely, closing the door (which barely misses my face) and drives off to find a parking spot.

I turn and run to the mouth of the school, thinking the weekly morning thought: Another pointless day to go through.

…………………

My first period is on the top floor known as Floor D. There are four Levels starting off with A and up. But the plate on Floor B that lets the poor freshmen know what level they’re on had been scratched to look like an E. Today it has been reduced to an L. Someday it will look like an I, and then the floor will have no name at all.

My legs are tired from climbing the curled stairs and my skin tickles under the sunlight bursting through the giant windows that stand opposite the staircases, revealing a supposedly good view of Chicago. Of course, I wouldn’t really know; I can’t get a long enough look without my face melting off like a wax doll.

“You made it,” Izze slaps my back as I slide into French II; the last bell finally shuts up.

As I lather more sunscreen on my face, I hear Madame Selma clap her hands to gain her student’s attention.

“Students,” she smiles, “we have a new classmate today.”

We sit there for a minute, mystified. There’s no new kid.

“You may come in,” Selma shouts. I turn and see the door open. Even before I see the stranger walk in, I feel something unusual that I really don’t like.

Anxious, I squeeze out more sunscreen and rub them on my flaky cheeks. I’m sure I look like Harley Quinn, without the hair and the smile.

Then I see the kid.

It’s a guy.

All the boys who were hoping it was going to be a hot chick groan but the girls whisper in glee because he is actually pretty attractive…for a teenager. Attractive enough to catch even Izze’s attention.

I admit, as watch him glide up to the front all high and mighty, he has a very nice body-no big build but not made out of rubber. He has messy raven hair and electric green eyes, which is probably my favorite and the only thing I like about him.

“Go ahead and introduce yourself,” Madame Selma motions to us.

“I’m Damien Evabranch,” he answers, his voice liquid smooth.

Damien…

He smiles, revealing pearl white teeth I’ve been dying to achieve. I reach up and press my right hand in my mouth to touch my own square bones. I realize a second too late I still have sunscreen on it.

The bitter taste of the white substance makes me gag and I spit, attractive everyone’s attention.

Izze looks at me and nudges, but I’m too busy wiping my mouth to really care what she’s trying to say.

“Page, is there a problem?” Selma’s voice rings into my ears.

I look forward and my face blushes furiously. Damien’s staring at me, more interested than disgusted.

“Um, no. Just got some…” I whisper, “sunscreen in my mouth.”

“And what were you doing putting sunscreen in your mouth?” She asks tartly.

She knows why. Everyone knows why! It’s not like this is the first time. She’s taken my sunscreen away countless times because of its “distraction.”

“You don’t have to repeat it,” I say, embarrassed. And as if I’m going to confess that I liked Damien’s teeth so I touched mine.

“Uh,” Damien tentatively joins in, “what’s she doing with sunscreen?”

“Page thinks she’s a vampire,” somebody from the class throng explains proudly.

“Yeah!”

The newbie smirks and voices his thought out loud: “This is the most interesting thing that has happened today.”

“Well, the day’s just started,” Izze purrs.

“Traitor,” I mouth at her.

“Please, go to your seat,” Madame Selma points to his new spot.

Right in front of ME.

He notices this and as soon as he sits down he swivels around and says, “Hey, Sunscreen Girl.”

“It’s Page,” I snap.

“And I’m Izze. Sunscreen Girl’s best friend.” Izze smiles dreamily at him.

Damien politely acknowledges her but returns his attention back to me because, you know, I’m lucky like that.

“So, I was wondering-”

“What?” I know where this is going and I want this over with.

“If I can borrow some of your sunscreen.”

“Why?”

This is when I notice everyone looking at us, even Selma, who should be teaching us how to say what fruits we like and don’t like.

“Because,” he leans forward, so close his eyelashes could tangle with mine, “I’m a vampire too.”

Izze laughs, and the class follows like an annoying echo.

“What a coincidence!” she exclaims then winces when she notes my fierce expression.

I monitor his body for a hat or something to cover his skin, face, something, but he’s wearing only a plain gray t-shirt. If he was a vampire he would’ve been ash.

“Yeah right.” I shove my sunscreen back in my bag. I secretly crave to squirt it at him-preferably in those gorgeous eyes-but I don’t want him bothering me anymore.

“I’m serious.” He leans even closer! So near I swear he could kiss me.

However, he’s the last person I want to waste my virgin lips on so I lean back and almost fall off my chair.

He laughs.

“Vampires aren’t supposed to be klutzes.”

I lean slightly forward, biting my lips with my fangs and hiss, “Don’t make fun of us.”

He’s taken aback by my teeth, and I think I’ve finally put him in his place. But then Damien looks at Izze and asks if they’re fake.

“Madame Selma!” I raise my hand, completely outraged.

“Oh. Yes, Page?”

“May I be excused?”

“Where would you like to go?”

Anywhere, even the sun, would be better than here.

“Bathroom.”

“Sure.”

“Thanks.”

I almost ask Izze to hold onto my things, but she’s so giddy I’m sure she’ll pull out my sunscreen and sacrifice it to the jerk. So instead I snatch it and stomp out of the room, leaving all the sheep behind.