I tend to get really absorbed when I'm reading and completely tune out the reality all around me in favor of a fictional world. I suppose since I can't really have far away adventures like the characters in these novels I escape in my head when I read them. I can sail across seas, fight horrible beasts, explore alien planets, or fall in love. All of these I know I could never do while I'm stuck in an apartment building and a six-block radius. It's not like I couldn't just walk out the door and never return but I could never leave my mother like that. What would she do without me? Probably collapse in her own filth.

There is also the fact that I have a poor immune system and add asthmatic on top of that. So for a fear of dying and my mother falling apart I'll stick to literature for my epic adventures. Besides, Avalon has its own adventure sometimes if you call constant gossip an adventure.

A sharp clack sound causes me to nearly jump out of my skin. Of course instead of something unrealistically gruesome, I fall off the chair and my book slides across the linoleum floor.

As I lay there pondering the possibility that what I heard had been the washing machine and not some mutant supernatural being out to eat me, I watch sparkly blue painted fingernails attached to ring adorned fingers pick up my book. "Dark Blood? Didn't realize you were into vampires, Colin," says a familiar amused voice.

I sigh and sit up. "Hey, Joanna."

Joanna lives on the floor above mom and me but in a way she's kind of my best friend even though she's twenty-five and I'll finally be turning eighteen next week. We met the day after mom and I moved in here five years ago when Joanna was a college student. There is this small room in the lobby with a few game and vending machines. I was playing on the only pinball one when she came in to get something from the vending machine before she left for school. I was having difficulty with the game and in my frustration—I didn't know she was there—I kicked it. It felt like I just kicked a bowling ball and I started to hop up and down holding my foot. I actually almost cried but suddenly I heard laughter and there was Joanna cracking up at my expense. It was a bad first impression I guess but we didn't really see each other again till Halloween a few weeks later when mom forced me to go trick or treating around the apartment building.

I was dressed like a ninja just using some dark clothes I already had. I ended up on her floor and she was the second door I knocked on. She had opened the door dressed like a sexy zombie witch; her words not mine. Joanna squealed at the sight of me and made me come in to not only shower me with candy but made me play Halloween games with her and watch horror movies. In the end it was kind of fun and my opinion of her as a total bitch changed. I didn't get home till nearly midnight. I probably would have stayed the night if mom hadn't sent Hank the security guy to look for me because she was worried half to death.

"How's the floor?" she says. Jo wanders over and decides to finally help my skinny ass up. I am unfortunately lanky and thin even though I eat like a cow. Joanna says I make her feel 'chonky' but she is far from that.

"You scared me," I growl and glare at her as I dust myself off.

"Sorry, babe." She pats my cheek then hands over my book before she moves towards a washer beside mine where she had sat her own basket. So that must be what I heard, the plastic hitting the metal machine.

Joanna is in only a pair of sleep shorts and a Pink Floyd t-shirt. In fact she doesn't even have shoes on. Though it seems she took the time to put on eye shadow, liner, and mascara. I think she even has pink lip-gloss on. She's so weird but I love her. Not in a sexual way but more like if I had a sister I hope she would be like Joanna. Her hair looks cool too. All bleached blond and cut in an inverted bob with the hairs underneath a shocking bubblegum pink. She's an artist so I guess she can afford to look like that. If she had an office job like mom she'd be in trouble I'm sure. I don't think they'd appreciate the lip ring either.

My clothes are still spinning around in the washing machine so I sit back down but instead of opening my book again I just watch Joanna do her laundry.

"I'm not into vampires. This is just an excellent book," I say going back to her previous statement.

"Of course, I just didn't think you'd be into the macabre. You look so innocent," she says and turns around to give me what I call a "bless your heart" look. Jo is from the south but she doesn't always act like it and she doesn't really sound like it either. Except when she's drunk and I've had to witness that quite a few times.

"Stop it, I'm not that innocent." I pout.

"Whatever you say, Colin, anyway I have some interesting news," she says and starts the washer and turns around to lean against it with a big wide grin. I wonder if I should be worried.

"Okay," I say carefully. I sit the book down beside me and pull my knees up to my chest.

She gets that glint in her light blue eyes that tell me she had been listening to the old gossip twins from 9B and it has to be something juicy for her to be this excited about it. "I heard Martha and Mavis talking about a new tenant on my floor," she finally tells me.

"Really?" I am genuinely surprised seeing as we haven't had a new one in over nine months.

"Yeah, apparently he's a young guy, maybe around my age? I wonder if he's cute but perhaps not because the girls said he's sort of creepy and reclusive. He doesn't come out of his apartment much except at night and the doorman said he wears a lot of black and looks really pale," she pauses and seems to think a moment. "Maybe he's a goth or a drug dealer or both. How curious is that though, right?"

It is kind of curious but we do have some other weird tenants, so it can't be that unusual. Still, only goes out at night, pale, and wears dark clothing makes him sound almost like a...no, that's ridiculous. I blame this book for that train of thought. "Maybe he's just a weirdo like the rest of us," I say instead of mentioning what I briefly first entertained.

"Hey! I am not a weirdo. I am an artist," she says and sticks her tongue out at me before she wanders over to a stack of magazines beside me on a little table. She picks up an old issue of Vogue and starts to flip through it. "I kind of want to meet this mysterious guy."

I roll my eyes, "Don't you have a boyfriend?"

She scoffs. "Kyle and me broke up last week."

"What? Are you serious?" I stare at her in shock. They've been together for a year and a half.

"Yeah..." She sighs and plops down beside me tossing the magazine back on the table.

"What happened, Jo?" I ask carefully.

She shakes her head and reaches over to pinch my cheeks a little roughly. "I don't want to talk about it right now, Collie."

I frown but after pulling her hands off me, I don't mention it again. She'll talk to me eventually about it I'm sure of it. Instead, the sound of the washing machine with my clothes in it buzzes and I get up to move them to the dryer. I change the subject back to the new guy and we discuss outrageous notions of his character. Still the uncanny thought of this guy being the undead never leaves the back of my mind even if it's extremely absurd.