Part 11 (1/2)

But still, I am wondering when it is going to make its move.

I am almost more worried when I don't see it there.

Then it could be anywhere.

Jerk is worried about me. I can see it in his eyes. He's no longer just hurt when I ignore him and walk an alternate route so that I won't have to speak to him. He thinks I wouldn't do that normally.

I hope I wouldn't, but I feel so sleepy during the day - because I can't sleep at night - that I don't want to waste my energy. Of course, talking to Jerk is not a waste of energy, especially if you would like to hear an imitation of late night comedy show reruns, but I don't see what there's to gain from it.

I do feel bad that Tom has abandoned him, too. Tom doesn't have an excuse. I guess the three of us are just growing apart. Tom is hanging out more and more with the cooler crowd.

It isn't difficult to be a cooler crowd than Jerk. All you have to do is not sniff your own underarms at lunchtime.

Without me, Tom just doesn't want to be around Jerk anymore.

Sometimes Jerk will see that Tom is talking to the other kids in that group he's with, and Jerk will drift beside them. He'll stand right there on the edge, behind everyone else, resting his hand nervously on one of the chair backs, and his eyes will flip from speaker to speaker, hoping one will say something he can add to. When they all start making jokes, he'll make a quick one, too; he repeats his jokes four or five times, just to make sure everyone's heard it. He punctuates them with ”yeah!”; for example, ”And then he falls and breaks his leg, yeah! Like, then he falls and breaks his leg, yeah! And then, like, he falls and breaks his leg.”

They are polite people, so they don't tell him to go away.

I want to be one of them. They are good looking. They know secrets about one another's dating lives. They laugh together in public s.p.a.ces.

Plus, Rebecca Schwartz is one of them. I wish Tom would draw me over to talk with her. He knows I have this crush on her.

But Tom doesn't want to be seen with me either. I still am sure he knows something, but the question is how much. He keeps saying that I haven't been normal lately, that I've been completely weird. He says I need some sleep and that I'm always, like, a complete downer nowadays.

He is right. Tom is right on these points.

I am staring at my clock.

It flashes. It says 3:52.

3:52.

3:52.

That is no time to be awake. It is the rawest hour of the earthly day. There is no one to help you at 3:52. Many people don't even exist at 3:52.

A crow caws somewhere.

My braces hurt. The ache is dull and continuous.

I push back my covers. I'm getting too hot.

I can't sleep, and I'm so thirsty. I'm tired of those words, ”I'm so thirsty.” They are dull, dull, dull. I don't know what to do. That's what I keep thinking. I don't know whether to trust Chet. He could be a double agent. I don't know what he's doing if he is a double agent. I lie there wondering what he could be doing. Why would he ask me to place the Arm of Moriator, a device for the Forces of Light, in Tch'muchgar's world if he is a servant of Darkness? Unless the Arm of Moriator is not what he said it was, and it is some dire magical engine with a dark purpose. Could be! I do not want to think about that. I writhe around in bed. I try not to think about it. Not to think about it at all.

The s.p.a.ce between my teeth and my cheeks is dry. I pull up saliva from under my tongue. It shoots back down the channels on either side of my jaw.

My braces ache dully.

The flaps on the inside of my cheeks are still dry. I suck up more saliva to wet them. It's as sluggish as a putty shake.

I am getting angry now. I sit up. The walls are too close around me. Somewhere there is a cool, wet, open expanse and I want to be there. I am irate at my saliva.

I stand up. I walk over to my window and slide it open. I breathe in the night air.

Hopeless. Thin as nothing.

I want to pound on something and make it bleed for me. I want to tear into something. I want to tear away these walls.

I need to go to the bathroom. There's water there.

The pain from my braces shoots through the bone of my jaw. My teeth are moving.

I reach out for my door handle.

Then I hold up my arm, close to my eyes.

My pajama sleeve has been pressed into a slinkie of ringlets at the elbow. My forearm is bare before it.

At the sight of my smooth white skin, fine as cream, I start to salivate. I trace the little blue veins from the wrist up to the plumper muscle.

I lower my mouth. My open lips just nuzzle my forearm.

The points of my canines touch the bare skin. My canines seem larger than usual. My saliva is thick.

Helplessly, I pierce the skin; and helplessly, I start drawing and sucking as ferociously as I can, yanking blood up into my mouth. The pain jolts my elbow up and down, while I feel the blessed blood murmuring over my lips, my chin, down - in the most tantalizing trickle - my throat, a few drops, a spot, more; and I tear at my arm and slash downward with the teeth, rutting up little tracks of meat while the thick, sour tang of my own gore sweetly fills my mouth and cheeks, puffing them out. It hurts like the devil, and I'm moaning, lost in pain and wonder, but now I hack a little more at my arm with the same pleasure I'd peel a scab, so the pain is bigger, harder, cleaner, more burning, more scathing, more cleansing.

Lost in pleasure and pain, I almost howl, slurping, licking, and my arm is red and slick and I chase every, every, every last drop.

A half hour later, I am lying drowsily on the floor.

My braces are just one big loopy tangle. My pajamas are twisted all around me. There are wide swaths of blood sc.r.a.ped across my striped arms and chest. The wounds in my left arm have clotted and started to heal. Very quickly, I notice. Unnaturally quickly. My fangs have slid back into my gums.

I curl up like a kitten.

For the first time in weeks I sleep, satiated.

My teeth ground me for a week. My teeth are fine, but my braces were yanked completely off my canines. I told people it was a night-time skateboarding accident. My orthodontist says this is unlikely. He has taken the braces off entirely. My mother says she is grounding me for a week or until I tell her what really happened. She thinks I got in a fight with a gang.

”Yes, Mom,” I say. ”Luckily, I fended them off single-handedly.”

She says, ”You have got an att.i.tude problem.”

My orthodontist took her aside and spoke to her. That I know. I do not know what he said. She says it was serious.

They are starting to suspect me, I can tell. Not of the right things - my father keeps leaning close to me to casually smell my breath - but they suspect me none the less.

I want Chet to come back.

I have a feeling he is not coming.