Page 5

CHAPTER

FIVE

The temporary coach came up to Theo before he even got to first period.

“Hey, champ,” said Mr. Wellerman, who up until late last year had only taught biology. “How are you feeling?”

Theo hated that question on a normal day. Today it was deeply insulting, to the point where he had to stop himself from snarling.

“I’m fine,” he said curtly. “I have to get to homeroom.”

“Right,” said Mr. Wellerman nervously. He coughed into his sweaty fist, dodging a student who veered too close to him in the hallway.

As far as gym teachers went, he wasn’t ideal. As far as basketball coaches went, he was even worse. He barely knew how to play basketball, and his one method of improving players was to tell them they were really, really great, even if they were coming to him with questions on how they could do better. Theo’s teammates would ask how to improve a play and Wellerman would shoot them that anxious grin and say something like you’re killing it out there, fellas!

Everyone consoled themselves with the fact that he was only taking over as coach until they found a proper replacement. Or until they found Coach Cheech alive and well, which was looking less and less likely as the months passed. The most popular theory was that he eloped with Mr. Hawthorn to Canada. Very few people believed it. But it was the one they whispered about the most. Better that rumor than the murder-suicide one.

“Listen,” Mr. Wellerman continued. “Before you go. If you need to miss a few practices—or even a lot!—the team completely understands.”

Theo stared at him. “Why would I need that?”

Mr. Wellerman shrank under his unrelenting gaze. “Just wanted to let you know. If you do need to skip a few weeks. Or months!”

Theo stared at him some more, vaguely aware he should probably blink soon. He didn’t remember to do that enough since he died. It was just so tempting to stare at Mr. Wellerman until he scampered off like the weak idiot he was.

“Anyhoo,” Mr. Wellerman squeaked. “Very sorry for your loss.”

Theo didn’t respond. He wasn’t fully convinced his dad was gone. Dead , maybe, but not gone. He still hadn’t seen the body. If the body was gone like his dad feared, then he could be a vampire, or some other undead thing Theo didn’t know about. His ‘death’ could be a fake-out to throw the sire off his trail. It didn’t sound unreasonable. Actually, it sounded sensible as hell. Theo could fly , why couldn’t his undead dad be waiting for him somewhere?

Mr. Wellerman walked off, leaving Theo standing alone in the hall, his classmates doing a bad job of pretending not to watch him as they walked by. Theo resisted the urge to bare his fangs at them. He couldn’t stop thinking about his last interaction with his dad. I’ve been worried about things happening around town . And the notes he’d found on Felicity’s case file. Theo—is he really eating?

He must’ve known. He at least suspected . And he’d tried to…what? Talk to Theo about it? Tell him it was okay? I’m proud of you, son. You’re a Fairgood, through and through. Those words hadn’t made sense, not when Theo hadn’t done anything to deserve them. But they made sense if Victor was trying to tell his son he knew he was a vampire.

Theo was so lost in thought he didn’t pay attention while he was rounding a corner. He knocked straight into Skeeter Bass, sending her sprawling.

She hit the floor with a pained grunt, her braces flashing as she grimaced. The bandages from the creature attack before the summer were long gone, her neck scarring pink underneath .

“Ow,” she hissed. Then she looked up and blanched. “Oh. Hi. Um, sorry about that. And…everything.”

Theo nodded. He felt like there was more he should say, but he couldn’t think of it, head swimming with his last conversation with his dad. Only after he walked off did he realize what he’d missed: he didn’t apologize for knocking her over.

Everyone looked surprised when he walked into homeroom with five minutes to spare.

Theo ignored them, sliding into his assigned seat next to Aaron—the happy accident of both having last names starting with F —and didn’t breathe in. Once, the scent of Aaron’s eucalyptus moisturizer and strong hair gel was comforting. Now it almost choked him. Reminded him of Aaron’s cold sneer, his fist kissing Kade’s cheek in a parking lot.

Aaron wasn’t sneering now. He looked almost cowed, spinning a pencil in his thin fingers.

“Hey,” he said quietly, eyes trained on the blank whiteboard in front of them. “Didn’t expect to see you today, dude. Did you get my text?”

Theo had. Thinking up a reply to it had been so exhausting he’d closed the app without typing anything.

Felicity quickly shooed a classmate out of her assigned seat to sit across from Theo. She smelled like bruise cream and burned hair, like she’d messed up with her hair straightener. But when Theo looked at her blond hair, nothing looked out of place.

“Surprised you even showed up,” she said, flipping her unsinged hair over one shoulder. “Remember when my grandma died? Stayed out for a whole week.”

Theo remembered. It was back in grade school. She spent every afternoon at his house, watching cartoons and making homemade hummus. When Theo could still eat, hummus made him think of her.

Theo looked between Felicity and Aaron, waiting for them to snipe at each other. Or at least glare. He’d been caught in between their fights before, though never after a breakup. They’d never broken up before. He imagined it would be all jeering and power plays; that it would be impossible to be in a room with them both for weeks. And here they were, sitting one Theo-width away. They weren’t looking at each other, but they also weren’t glaring.

Aaron asked, “When’s the funeral?”

“Friday,” Theo answered. Then he realized: “Day before your birthday party.”

Aaron grimaced. “Shit. Okay. We’ll make do without you.”

“Oh,” Theo said. “I’ll still come.”

Aaron stared at him. His gaze flickered over to Felicity, uncertain and awkward, and Theo thought how nice it was not to have them fighting.

“Dude,” Aaron said. “You don’t need to come to my birthday party. ”

“It’s fine,” Theo assured him. “ I’m fine.”

“He’s fine ,” Felicity told Aaron, only a little mocking. “ God , Aaron.”

Aaron ran a hand over his gelled hair, tweaking it at the front so it curled properly. Theo had seen him do that in public maybe three times since Aaron started gelling it in middle school. He usually saved fixing himself up for a bathroom mirror. Never let them see you maintain the mask , Aaron told him once, sounding like he was quoting from a movie Theo hadn’t seen. Which was surprising. They had a very similar taste in movies, if you excluded Theo’s documentaries and Aaron’s war films.

“Do you…” Aaron twisted to check anyone was watching. No one was, although there were two girls whispering about them in the back.

Aaron winced. “Do you want a hug?”

“Do I look like I want a hug?” Theo asked dryly.

“I don’t know,” Aaron hissed. “If my dad—I don’t know.”

Theo stared straight at the whiteboard as Felicity and Aaron had a silent argument with their eyes. Then they leaned in. Theo barely felt the pressure. It was like he was outside of his body, watching them wrap their arms around him. His eyes stung. He told himself it was the eucalyptus-burned-hair combination of his friends so close.

They didn’t look at each other after they pulled back. None of them were designed for comfort .

“Anything we can do, man,” Aaron mumbled.

“Anything,” Felicity repeated.

She blinked up at him with those deep blue eyes. She got more beautiful every year. His parents had been so annoyed when Aaron started dating her first. If they’d been around last night, Theo would’ve expected an excited talk about how Theo could swoop in and solidify the school’s new power couple.

“Okay,” Theo said slowly. “Why didn’t you guys tell me Felicity broke into Cheech’s house?”

Felicity blinked rapidly. Then she turned to glare at Aaron, who held up his hands.

“ I didn’t say anything,” Aaron said.

Felicity’s jaw flexed. She turned back to Theo, giving him a picture-perfect smile. “It was some stupid dare, alright? And it got me arrested. My mom said I couldn’t tell anyone.”

“You told Aaron.”

“I thought I could trust him to keep it under wraps,” Felicity said icily. “The less people know about a secret, the better. You know Lock.”

“Who dared you?”

Felicity sighed, leaning in closer. “Delilah Emmerson. We got drunk, we were messing around, and everything got out of control. I barely even remember that night, his neighbors totally overreacted when they called the cops.”

The bell rang. Mrs. Kettle strode in with a triumphant sigh .

“Still not late,” she declared, heading to the front of the room and opening her desk to find the roll call sheet. “Alright, let’s get this over with. Grejory with a J…”

She trailed off, staring at Theo in the middle row.

“Oh,” she said, straightening. “Theo. Hi. I didn’t think you’d be in today.”

Theo thought very hard about smiling. He nodded instead, resigning himself to a very long day of avoiding people’s eyes.

Their lunch periods didn’t line up today, which meant Kade had to meet him in between classes.

“You said you called Milly,” Theo said as Kade stumbled into the disabled bathroom. “What did she say?”

Kade gave him a bewildered look. Theo had been getting an annoying amount of those—people staring at him after he spoke. Like they expected him to be on the floor weeping and found it distasteful that he was walking around normally.

“I texted her,” Kade corrected. “She said she was very sorry for your loss.”

“Other than that,” said Theo, already annoyed.

Kade shrugged, dropping down onto the closed toilet. “She’s gonna keep translating. Says to come over anytime.”

Theo hated it when people said that. Come over anytime, call me anytime, whatever you need . Lying to his face like he didn’t know any better. People weren’t available all the time, for any reason. He couldn’t call someone at three a.m. just to complain about how boring it was, not being able to sleep. Maybe he would try that with Kade, but only because Kade kept weird hours and always wanted to talk about vampire stuff. He couldn’t call Kade to talk about the deep hollow in his chest that had opened up when his mom told him his dad was dead.

Nobody actually wanted to hear Theo’s stupid problems, and he hated when they pretended like they did.

“Sure,” Theo said dismissively. “So what are we doing?”

“ I’m going to class,” Kade said, slipping a hand into his jacket pocket, where his cigarettes were. Theo could almost hear his inner dialogue: should I actually go to class or should I skip and smoke in the woods? Theo was tempted to join him, if Kade stopped looking at him all cautious like that.

“You know what I mean,” Theo said. “I talked to Liss. She said Delilah Emmerson dared her to break into Cheech’s house, but I don’t know if I believe her. We should go ask Delilah about it. And we should go and check on my…on the…” Theo cleared his throat. “We should check the funeral home tonight.”

Kade nodded, long fingers picking at the thick lines on his jeans where he’d sewn up the rips. Preparing for winter, he’d said when Theo asked him about it, like they weren’t both on a mission to expose the least amount of skin possible when they hung out.

Kade sucked in a hesitant breath. Theo tensed up automatically, not wanting to hear whatever came out of his mouth next.

“Are you sure you want to see him?” Kade asked, almost timid, banging his foot against the toilet below him. “I didn’t even look into the casket at my mum’s funeral.”

“Stop talking like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m gonna fall apart,” Theo snapped. “I’m fine .”

He was better than fine, while he was holding onto that small bit of hope that his dad wasn’t gone. That they’d walk into the funeral home and find his dad chowing down on an unlucky employee. That Theo would slide the body rack open and find his dad pale and whole, shooting him a wink. Took your time, kid. Let’s get out of here.

“Noooo,” Kade said, the word forming a hooked question mark at the end. “You’re not?”

Theo groaned. “Come on. I thought…you’re the one person I hoped would talk to me normally. Just be normal .”

Kade grinned. “Never been good at that, sunshine.”

“Then try ,” Theo snapped. “Just—go back to making fun of me and rolling your eyes at everything I say.”

Kade shrank back. But only for a moment. His lip twitched, like it was going to peel back in a snarl. Then it, too, relaxed.

“Whatever the golden boy says,” he said, reserved but not half as bitter Theo would have liked. No acid, no bite. It sounded…sad.

A knot of guilt tightened in Theo’s stomach as he watched Kade stand up and fish cigarettes out of his jacket. No next class for him. Which was unfortunate, since Theo had finally talked him into doing homework for it.

Kade saluted him with his cigarette pack. “See you tonight.”

Theo nodded, still hoping for something he could push against. A dickhead comment or a mean new nickname. But Kade just stepped carefully around him and left the bathroom, leaving Theo alone with a thick throat and burning eyes, wondering why he was suddenly forcing back tears.