1. Notice

Juliet

I had one destination in mind, walking down the road away from our house. No one could see me because I was invisible. My ability made me able to do almost anything I wanted. My parents weren’t home. So, they didn’t know about my extracurricular activity. It had been a few years since we left the compound, and I enjoyed being out in the real world.

Like most days, when I had nothing to do… I went straight to his class. Chris was a teacher at my school. I knew his schedule and routine by heart. He would still be behind his desk, working. Avoiding going home. I didn’t really feel guilty about what I was doing. He was married… But following him meant I knew nothing was going on between them.

At first, I peeked around the corner into his class, making sure he couldn’t see me. I spoke and said, “Hi.” He didn’t hear me either.

I made my way over to his desk. He was gloomy, peering out the window. He wasn’t a happy guy and never smiled. His lips naturally curved a little down. The only time I saw him sort of relaxed was when he was with his one friend. My geography teacher.

I sat across from him on one of the student tables. Just stared at him as he marked papers and worked on his laptop. The phone on the table dinged. Chris scanned the message, and his eyes closed for a second. I got up to check the screen over his shoulder. It was from Sita. He threw the phone on the table, not wanting to answer. “Can my life not change?” He whispered. I reached out to tuck some of his hair in behind an ear. He tilted his head to the side. He had felt it, and the hair had raked back with my finger. I jerked my hand from his face. Chris didn’t move. How was that possible? I was able to touch him when I was invisible. Usually, I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t go through things or budged them. Did he not feel me? Why wasn’t he saying anything?

He sighed and opened his eyes. “Can the love of my life please step up?” The corners of my lips rose at his plea. He was married but lonely. Why wouldn’t he get a divorce? No one would try anything with him with that kind of baggage… Not in our small town. Sita was a little stuck up. In the few years we had been there, he had never cheated.

Chris swung the swivel chair to the door and leaned back, letting the breeze blow over him. Heavy eyes stared at the door. That day he wore a plaid shirt tucked into light beige chinos. Unkept hair that was getting too long. It was my one weakness. I took a few steps forward and wanted to see if he could really feel me. I stretched out my hand… Slowly I ran my fingers over his cheek. My thumb over his mouth. He moaned, closing his eyes and stretched out an arm. Feeling his way around, he found my waist. I pulled away and took a step back.

“I think I’m going crazy,” Chris whispered, rubbing his hands over his face. He packed up his things, and we walked to his car. I always followed him to watch him drive off. He opened the back door, putting down his bag on the seat. Usually, I had a split second to decide if I would get into a car or not.

“Get in,” he said softly. The words made me jump. That day I couldn’t help myself.

First, he stopped at a liquor store and drove to the outskirts of town. There were no houses and just open fields. He swung his feet out of the car, drinking a beer. There was a shallow valley in front of us. A small stream flowed all along with the town. That was his view. He never talked to himself, which was frustrating because I didn’t know what he was thinking. After some time, he opened the back door. “Thank You, so polite.” It was why I couldn’t get into a car. There was no way out unless someone let me out. He picked up his bag and took something out.

“It’s the box of the phone I gave you for your birthday. What are you still doing with it?”

There were a bunch of papers inside I didn’t recognize. But the little note I left for him was still in there.

“Is that what you are going to look at?” I asked.

He took the folded paper and opened it.

Me

{I see you

I think about you

And I’m always there even if you can’t see me.}

He rubbed his fingers over the few words I put on paper. That something so small could mean so much. I desperately wanted to know about the other letters in there. To oblige me, he opened one. Chris was resting back against the car. I had to lean in to be able to read the words. Too curious to help myself. Our shoulders touched.

“Dear invisible,” he read, and I chuckled, my body shaking slightly. He was clearly not a romantic. “You think that’s funny?” He asked. I bobbed my head against him.

Chris

{Even if I can’t see you,

I feel you.

I think about you too.}

After he finished reading, he rested his head on mine. I pulled out from the situation. I had to be careful… Even though I wanted to stay like that for a few more minutes. It would never be easy for me. The vacancy made him falter a bit. He folded the note and put it back into the box.

***

It had been a year since that day. I was lying on my bed one morning waiting for my friend so we could walk to school. That afternoon’s memory was flooding back. I thought about Chris a lot… and why he was able to touch me that day.

In the background our front doorbell rang. I jumped up from my bed, grabbing my bag. I flung it over my shoulder, quickly walking down the hall. “I’m leaving now. Charlene is here,” I yelled as I opened the big wooden doors. Beyond that, big black gates cordoned off a little courtyard.

“Hey, Charlene.” She had long blond hair pinned back tightly onto her head with a high ponytail. She wore a little makeup, but no one would even know. She was a little shorter than me. Not so skinny as I was, but beautiful. We hugged, not having seen each other in weeks.

“How are you?” I asked and put my arm through hers.

“Good and you?”

“Okay! Bye, Mom!”

“See you later, Julie! Remember we need to buy your father a birthday present after school.”

“Yeah, I remember!” I yelled back. Just a normal family.

“We couldn't speak over the phone last night. Tell me all. How was your holiday?” Charlene asked excitedly while we started walking down the road.

“You know... Clubbing, beaching, surfers, lifeguards, and late nights. The beach parties were insane… But tell me about Benjamin? The Italian guy you met.”

“Argh, you know… Holiday romance. Lots of kissing and some other stuff. But that’s all there is to it. I’m here. He lives on another continent. But...”

Charlene’s heart-shaped face rounded even more on her cheeks as the smile reached her eyes. “But what?”

“I… might see him again over New Year.” She laughed.

“You’re so lucky that your parents took you to Europe. You must have had the best time… Having a father that travels that much has its perks.”

We talked and laughed till we reached a blue steel bridge separating my neighborhood from the schools. “Hello, ladies. And how are thy fair maidens today?” Carl said and split us up. He drove himself as a wedge between our bodies, linking his arms into both of ours. We didn’t mind and hugged him together, squashing him. He made some grunting noises.

My regular human friends.

Carl is our best friend. Well, guy friend. The three of us were and are still inseparable. From the start of high school, the homeroom teacher seated us together. We were from different middle schools and relocated for various reasons, and we bonded in that regard. We all had an open outlook on life with similar personalities that made it easy. Neither of them knew my secret. Well, the biggest one of my secrets… Because I had many.

I kicked my shoes on the pavement to get most of the dust off entering the school. We wore uniforms. Ugly blue dresses over short white sleeve shirts. Dark blue socks that reach our ankles with black shoes.

“What’s the point of cleaning them every day? If they are just going to get dirty on the way to school?”

“It would help if you didn’t drag your feet or kick at every stone that existed,” Carl admonished.

I stuck my tongue out at him. He shook his head and waved at us. Carl was making his way over to some of his guy friends. “So mature.” I heard him say. Charlene stuck out her tongue at him too. He did give us a smile. She patted me on the shoulder. I let my bag slip off into her hand. Charlene walked off toward the lockers. She knew I took that time to check in on Chris. They both knew I liked him. That I was in love with my teacher.

I had to walk around some school buildings to get to the parking lot where he parked his black BMW. I was disappointed when I didn’t see his car that day… I felt my emotions escalating in the wrong direction. There was always the fear that I could manifest. Being a teenager was hard. Being a vampire and a teenager was almost impossible. The fact that I had not killed or sucked on the neck of someone there... “I should get a prize,” I whispered to myself. I took a moment to get my act together and headed to assembly. The next half hour would be torture if Chris wasn’t there to fill my thoughts.

When I walked through the doors, the familiar smell accosted me. Musty drapes and old wooden floors. Small windows lining one side of the place didn’t give much ventilation. I wanted to sit near a door. If I needed to run, we would be near an exit. But there wasn’t space in our usual spot. So, we went to sit in the middle somewhere. No chairs for us. We did not go to private school. The auditorium was the only indoor area where we could sit and listen to our principal rattle on every Monday morning.

***

Chris

It was another day… Another year. I was writing in my diary on my lap. Checking the list of things I had to do that day. Starting with the date, I wrote 6 September 2021. In five minutes, the hall would fill up fast. The assembly period would start, and the boring principal would begin his speech. Sure he rehearsed that stuff in the mirror the whole weekend long. Kids had begun to enter the hall, taking seats all over the floor in front of me. Thinking about teaching… I could say, “I enjoy my job.” But it’s not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was turning thirty that year. If I wanted to make a move… I had to do it soon. Or else I knew I would be stuck there forever.

I was aimlessly staring at the book on my lap, daydreaming about getting out of there. A smell wafted in the air and pulled me back to reality. As gentle as it was, it touched me. A sophisticated perfume. It was a scent an adult would use… I liked it immediately. Some kid must have stolen some of her mom’s. I could feel the dimples in my cheek. The source of the awakening soon wiped the smirk off my face. A girl walked past me. Right in front of me… She didn’t steal some of her mother’s perfume. I stared because I could do nothing else. She was beautiful… And I had not seen her before. Even in that small school… That was the first time I had noticed her.

Just like me, most of the boys around her were staring. They were pointing and gesturing… all sorts of crude stuff. I didn’t like it. That smell of her lingered, and my thoughts wandered. She scanned the crowd, staring down some horny teenagers who withered away by her intense death stare. It made me shudder. If a woman glared at me like that, I would cower too. There was something in her manner. Confidence, maybe? Poooor schoolboys… Just wait a few years and go for younger girls. Don’t try and date your age in high school. That’s just a waste of time. Girls liked older men… It was my experience of school anyway.

Interested in what she was searching for… Or for who. I kept my eyes on her. She started in the back and made a sweep of the floor. Disappointed, she shrugged her shoulders in a kind of fun way. The three of them seemed like they were good friends. I was just out of her line of sight. The guy with them pointed with his thumb in my direction. She had to slightly turn her body to see what he was pointing at… When she did, she looked right at me. I was waiting for her eyes to narrow or that she would tell me to stuff off.

Our gazes locked… Even in those few seconds… What her eyes told me was the total opposite. I sucked in a breath as my core reacted to the unfamiliar feelings. Her eyes were dreamy and icy blue… consuming me. She was even more stunning than the glances I caught from the side. It was brief. She shifted, averting her gaze. Her friends shook their heads at her. She fisted the guy’s shoulder. There was an inside joke going on.

At that exact moment, the principal made his appearance. I murmured under my breath. I wish I could say that I was able to concentrate for the rest of that half-hour… But it was futile. My thoughts turned dark as our eyes met again a little later. I knew she was looking at me… There was hot-blooded energy oozing from her. She didn’t seem that young, and her eyes said… she had been through a lot. It didn’t help that she glanced back a few more times and caught me… Still fixated on her.

She didn’t want to blatantly stare me down. Questions started bombarding me. Who was she? Why had I never noticed her? What class would she be in? How old was she? What if she had a class with me that year?

Unfortunately, the one time I did raise my eyes off the irresistibility in front of me… I saw my wife. I groaned as my stomach twisted. My heart turned cold and I hated that feeling. I didn’t even want to think about her. I would rather… My eyes drifted back to fix on the girl… I couldn’t even finish the thoughts I had about Sita.

***

The first period was agony for me. Scared that she would walk into my homeroom class. I would have to see her every day… I wanted her to walk through the door… But I also didn’t. That one moment changed my whole outlook on life. Made me feel alive again. Thinking that there was someone that saw me…

For the rest of the week, during breaks, I caught myself watching the grounds for her. Searching… To just see her again. Hoping that she would appear in front of me like she did that Monday morning. Make my day just a little better. Of course, catching myself thinking about a student made me uneasy. But I couldn’t help myself. Feelings I had thought I would never have again surfaced and hit me like a wave. I couldn’t find her but knew I would probably see her at assembly in the hall... The anticipation was building up.

***

Juliet

I avoided Chris that whole week. Being invisible around him was one thing. Him looking at me like that… was a whole other story. I needed to give myself some space… Control my emotions… so that I didn’t manifest at school.

***

The following Monday, I was so nervous I didn’t even want to enter the auditorium. I waited in the back of the hall, leaning against the doorframe. Two big doors leading to the outside stood open, and the wind gave a pleasant breeze from behind. If all else failed, I would stand right there… So I could run if I needed to.

I was only anxious because I wanted to see where he would sit. Wondering if the last week really happened. Happy when he sat down where he had the week before. That was my past time… fantasizing about Chris. Carl and Charlene thought I was crazy. They said I would fall flat on my face from embarrassment at some point. It was probably true… They also believed in the end… I would have my heart broken… left disappointed. What they didn’t know… was that I had no expectations. I was cruelly aware of my situation. He was human… I was a vampire.

What they didn’t know was… Since I had manifested and started sucking people dry. I had killed nearly 300 humans. Besides that, I could boast of my one long-term boyfriend. If you could call one year a long-term relationship. In high school, it was probably a big deal. It ended in me already with a broken heart. He had meant something to me. That idiot was probably up on the balcony. So I might be a romantic. My thoughts might be a bit in the clouds. But naïve and ignorant… not so much.

It was harder for me to contain my lust as I got older. More difficult to fit into the adolescent scene. Chris was searching the hall. Probably for me. I had seen him come out of his shell that week… out of his class smiling. He was handsome with his light brown hair. A full head of hair I wanted to run my fingers through. It was longer than other men at his age. He seemed the arty type with the way he dressed. But he wasn’t. He played men’s hockey and gave computer science at school. Into everything IT. So, it made him just an average guy.

I thought about our activities the previous night. My mom and dad and I. I constantly had to compare his mundane human life to mine. Hunting and killing people were a part of my routine. Urgh, I always bummed myself out, getting so somber about how different I was. I lifted my arm to see how many scratches I had picked up. I went a little overboard. But it would soon heal.

Chris couldn’t find me… And I didn’t join Carl and Charlene on the floor. I wanted to be able to enjoy my view. Not have him interfere with my illusions of what could be.