Hi. What are you doing? I text messaged Jack.

Not much. What about you? Jack responded. It took him three minutes to answer, which was an unusually long time for him, especially since it was after ten o’clock at night. Even he never slept in this late.

Even less. I haven’t done anything in three days. I tried to lay on the guilt.

You haven’t talked to Jane? Jack was suggesting that I hang out with Jane.

Wow. Things were worse than I thought. After Peter, Jane was Jack’s least favorite person in the whole world. And he was encouraging me to hang out with her? Wow.

Not so much. But I guess I could. Great idea. I replied.

Right now, Jane was probably getting drunk or giving oral sex or something. If it were earlier, we might be able to do something more reasonable, like shop. But with only two weeks until school, I knew that for her, every night would be a blur of alcohol and debauchery.

I’m just pretty busy lately. Sorry. Jack texted.

No. I totally get it. It’s great. I’ll just do something else. That’s what I said, but I knew that I was going to spend the night in bed crying myself to sleep.

No. Wait. Are you ready? Jack text messaged back, but it was too little too late.

Never mind. I’m good. I responded.

Just be ready and outside in like fifteen minutes, okay?

I didn’t reply to that. I couldn’t even decide if I wanted to get ready and go outside to meet him. I honestly didn’t want a pity hang out, even if I really did miss him. It was stupid how much I missed him. But I was bored and lonely and couldn’t stand it.

Almost grudgingly, I got up and pulled on a pair of jeans. I wore a white tank top and pulled my hair back in a ponytail. I quickly applied some eyeliner and mascara, and then ducked out the door, unsure if I was making the right decision or not.

When the black Jetta pulled up, I got my answer. It was absolutely the wrong decision.

Mae had come to pick me up.

I considered turning around and going back inside. What would I achieve by hanging out with her? I’d feel stupid and pathetic all night, and I was just prolonging the inevitable. When a guy sends his sister to hang out with you instead of him, I think that’s the beginning of the end.

“Hello, love,” Mae said when she had rolled down the car window. She leaned across the passenger seat towards me, looking sheepish. “Sorry, Alice. I know it’s not quite what you hoped for, but Jack thought you needed to get out of the house.”

“You know what? I’m actually fine.” I chewed my lip. “He’s um… he’s mistaken. I’m sure you have better things to do then baby-sit me, so I’ll just go back in.”

“Nonsense! You know how much I love spending time with you. So come on. Get in the car.”

“You really don’t have to do this,” I said.

“I know.” She nodded towards the empty seat, so I sighed and I got in the car. “It’ll be fun. You’ll see.”

“I bet,” I leaned my head back on the seat as she pulled away. “The last time somebody came in place of Jack was when Peter picked me up. And we all know how well that turned out.”

“This isn’t like that.” Mae shook her head. “Jack really wanted to see you. He just can’t right now.”

“What is he doing? Teaching Milo how to turn into a bat?” I mocked, and Mae scowled.

“A lot goes into being a vampire, you know,” she told me gravely. “Plus, he’s been helping Ezra with the business. He was supposed to fly out to Tokyo yesterday, but…” She shook her head, pursing her lips.

“But what?” I sat up straighter.

“Something must be different in your blood,” Mae exhaled, talking more to herself than me. “I don’t understand it. But something makes you all so eager to bond. Who was your father?”

“My father?” I wrinkled my nose. “What does he have to do with anything?”

“I’m trying to understand your ancestry, because you and Milo are both so unique. I’m wondering if we’ve been looking at this all wrong. Maybe you weren’t meant for Peter. Maybe you were just meant to be a vampire.” Mae chewed her lip, looking sad and faraway. “We’re just a means to an end for you.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “An end to what?”

“You both bond so easily. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever encountered,” Mae said wearily.

“Milo’s super possessive of Jack, right?” I better just hurry up and resign myself to a life of mortal celibacy. “Jack kind of told me the other day.”

“These things just take time.”

“Why is that the answer to everything?” I scoffed. “All I ever get from you guys is that everything takes time and everything’s complicated.”

“What else am I supposed to say?” Mae asked pointedly. “That this will never get better, no matter how much time we have? If that’s what you want to hear, I’ll be happy to tell you that.”

“If that’s the truth, then yeah, that’s what you should say,” I said.

“Of course that’s not the truth!” Mae rolled her eyes. “Alice, the only constant in life is that everything is always changing. And that’s a little scary, but it means that things can’t be bad or hard forever.”

“And they can’t be good or easy forever either,” I countered.

“You’ve just got to trust me on this one.” Mae turned to me, smiling warmly at me. “I don’t know how yet, but things will end up the way they’re supposed to be.”

“Thanks for the blanket answer.”

“Let’s just forget about all of this,” Mae suggested. “Let’s just go have a girls' night. Just the two of us.”

“It’s after ten on a Tuesday. How much do you really think is open?” I asked.

“We’ll find something,” Mae insisted. “We’ll make do.”

We made do with a Wal-Mart that was open 24-hours, a Denny’s where she watched me eat, and a Blockbuster. We went back to my apartment, even though the whole point of the evening was supposed to be to get me out of the house.

Mae had never been inside before, but she ooed and awed over all our second-hand junk like it was astounding. She painted my nails and played with my hair while we watched Silence of the Lambs. It was one of my favorite movies because it was so terrible, and I felt better knowing that I was forcing her to watch something so terrible.