We hit the car below my window like a fucking comet hit’s the moon. If it wasn’t actual, it felt like it on multiple levels. Shattered glass, car alarms, the whole Hollywood production. Except I didn’t die. I’m so fucking glad I didn’t die. Lucy pushed off the window at the same time I did, which spun us so she was below me. We came apart from each other for a moment and time seemed to stop. I could see the car rushing up to meet us, could think about my soon to be doom, but all I could concentrate on where her lips. They mouthed one simple phrase before we embedded into each other on the roof of the car.

“I love you”

There is something about those words. They can build a person up, make old new again, and bridge gaps you thought no bridge could span. They can make you forgive any transgression, past or present, and have you reconsidering yourself and your place in the world. There must be something inside us that is released when we hear them said to us, something that makes us want to be the people we think we are on the inside but we don’t show.

I didn’t think about that at the moment. I felt something, and I thought about Lucy’s arms wrapping around me as the steel and fiberglass of the car wrapped around her. My head went fuzzy and pain shot through every one of my limbs. Lucy most likely let go from the shock and I must of bounced or rolled. I regained my sense of direction on the ground beside the car. I didn’t want to move. My body was screaming for me to not move, but I forced myself up. Nothing major seemed wrong with me but I couldn’t tell if the cuts on me were from the fall or the glass in my apartment.

Lucy was trying to roll off the car, but she had about enough. All her energy was gone. We couldn’t stay here. Already people were starting to look out their windows. I pulled her off the car and into me. I’d seen this half pull a person that can barely walk thing a billion times on t.v. but it is way harder in person. Fuck T.V. We had to get away from here, and I had to get her into the dark. Yet despite the fall, Suzanne’s death, and Isabelle going crazy, I felt good, I felt like the world was on fire, and it was my fire. A blaze that I was setting with each step. Fuck vampires, fuck pain, I would find a place for Lucy to rest and then I’d find a way to get back at Isabelle.

On the plus side Lucy not only looks sixteen, she weighs about that much also. Which means despite it being awkward I made it into the alley across the street, and we trekked a few blocks before I had to sit her down for a rest. She was out cold. We both looked like we had been in an accident, and I had left my wallet at home. The only thing I had was my phone. Of course. No one takes their phone off them anymore, guess that is one of the benefits of the modern age.

I called Henry. I knew the drug excuse wouldn’t work this time but I was feeling wild. If Isabelle was going to come after me, she was probably going to come after my friends (vampires like that shit), so at least if I came clean with him, he wouldn’t die ignorant. Plus I could get a ride and a place to sleep. It took a bit of me pleading with him over the phone. I had been rude to him a few days before that, and it was a Sunday morning. I think the fact that he didn’t have to call into work convinced him, either that or me telling him I’d tell him everything about what has been going on. Something he has been asking for years.

Henry is one of those guys that was a punk back as a teen but as they got older they fell into a job that paid well. They like to think of themselves as punk working for the man with one middle finger out but they are just working like the rest of the world, middle fingers or no. The up side is that old punks don’t mind a little blood in their car.

I was too exhausted to argue with him or explain. I think he could sense that we were in trouble and didn’t give me too much shit as we drove back to his place. It took a concentrated effort to stay awake for the drive up north, but I did it. All I could think about was “stay awake, and don’t let them find me.” I kept repeating it like a mantra. Henry kept looking at my bloody face and hands. I could tell he thought I had finally lost it.

Good friends are those friends that are there for you when you need them. You can be distant for years but the moment you call them up it is like you hadn’t stopped speaking. Henry was like that.

When we arrived at his place he pulled into his garage and as the doors shut I closed my eyes. Lucy and I slept in his car. I remember him trying to wake me up but I told him to fuck off, eventually he told me to fuck off and left us.

I’m going to owe him new car seats.