♡

"I am so stoked to pick up my pre-order of the new Halo game." Ethan gushed, "You've got to come over and play it, I'm 99.9% sure I'm going to be spending the whole break on it."

"Sure beats playing nothing but COD for a whole week by myself..." Benny sighed, "Forever Alone."

"I'd come over if you didn't play games full of tryhard douchebags."

"COD players are not that bad."

"Easy for you to say." Ethan rolled his eyes, "You're not the one getting called slurs."

"Just turn off your mic!"

"And let you be the only one who can talk? Yeah, right." Ethan scoffed.

They noticed Erica nearby, digging thoroughly through Sarah's locker.

"You know that Sarah would definitely notice if you took anything from there?" Ethan smirked as he watched Erica shovel out handfuls of Sarah's cutesy school supplies.

Erica rolled her eyes, "Like I'd have any use for her stupid animal erasers. I'm just getting stuff for her while she's doing her makeup tests. She's gonna have to do a lot of homework during break."

"Oh, damn. That sounds rough. Y'know, maybe I could help her out over break."

Erica paused to side-eye Ethan.

"Yeah, no. She visits her auntie every fall break."

"Oh... I've never heard her mention that." 

Erica scoffed as she tossed mini highlighters with animal faces into Sarah's bag, "What are you, her boyfriend or something? She doesn't have to 'mention' anything to you."

Harsh, Ethan thought to himself, frowning. The hostile tension made Ethan avert his eyes away from Erica, to look at Benny, who looked back at him with fear in his eyes and a sympathetically pained expression on his face.

"Erica, what gives? What are you being so mean to me for?" asked Ethan.

"News flash, losers! I'm always mean."

"Well, you're meaner than usual, which is saying a lot."

"At least I don't lie to my friends about having 'good visions'. How gullible do you think she is?"

Ethan's eyes widened, "She told you about last night?"

"Duh! I'm her best friend."

"Well I wasn't lying, okay?" Ethan argued, his face flushing pink at the reminder of the day before, "I just don't know what it means."

Erica tightened her grip on the twenty or so glitter gel pens she was now holding in her hand. She squinted her eyes to glare at Ethan as if she were shooting a thousand daggers at him. A thousand glittery, colorful daggers.

"You better figure it out," Erica sneered, "Because the last thing Sarah needs right now is some false promise of something good from someone who doesn't know what the hell they're talking about."

"...What? I'd never do anything to hurt her like that."

"Yeah, well, some people already have."

Ethan's eyes widened at the audacity.

"Oh yeah? Like when you ditched her for her shitty ex-boyfriend?" he scoffed, "Because that's totally what best friends do."

Erica lunged forward at Ethan, eyes glowing and fangs protruding as she let out a violent hiss. 

"Shut the fuck up." she threatened. 

While it did make him pee himself a little bit, Ethan stood his ground. She could beat him in a fight, easily. But people were already listening in to their argument, phones ready to record the second it escalates. He knew Erica wouldn't be stupid enough to attack him out in the open. And he was right. Erica furiously chucked the last of Sarah's things into her bag.

"Nice to know Sarah hangs out with people like you" she hissed, slamming the locker hard enough to make Ethan and Benny jump at the noise, and loud enough to make some of the people in the hallway turn their heads to look at her as she stomped away in her studded, off-brand Doc Marten boots.

"Was just about to say the same thing." Ethan muttered.

Erica heard him from where she was, raising her hand to give Ethan and Benny the finger without looking back.

...

Erica tossed Sarah's hefty bag into a an empty student's chair, landing on the seat with a thundering boom. Sarah was doing some makeup work for AP History with one earbud in, and Erica could hear faintest sound of Neon Trees' Animal from where she stood.

"Those dorks you hang out with are so fucking nosy. How can you stand hanging out with people like that?"

"Hey, hey. Language." said the teacher.

"No, this is History!" Sarah joked.

Erica rolled her eyes.

"Un. Be. Lieveable. Those geeks are turning you into a person who makes puns. About school."

"Well one of those geeks got Habits, Picture Show, and the entire soundtrack of Pitch Perfect on my iPod without having to pay a single cent." Sarah told Erica with a smug smile on her face, "That's pretty cool if you ask me."

"Are you focusing on your work?" the teacher asked nonchalantly, without looking up from the papers she was grading, Twenty minutes left."

"Eek!" Sarah squeaked. The lead in her Domo-kun keychained mechanical pencil snapped off as she tried to write faster. Erica rolled her eyes and sighed as she sat down in the other empty seat next to Sarah.

"Can I just sit here and hang out while she does her thing?" Erica asked the teacher.

"Nuh-uh. It's already pushing it for me to let her listen to music while she does classwork. She doesn't need any more distractions."

"Well, for the record," Sarah interjected, "Music helps me focus."

"Right. Anyways," the teacher continued, "It was very nice of you to bring her stuff here, but I need Sarah to focus on her work right now. You can talk to her later. Is that okay with you?"

"Yeah, it's whatever. I have a lot of important stuff I need to do, anyway." Erica scoffed, getting up from her seat. She grabbed her Dusk-themed backpack from Hot Topic and swung it over her shoulder, trying to look completely unbothered. 

Yeah, important stuff. Like using the school computers to argue with someone on the Dusk Til Dawn fanforums, Sarah thought to herself. 

Erica left the classroom and strut down the school hallway with an air of confidence she gained since becoming a vampire. She wasn't some dorky, Dusk-obsessed loser anymore. No, she told herself, she's cool now. She doesn't need to wait hand and foot for her friend like some kind of sidekick when she has tons of way cooler, way more exciting things in her life to do. 

She spotted Ethan and Benny down the hall, and when they noticed her, she gave them a deadly, yellow-eyed glare and a hiss. It was able to intimidate Benny, but Ethan seemed to react in a way that was more annoyed than scared. He was underestimating her power, she figured. Big mistake.