February 4

DOLL IN THE ATTIC

So, Eve found a scary old doll in the attic ….

Yeah, that’s Eve in the picture. She likes taking these dramatic pictures. Don’t ask.

Anyway, the reason I’m using the picture isn’t Eve, it’s the doll. The doll was up in the attic, in a big trunk of old clothes and photos. Eve latched onto it, some kind of girl thing or Goth thing, I don’t know, and she started toting the doll around. I guess she’d been doing it for about a day before a note fell out of it. The first thing I knew about it was finding Eve down in the laundry room, crying.

Here’s the note:
I hope whoever finds Lily loves her as much as me. I’ve been really sick. Mom got her for me when I was six but I was too old for dolls then. When I got sick Mom brought me Lily and she’s been with me ever since.

I don’t know why I’m sick. Mom says it’s just how things are. Her friend, the White Lady, came and sat with me and read to me from an old book, and they thought it would help but it didn’t, and now I’m going to go to heaven soon and I can’t take Lily.

So please take care of Lily for me. If you can find some other little girl who’s sick I’d like her to have Lily too, because Lily made me feel better, even I wasn’t better.

Your friend,

Annette Bascomb

So today, me and Eve went up to Morganville General to find some little girl who needed a doll, and we turned a corner and saw our most hated teacher, ever, from high school. Mrs. Laskowicz. She’d been a real bitch to her students, and in turn, we’d hated her right back.

Mrs. Laskowicz was holding a thin little girl on her lap. They were reading a picture book.

The kid had no hair.

Laskowicz looked up at us, and for a second she was just as shocked as we were. You get used to thinking of your teachers as monsters or something, not people at all, and there she was, with tears in her eyes, reading to a little girl with no hair.

The little girl was Natalie, her daughter. She had leukemia.

We gave her Annette’s doll.

I hope Lily helps.

I hope Laskowicz doesn’t hate us anymore. Looks like she’s got enough problems.

Eve was going to start dropping by the hospital to check on the kid. I don’t know if I can do that. I think it would shred me up, if one day I showed up and there was no Natalie, no Mrs. Laskowicz, only a doll waiting for somebody else to help.

But maybe I’ll go Saturday.

February 20

COMMON GROUNDS

I met Claire’s dad today.

Yeah, on my own, without Claire. Sounds crazy right? It did to me, too, but … I had to do it. Claire would have thought I was being an insane macho jerk or something, and maybe she’d be right, but I needed to get some things off my chest.

We met at Common Grounds, of course; where else do people who don’t entirely get along meet? Mr. Danvers walked over from his house, and when he got to the coffee shop, he looked tired and winded, and he was using a cane like an old man. I remembered what Claire had told me about how sick he’d been, and for a minute I was worried, but he shook hands and sat down and didn’t mention it, so I didn’t either. I bought him some coffee — we drank it black, not all those foo-foo milky drinks. Bonding.

And then he said, “I don’t like what’s going on between you and my daughter.”

His timing was pretty much perfect; I had a mouthful of hot coffee I choked on, sputtered, and swallowed. Luckily, that gave me time to think about what the hell I was going to say.

“Sorry you feel that way,” I said. “Your daughter’s pretty amazing.”

“Well,” he said, sipping at his own brew, “we can agree on that. She is. And she’s young, and this town’s dangerous. I appreciate that you care about her, and you want to try to keep her safe.”

“When she lets me,” I shrugged. “Not all that often, though.”

Mr. Danvers looked at me with that Dad Stare, and I had to work at it to keep looking back. “You know I have a bad heart.” I nodded. “You’re lucky. If I didn’t, I’d have kicked your ass for taking advantage of my daughter.”

“Sir, I didn’t — “

“You’re an adult,” he interrupted me. “I expected you to act like one. She’s — “

“Not a child.” I interrupted him right back. “Look, I know this is weird. I know you don’t want to hear that, but she’s not a little girl, and I’m not apologizing for how I feel about her. Or anything else, because that’s between me and Claire.”

He stood up. “I guess we’ve got nothing to talk about.”

As meet-the-parents events go, this one was pretty much a disaster, and it probably would have stayed that way, except for one thing: two very stupid young guys decided that Common Grounds looked like an easy place to rob.

To be honest, I didn’t even notice them come in. The only reason I noticed them at all was that one of them kicked over a table, scattering mocha and latte everywhere, and sending college students scrambling. He had a gun — not a very big one, but big enough to kill you if he was a reasonably good shot. His buddy charged toward us, and Mr. Danvers was standing right in the way between him and the register.

The sensible thing was to get out of the way, hold up our hands, and let things go the way they were bound to go … because Oliver was standing behind the counter, watching the two would-be robbers with cold, calculating eyes.

Problem was, Mr. Danvers decided to try to be a hero. As the robber charged at him, he grabbed his coffee off of the table and slung it right into the man’s face. Hot coffee in the eyes is guaranteed to take your focus off whatever you’re doing, even if you think you’re badass, but the fact was, the dude was half Mr. Danvers’ age, and twice his muscle, and once the burn wore off Claire’s dad was going to get hammered.

And Oliver, of course, wasn’t making his move. Thanks, scary vampire dude, I thought. You suck in all kinds of ways.

And then I thought about what I was going to tell Claire when I called to tell her that I’d let her father get hurt, and that was even less fun than the conversation I’d been having with him. But I would have done the same thing — I think — even if I hadn’t known Mr. Danvers at all.

I kicked the table (and my coffee) out of the way and, just as the robber shook off the shock of the hot coffee, popped him in the mouth with a quick, fast right. The secret to a good punch is all in the shoulder, but don’t let anybody tell you it doesn’t hurt, especially bare knuckles. It hurts like hell, and that guy had a really hard jaw. I thought for sure I’d broken something, but all my fingers still worked, and the robber went down like a fainting goat.

That was a pretty nice outcome, until something hit me in the bend of the knees and sent me to the floor just like the guy I’d punched. I didn’t know what had hit me, or why, but it was a really good thing it did, or the bullet fired by the second robber would have gotten me right in the chest.

I guess Oliver could stomach robbery and assault, but he drew the line at people putting bullet holes in his woodwork. By the time I rolled up to my knees, the robber was on the floor, his gun was in Oliver’s hand, and the emergency was over.

And Claire’s dad was standing over me with his cane in one hand, and offering his other to me to help me up. It took me a second to put it together, and then I said, “You hit me with your cane.”

“You’re sleeping with my daughter,” Mr. Danvers said. “Least I could do, Shane.”

I laughed, and he grinned, and I saw where his daughter got that great smile.

“You forgive me?” I asked him, once we stopped laughing.

“Not many people would have stepped up to help me,” he said. “Seems like you’re always doing that, Shane. Putting yourself in the line of danger.”

I shrugged. “It’s a hobby.”

“It’s a good way to leave my daughter broken-hearted,” he said. “Don’t do that. Promise me.”

He was asking me a lot, because I don’t give those kinds of promises. Too easy to break them. But this time, I nodded. “I’ll do my best,” I said. “I never want to make her sad, sir. Never.”

Mr. Danvers sighed. “I guess a father can’t really ask for more than that.”

Then he bought me coffee, and the cops came to collect the robbers (I didn’t expect we’d be seen them around again), and what do you know, we discovered that Mr. Danvers and I both liked Star Trek. Only he liked the original show, and I liked the reboot, but whatever.

Common Grounds.

April 16

SCARY.

Thinking about Claire. Again. Can’t believe I’m writing this.

Glad nobody’s ever going to read this. Don’t think I could stand that, but I can’t talk about it, either — not even with Michael. I mean, he’s cool, but … yeah. Not guy talk.

Look, I’ve had my share of hookups, you know? Not a ton, but a few. And it was great and all, but there was just something … missing, I guess. All body, no head. No heart. Truth was, I liked those girls, but I didn’t need them. When it was over, ah well, so what, you know? For the girls, too. At least, as far as I know.

But this thing with Claire, this is … not that. Especially now. It’s a hell of a lot more.
That’s pretty damn scary, because how do I do this now, after? How do I face the fact that today I could lose her? Every day, from now on, there’s something in this world that I can’t stand to lose. That’s not just scary. That ties knots in my guts and makes me shake when I think about what she’s done, what she does every day. She doesn’t seem to get it sometimes — she’s tough, but she can be hurt. She can die, like my sister. Like my mom.

And as much as I want to protect her, I know that there are times I can’t. Times she won’t let me.

How do I deal with that? How do I not die inside myself when I watch her walk out to go do something stupid for Myrnin, or Amelie? When I see her hurt?
I don’t know.

I don’t know if I can do this, but I have to do it. For her.

For both of us.

April 20

TIME TO MAN UP.

I’ve pretty much had it with the damn vampires in this town. Amelie talks a good game about can’t we all just get along, but when it comes right down to it, every time she’s looking after her own. Case in point: Claire nearly DIED getting that stupid machine running (and look how that turned out) … and why?

Because she killed a vampire. A vampire who was trying to kill her. Self defense. But Amelie used it to get what she wanted.

And that kid they stuck in the cage in Founder’s Square — well, maybe he was guilty, I don’t know, but nobody deserves to die like that. Nobody.

So I’m done with trying to play nice now. I’m going to protect myself, and protect what’s mine, same as the vamps do. And if I can kick a little vampire butt in the process, all the better.

Vassily’s a fanger, but he’s going to teach me what I need to know to survive, and that’s all that counts, right?

Even if it hurts.

May 20

JUST SO YOU KNOW…

I just kicked Michael’s vampire ass at Guitar Hero. Booyah! Eat it, fang-boy.

In other news, I traded Eve cleaning and garbage for two weeks to get out of laundry duty. Still not sure if that came out in my favor, but dammit, I’m not fluffing and folding for nobody. Men take out trash. It’s what we do.

Got a note in the mail, no name, no address. All it said was watch your back. Maybe it’s my dad, being an ass and thinking he’s helping me, like I don’t know that every day I spend in Morganville lowers my odds of getting out alive. The weird thing is, now I’m wondering if the note came from somebody else.

Who? No idea. Maybe it’s just the Morganville version of “I saw what you did, I know who you are.” Maybe somebody’s just sending them out at random and giggling like fools. Not a lot to do around this town except annoy your neighbors …

Oh God, cranky old Mr. Norton two doors down yelled at me to turn down the music. Only problem is I’m not playing any. Just another day in Morganville …

June 6

GOD I HATE MORGANVILLE

I can’t go anywhere around here without people giving me the look. The “loser” look. When I first came back, everybody was all, “Oh, hey, sorry about your sister, man, too bad about your mom,” but since my idiot dad came back, did his thing, and ran, well.

Not so much with the sympathy.

I tried, I really did. I took a job at the sewage treatment plant, you wouldn’t believe how that reeked. I couldn’t get the smell off me even when I showered and changed clothes. No way was I doing that the rest of my life.

Ditto on the convenience story, but mostly because I can’t play nice with people who treated me like shit in high school.

And then there’s the vampires. That’s a whole new level of suck-ass, but I guess I have to just deal.

Vampires: can’t live with ‘em, can’t kill ‘em.