Reid is a blood-sucking vampire and I am his suck puppy.

I mean, this explains so much. I’m only the first in a long number of sucking partners he will have, and he just decided he preferred a different blood type.

Ugh! If only he was a vampire, then he just might have waited until I was old before he dumped me for someone else.

But he isn’t and he hasn’t.

Yesterday, while I was supposed to be working, I saw him hanging around downtown with a girl. He was supposed to be out with his cousins—male cousins—at a lunch I wasn’t invited to. After that he was going to the library to study until I got off work.

At least that’s what he said he would be doing. But now I know he was cheating on me. With a girl no less.

I blame that crazy woman in the café. I mean, all I did was tell her we were out of Tobacco Island Blend and she blew up. I think she really needed the caffeine.

I mean, what kind of woman screams at her waiter anyway? Isn’t it stupid to annoy the people who make your food?

Not that I did anything to it, mind you, but I wanted to. She probably recognized that I was no longer her humble servant, ready at her beck and call, looking forward to gratefully carrying out her slightest whim.

What planet did she think she was on?

But anyway, when she could stand my presence no longer, she asked loudly to talk to the manager. Luckily Craig was there, even though Tuesdays are his day off. The lady didn’t even wait until she was in his office to start screaming at him. I heard the part about my insolent behavior and my bandana being unhygienic before the door closed. But really, we’re a theme café and this month is pirate. Where did she think she was eating? I mean, didn’t the palm trees and seashells give it away?

Not that I can’t make my bandanas fit any theme. I have several polka dot ones from when we spent a few weeks with a circus theme. Reid bought them for me.

I don’t want to think about him.

Well, everyone seems to favor the pirate theme anyway; it wins every time Craig asks the customers to vote. And whatever that lady might have said, my hair did not touch her food. I’m willing to swear to it. It’s not that long anyway; it only reaches to the bottom of my shoulder blades.

So, after the nutty lady left, Craig took me aside and told me to take an extra long lunch or even the rest of the day off. I tried to call Reid on his cell phone. He didn’t pick up, but I hadn’t expected him to. He wouldn’t have wanted to answer while he was with his cousins; they already hate the idea that I exist, the homophobes. And he’s too polite to let his phone ring, let alone answer it, in the library.

He left a message for me, but it only said he’d come by early, which I kind of expected. He isn’t the kind of guy to lose track of time even while studying. He’s only been late a few times and he’s always has some annoyingly perfect excuse.

Well, here I was wandering around downtown trying to pass the time after searching the library, waiting for either Craig to let me come back to work or Reid to pick up, when I looked down a side street and saw my boyfriend on a date with a girl.

What else would he be doing chatting her up outside a theater?

If that lady hadn’t freaked out yesterday, then I would have never seen Reid with that girl. I wouldn’t have called Craig to ask for the rest of the day off. I wouldn’t have turned off my phone. I wouldn’t have ridden the bus home to my mother’s empty house. I wouldn’t have sat in the dark ignoring the house phone and the front door until Reid decided I hadn’t gone back to my mom’s house after all.

I wouldn’t have had to leave the house close to two hours before I had to be at work just to get there on time by bus; it only takes twenty minutes for Reid to drive me. I wouldn’t have worked today at all; it was supposed to be my day off.

I would have had at least a few more hours of blissful ignorance of his cheating.

And if that crazy woman hadn’t come back this afternoon, I wouldn’t be sitting in this restaurant, drinking coffee alone.

I wouldn’t serve her. Can you blame me? Craig didn’t, but he did give me the rest of the day off before he went to serve her himself. My paycheck is going to be so small.

I want to eat something, but I’m not hungry. I don’t even really want to eat; I just feel bad for the waitress. I’ve been sitting here an hour feeling sorry for myself, nursing my cup, while her perspective tip isn’t getting any bigger.

I see her grimace while she whispers to her coworker and I wave her over for a refill. I slip her a five and smile my apology. “Just a little longer.”

A bounce returns to her step when she goes to show her tip to the other woman. They both smile my way. I’m safe for another half hour, maybe even an hour, but I’m not going to press my luck.

I’m here because I’ve never been here with Reid, because he won’t look here for me. I can’t go home; my mother is probably awake by now and she is a “talk it out” kind of person. But I don’t want to talk it out, because Reid always has a good excuse, no matter the occasion.

Like the time he was late coming to get me after work because he had stopped his brother Jared from going crazy downtown after Jared ran out of his meds. Reid wasn’t able to call me because he was in the hospital holding his brother’s hand.

He finally did call, about a half an hour after he was supposed to be there, begging me to wait for him and not take Craig up on the ride home he’d offered. After Reid got me and took me home, we went straight to bed. He didn’t leave our room to eat dinner until after midnight.

Sometimes I wonder if he just wants me for comfort.

I mean, we meet when we were kids, practically next-door neighbors, and after my father died and my mom was forced to work nights, I would have “sleepovers”. That’s what our moms called them anyway. It was really free babysitting.

I would go to my own house after school, eat dinner with my mom, do my homework, etc., then pack a bag for my sleepover at Reid’s. Mom went to work, then slept while I was at school, so she was ready to spend the few hours we had each afternoon together. But sometimes I slept over even when my mom wasn’t working, so I would sleep in my own room maybe six nights a month.

Reid’s mother didn’t mind; Jared, her second son, left for an out of state college a month before I started sleeping over. She said I helped fill the empty space left in the house.

One day, three years after I’d practically moved in, I was sick and Reid refused to go to school, insisting he would stay home with me because his mother was going to be out all day, and Jared came home unexpectedly; he was supposed to be in class at his college hundreds of miles away.

Jared didn’t call out or anything, so Reid went to investigate. Reid called for me several minutes later. He wanted me to call his mom and 911. Reid had managed to get the knife away from Jared, but the voices in Jared head were more real to him than his brother’s.

When the paramedics arrived, Reid asked them over and over to be gentle with Jared. They were; they even let us hold Jared’s hands in the back of the ambulance, but that might have been because Jared got agitated when we let go.

We spent hours in the hospital. Reid’s mother cried on and off all day for Jared, for Reid, and for herself. His dad tried to stay dry eyed in public, but tears seeped out occasionally anyway. Reid was so worried about his brother that I not sure he even remembered I was there. His other brothers were scared, angry, or both.

For me it was like an out of body experience. I loved these people, but I felt no guilt for passing on the genes that caused Jared’s condition, nor was I worried that it might happen to me.

When we got home, after stopping for a quick dinner that no one felt like eating, Reid pulled me into his room and shoved the doorstop under the door—the closest thing to a lock we had. Then he pulled me close and kissed me.

I was surprised. Not that I didn’t like it, because I did. I just couldn’t figure out why he picked that moment, when his house was filled with his wide-awake family.

One kiss became many and those kisses came with touches and soon we were laying, panting on his bed. We did sleep that night; although, I think we were the only two in the house that did.

He told me that he’d been waiting to sleep with me, trying to control himself, until I was fifteen, but that he didn’t know why he had waited; we were less than three years apart and I was fourteen, so we were legal.

My phone rings again. I don’t answer it. He will have a perfectly plausible excuse. It will be beyond suspicion. I will forgive him, like every time before, and I will hate myself.

If I hadn’t been there that night, would he have found a girlfriend instead?

Giggles fill the quiet restaurant. Three young women wait to be seated. They glance around and one asks for the booth next to mine. She looks like the girl Reid was with. I immediately hate her.

They know what they want without even looking at the menu and call the waitress by her name. The date girl excuses herself from her friends saying she needs to use the restroom. They want to go with her, but she says no, then they tell her she won’t get out of it so easily. She promises to tell them everything as soon as she gets back.

Just steps from the table, she pulls out her phone and stands in the lobby, talking and looking at her friends. Or at me. I can’t tell.

I turn away. I don’t want to look at her. She reminds me of my misery. The other two girls at the table gossip and squeal excitedly, with several “She better tell us…” and “We hafta ask her…”

They are too loud to ignore. They are both sitting right behind me. One laughs a lot, her voice all squeaky, like that actressfrom Singing in the Rain, the other, more impatient one, has a husky voice, like Lauren Bacall, although she looks more like Audrey Hepburn in her ponytail that swishes as she pulls her friend back to their table.

“Tell us,” says Miss Pony, taking her own seat, “about your date.”

Oh! She did have a date! I really do hate her.

“Well,” says Miss Date. “It was… interesting.”

“Wait,” says Miss Mouse. “First, what did you wear?”

Miss Date laughs and begins a list that starts with some lilac brand name item and ends with another color and a name, and in between has all the different outfits she tried before she decided on one. Her friends tell her the pros and cons of each item, and whether they would have worn it.

Their discussion might as well be taking place in a foreign language. Maybe it is. If I concentrate hard I can figure out some of the items from context, but I don’t know chartreuse from vermilion, so I’m still not sure if Miss Date was Reid’s date.

“Well,” says Miss Date, “I came a little early and Sam and John were waiting for me. Right behind me was guy in jeans, a white t-shirt, and hiking boots. He sat down across from John without looking at me.”

“Was he hot?” asks Miss Pony.

“Oh, yes,” says Miss Date, as my stomach sinks. Sam and John were the cousins Reid was meeting. And that’s what Reid was wearing yesterday. She goes on with a giggle, “Like Brad Pitt.”

She is wrong there. Sure Reid is muscular enough to look strong without making me scared he might hurt me by accident, but he is a sexy mix of Robert Mitchum and Cary Grant. She watches the wrong movies.

After the girls squee for a while, she continues, “Sam introduced us. But other than a hello, Reid—that’s his name—said nothing.”

My heart dies. My corpse doesn’t have the strength the rise and walk away.

“The guys talk for a while, Reid ignores me.” Her friends chime in at his beastly behavior. “But,” she says, “I figure out why when the waiter shows up. I knew this was a blind date, but Reid didn’t know it was a date at all!”

Her friends express surprise and dismay. She goes on to say how Reid pulled Sam aside and they came back five minutes later both of their faces red, but without any bruises. After that Reid was polite to her but not overly friendly.

Again her friends protested, but she just laughed. “I’d be angry too,” she says. “You’ve got to hear this. As soon as John and Sam leave, after telling him to keep up his side of the deal, Reid apologies. He says he’s sorry about what happened, but he is already in a relationship. He pulls out this picture. He says it’s his boyfriend. That he’s gay.”

The girls hoot and holler and the other patrons in the slowing filling restaurant turn their way. The waitress saves the day by bringing their food.

In the silence broken only by the sounds of chewing I gather my strength. I should leave. Some tables are still empty, but the dinner rush will be here soon. I should make space for them.

But why did they go out together? If Reid told her about me, why didn’t they go their separate ways?