"Nelly, I’m leaving soon.” Her response was slow, heavy with sleep. "Okay. I’ll be right down.” He listened at her door for another moment until he heard her get out of bed. Sometimes, when she’d just worked a late shift, he felt bad about making sure she was up before he left the house. But after what happened to his parents, the superstitious part of him insisted that he couldn’t leave anyone sleeping while he went off to school. Downstairs he dropped his backpack on the kitchen table beside his sunblock. Stretching in the early-morning light, he retrieved a bag of blood from the fridge and glanced at the phone. There it was, mocking him. Pointing out the fact that it was ridiculous the way he was brave enough to face a killer vampire last year, but too chicken to call Meredith and say he was sorry for not kissing her when she’d clearly wanted him to. Well . . . maybe she hadn’t, but Vlad couldn’t think of any other reason for her to lean toward him with her eyes closed and lips puckered like that.
