Blood Orange Soda: Paranormal Romance by James Michael Larranaga

closet door. Flicking on the dim light, I find cardboard boxes stacked on top of one another. A person who has lived as long as my mom has a lot of history to go through. She hasn’t labeled anything, so I begin pulling boxes out of the closet and onto the floor to organize my search for her yearbooks. Some boxes are very light, with nothing more than baby toys from my childhood. Why she keeps this stuff is a mystery to me. Other boxes are heavy with glassware and china that my mom only uses during the holidays. Within a half-hour, I’ve searched through everything, and found no yearbooks.
    Sitting on the cold basement floor, I listen to the sound of my mom’s footsteps as she crosses through the kitchen above me. If I stay up any longer she’ll hear me, so I close up each box and quietly place all of them back into the closet, then go back to bed.
    Am I crazy?
    Could I really find Jonathan and ask him to change his entire life to save my mom’s life? Wouldn’t he want to at least know about his former girlfriend, Virginia? Or maybe he already knows and simply doesn’t care.

Thursday, October 16
    Three doses into my journey from Goth to Vampire and I feel the same, with few side effects. Too bad Blood Orange Soda doesn’t come with instructions, like those maternity books that tell women what to expect during each trimester of their pregnancies. I Googled it, and found a few blogs that include photos of kids transforming, but not much else.
    The one side effect I have noticed, besides the temporary buzz, is the wicked headache I have every morning when I wake up. Mom says it’s a hangover from the Soda, and that the extra blood flowing through my veins raises my blood pressure. The remedy is taking medication each morning, so I guess I’m back to popping pills; but instead of the Reds, I swallow two white aspirin, dry, as usual.
    My bruised eye looks almost completely healed today. This surprises me, because a few days ago it was still shades of black and green. This is disappointing in a way, because I liked the attention this new tough-guy face brought me.
    Today I shower with Death Cab for Cutie’s “No Sunlight” echoing in the bathroom, and I’m dressed and in the kitchen just as my sister hugs my mom at the kitchen door. Kira hears me and turns, looking back in my direction.
    “Notice anything different today?” she asks, checking on my progress.
    “Other than this, no,” I say, pointing to my eye.
    Mom walks over and inspects my face, gently touching my eyebrow. “You’re almost completely healed; even the stitches are almost completely dissolved.”
    “Wow, that’s cool,” Kira says.
    “Because of the Soda, right?” I ask my mom.
    “Yes, it’s working. You’re healing faster, just like a Vampire.”
    “Gotta go—bye, Mom, bye, Darius,” Kira says.
    She’s been friendlier lately, and I’ve been nicer to her as well. Either the Soda has a calming effect on me, or Kira sees me through new eyes. She knows I’m growing up and that I’m maturing at a faster pace. Maybe she’s always needed a father figure instead of a know-it-all older brother. I have to remember that she looks up to me, and will need me more and more as Mom declines.
    “You worked last night?” I ask her, as I sit at the table and pour myself a bowl of Corn Flakes.
    She grabs her coffee mug from the counter and sits with me. “The last couple of nights I felt pretty good. Some nights I know I can’t do it.”
    “I have a thirty-day supply of Reds, and if we don’t refill the prescription, they’ll cut off my subsidy,” I remind her. For us, the subsidy also pays for groceries. “I can get a job after school.”
    “Not right away; we have money,” Mom says.
    “We don’t have enough money. I’ve seen your bank account,” I say gently.
    “That’s my checking account, but I have other savings,” she says. “When your father died, we received money from his life insurance.”
    “He left us money? How