Not If You Were the Last Vampire on Earth by Cara Coe Page A

I snapped. He reached into my bowl of fruit and absently ate a strawberry.
    “It is. Rejuvenate is a word. So juventate is a word. Rejuvenate is to juvenate again.”
    “Ugh. You’re grinning because you know it’s bullshit.”
    We enacted a two pass rule since we couldn’t stop disagreeing on whether a play was a word or not. I’d burned mine up but I was suspicious on his accusations. He’d played it straight until now.
    I sulked. “You just want to triple letter your J and stop eating my strawberries !” I batted at his hand as it reached for my bowl. His bowl of strawberries was long gone and my bowl of sliced berries and red grapes was getting light on the berry count. “You’re ruining my ratio. I need one slice to every grape.”
    He crinkled his eyebrows. “Why?”
    “The combination in my mouth is amazing.”
    “Well, I’m snack-y.”
    “Then balance it. Eat some grapes.”
    “I hate grapes.”
    “You grow them.”
    “I know. Because I can. I planted them on a whim and they’re the only things that won’t die. Fate is cruel.”
    “No, you’re cruel stop it !”
    He laughed as he popped a couple more slices in his mouth.
    “It’s not even doing anything for you! Just wasting away in your gut.”
    “What can I say? I like to eat red stuff.”
    “Now you’re officially a sicko.”
    I flicked a couple letters off the board and he didn’t protest, just rolled onto his back and pulled his sock down to look at his ankle. It was still angry red but most of the skin had grown back and scabbed over. Six days. Impressive.
    That’s when I decided we needed to get out of the hospital. He could walk. I could walk. I could even bend over without disturbing the few stitches Alex put in me to suture the worst of the cuts from the glass window.
    Alex liked my venture-back-out idea and we climbed into the truck he’d used to bring me here. He headed towards downtown because he wanted to rummage for some parts for his Camaro so he could get a head start on her when he was able to tow her back. He knew of a shop on Jefferson that probably had what he was looking for. And apparently, if there was an apartment that had olive oil, he had a potato dish he could make that would knock my socks off. His words. “There are some really ritzy apartments in the area,” he’d said. “They have the really good shit. The expensive infused olive oils.”
    We parked at a meter and climbed out of the truck.
    “I don’t really go down that way,” he said pointing east down the street. “But there’s a YMCA, an art gallery, and a bus station that had some pretty cool graffiti a few blocks down if you want to explore.”
    I did want to explore. Alex told me he’d only be a couple of minutes and he’d catch up. I walked in the direction he pointed, taking in the ugly brown-gray concrete buildings and sidewalks. Houston’s downtown had a functionality quality to it. It looked as if it’d been thrown together to get the job done as cheaply as possible with buildings mimicking each other’s designs. I walked past rows and rows of the same tall rectangle shape.
    I took my time, peeking into the windows to see if treasure awaited inside these empty-looking packages but each time my eyes were met with steel bars and wires and dusty space. I sighed and continued on. This was making me miss Tucson.
    The buildings seemed to stretch on forever and I was thinking about doing an about face and heading back to the truck when suddenly, nestled in between the forest of bricks, I spied a small church.
    The stained glass windows were breathtaking. I paused to take in the sight and pictured what it would have looked like with churchgoers walking in and out of the large oak doors. They’d be stopping on the steps to greet their weekly friends and milling about the lawn on a warm Sunday afternoon, filled with the peace worship gave them that I could never find in it.
    I walked around the side, noticing what would be a garden in the