14: Deal with the Devil

NATE'S POV

I slammed down the cover of my huge history book, feeling the whiff of air hit my face, blowing out the last bits of sleep that the coffee hadn't caught. Poking my index finger into the blue melamine coffee cup that sat on my desk, I lifted it to my lips and gave the now cold black coffee and final sip. I could feel the caffeine sparking In my veins and starting me like an engine, bringing me to alertness as well as bringing me in the headspace to deal with whatever this day would come with it. My face pinched in at the taste of it's bitterness, I had let it burn again and I took a mental note to learn how to make decent coffee.

After hours of sitting and trying to catch up with assignment, a soreness had settled right above my back. Pushing back my chair I got up stretched myself out, enjoying how the streaks of light struggling to pour in through the closed curtains felt in my face. I held the silk blue gray curtains and split them apart, allowing the sunlight to burst into my room. Everything was all lit up. Once again, my room felt familiar: The familiar pale gray walls, the familiar rock band stickers, the familiar stiffness of my study chair.It had been a while since I had enjoyed it's warm yellow glow. With Emilio popping in and out if was hard to be more than his victim.

Of my fluffy slide in sandals I could only see one, flipped upside down, under my desk.I wasn't going to start crawling around my room looking for the other right this morning. You know how that whole thing where you're looking for the other pair, and you keep finding the one you already had and driving yourself crazy? I wasn't feeling that. I decided my double black stripped white socks would do just fine. I made my way through to the bathroom, hoping the floors were dry so I wouldn't step into a puddle of water and stain my almost perfect morning.

The translucent bathroom door pushed itself out of my way as I burged in gently hitting against the tiles as I made my way in. I always thought it was creepy how my toilet bowl appeared. At the very end of the stretch where the curtain should have fallen to separate the bathroom from the toilet, it seemed to be waiting for me to just sit on it. Just this thought had me feeling liquid fill my bladder. The kind I could hold just long enough so I can get the acidic aftertaste of burnt coffee in my mouth.

I grabbed the rubbery handle rubbery blue and yellow toothbrush, squeezed on some toothpaste and my mouth was a foam factory in no time, my hand rushing the toothbrush in back and forth at top speed. My taste buds tingled at the sensation of the mint, and the smell of it was causing me to start tearing up from the left eye. It was one of those things I hated about my morning routine but I could live with.

I was in a great mood. Ruby's dad improved massively. He was drinking soup and could nod his head. Max had responded to one out if forty of my whiny overly apologetic texts to him with a thumbs up emoji. I couldn't really tell if he meant everything was cool or he wanted me to shove it up my ass. Either way he had unblocked me to respond and that was worth feeling great over. I had told Alvah to stay away from me although a part of me expected her to turn up when I made a mess. I was feeling all Nate. Thanks to Emi, I had actually learnt to appreciate myself more. As in the real me I had to admit, something about the way this day started out made me paranoid. I couldn't shake the thought that at any moment, Something would take it away and then it'd just be one of those days.

The water loudly bubble through the pipes as I turned the faucet on, splashing onto my toothbrush, rinsing it all out and allowing the disgusting stuff to swirl down rainage. I made a bowl off my hands and allowed the cold water to fill up before splashing it on my face, in an attempt to wash off the bleary look. You know for how terrible I looked, I felt so much better. After poking out the crystals around my eyes, I don't know why, I decide to put on my glasses. I mean, I was already in the Nate spirit and they were right there. I was thinking of getting another pair, but without the intense lenses. They had been a part of me since I was nine.

Grabbing them off the counter, I wiped the lenses, combed my disheveled bangs with my fingers before sliding them back on. It felt right. I couldn't really see but alot had changed. I didn't even have freckles anymore, just clear skin that I once envied but now that I had, I wanted to skin it off. I found the price I had to pay for looking better and being 'powerful' to be the opposite of everything I dreamt it would be. And if there was a way I could go back to being ugly and miserable but be my normal self, I could.

"Those just don't work anymore."I heard his throaty voice, oddly clearer this time.

Normally he'd be in my head, but today it felt like he wasn't. Despite my efforts to keep this day's spirit flowing, Emi had to ruin it. My eyes, widened, darted everywhere, looking for the source of the voice. He sounded so clear, and so echoey like he was right here in the bathroom with me but I couldn't see him.

" Over here. " He was closer, so I searched harder and am sure I looked stupider but my fist pumped with the ache to punch the excitement out of his throat. Couldn't this just be a bad dream?

In defeat, I removed the glasses and that's when I noticed the strangeness. My reflection on the mirror didn't mirror my exact action. My eyes shot up right infront of me. There was the culprit. I looked right into a glowing red, viscious pair of eyes and a devilish smirk. A transitioned version of me. Emilio. Just great.

Instead of a gray cotton shirt like the one I had worn he had a black one, almost the same fit I couldn't see his bottom half, I wasn't even sure he had one and I certainly didn't want to ask His hair didn't look like it was styled by explosives. It wasn't muddy brown and disoriented. His was jet black,shiny tapered and looked like girls begged just to run their fingers through it. I could feel the tips of my own fingers itching to just get there. Before I would hate myself for that I had to quickly remember it wasn't about me. Vampires would always appear to be insanely attractive to humans that's how they would lure them. Nothing like a perfect set of teeth on a hollowed out face and dark mysterious eyes. You know it's true.

" You couldn't let me have one normal day!" I blew out heavily.

" One day without me is not normal anymore. Also , let's let the glasses and hideous clothes go.Don't you get it Nate, that whole innocent nerd narrative is over. " he propped both his built hands on the sink leaning in closer to me. You could hear it squeak under his weight. I wondered if the reflection of my bathroom on the mirror was haunted too or just this one detail.

" You did not really pop up here to give me fashion advice. " I narrowed my eyes, not quite sure what that was supposed to do for this conversation.

" I didn't pop up to piss you off, yet here we are. Don't get mad at me Nate! See this is the thing with you humans..."

My eyes did an anticlockwise turn in their sockets. Here we go again, I thought. Alvah had been saying things along those lines too and honestly it was starting to sound like screeching to my ears. They thought they knew everything. And they did, but it sucked to be reminded all my time.

"...would you like me to proceed or are you going to keep doing that?"

" It's cruel how you make one feel like they to choice. " He was being very gentle with this conversation, I had a feeling this was the last time he'd be this nice about it. It is also very stupid how I always fell for these tricks. Perhaps I had a part in it. Like the saying goes, don't blame the clown ask yourself why you still go to the circus. I rolled the cap back on my toothpaste securing it nice and tightly. I could continue with my morning while this fool blew himself.

" You brought me here. Your day was going so well you got scared I would ruin it so I am. You got so much fear in you and I thrive in that. Am not even really here, it's all you. If we sync this..."

I shot him a look, giving it a good dose of everything it needed to silence him. And it worked. It was good to know there was always an ounce of toughness with me. I didn't want to think now was too late. With the option to just abandon who I was and place my fate in the hands of a beast, and not even a composed and cool one, someone had to believe In Nate Huggins. I had lost too many things I couldn't lose that too.

"Alvah said I could take as much time as I needed to sync. She asked me not.. "

A loud cackle vibrated out of him, cutting me in as he ripped his face apart. His eyes had basically disappeared happiness wrinkles graced around them. I didn't have wrinkles yet, the vampire version of me did, it had me wondering how old he had to be. He laughed till he started gasping for air. He'd look like he was finishing, then a new wave of the humor would hit him hit him harder than the last, turning him into a laughing mess.

Just like that a piece of my almost non existent self esteem and confidence broke off. It didn't sound like he was laughing to spite me. It felt like laughing at himself. Laughing cause he couldn't allow himself to be sad about Alvah anyone more. He didn't have to tell me one more time that Alvah was trouble.

" You want to take advice from that snake by all means, do it. But I guarantee you, she'll turn against your in the slightest opportunity."

" she's..." this was going to sound stupid, I found my hand rubbed behind my neck, feeling an uncalled for burn in my cheeks. " ...all I truly got."

" Man that was fast! It had been like three years before she had me saying things like that. Guess she's gotten better. What is it about her that makes her so..." Emi's long fingers crept to his lips as I watched him drift into a day dream about Alvah. There was mischievous glint in his eyes, one I had only ever seen in Alvah's. I had a feeling their demons would intertwine and dance, maybe that was the issue with them ". .. addictive."

If you ask me, this just went to show how different Emi and I were from each other where as I detested Alvah, he was on his one plane with her, I don't think I could name what the thing they had going on was.

" Guess I will leave you to wank Alvah out of your system then" I excused him, turning to grab my bathrobe.

" Why can't you take my offer and run Nate? Why are you holding on to the old you? You and I make a great team. I know you think you're better than me but you need me. Am the only shot at everything you wanted: Everything Nate. And am the only person you got. Whether you want to admit it or not. "

." You don't know what I want." The scrape of the lie in that statement almost bled my tongue out. He was a part of me, ofcourse he knew. He knew more than I knew.

" Alvah is going to betray you when she gets the chance. I am betting my eye on this. If she doesn't, I will leave you alone?"

" Deal"I boomed with great confidence.

So many questions, I had but anything that would end my conversation with Emi was good. Any hope that I would be human again, was marvelous. Would I get every single thing I ever dreamed of; some respect, power and maybe even a social life if I shook hands with the devil? Was it all an act when Alvah promised she had changed because if so then why was it so sincere?

She could have turned anyone else but she picked me. She saved my life. What if her only way to do good was to do evil? Most importantly, would I win this bet? What if Emi would leave me alone? Whatever that meant, I had to find out.