Midnight Sun(3)

No need to feel sorry for me about my life of sleeping during the day. It’s probably the most normal thing about me. I know this for a fact because there are tons of people—including kids my age—online all night, every night, and it’s definitely not because they’re forced to live an upside-down life like mine.

I’ve found a couple of online communities for people with rare diseases, and even though I’ll never meet any of these people in real life and we all have different symptoms and are at different stages in our diseases, it’s nice to know they’re out there.

The Internet is full of info about XP. I learned about a small village in Brazil where one in forty people have XP, which is insane for a condition that usually affects only one in a million. And in the Navajo population, it affects one in thirty thousand. What’s that about?

And I’ve followed chains of people off of Morgan’s social media—some of them people I used to know. It’s shockingly easy to spend an hour going down the rabbit hole of a stranger’s life. I stalk their Facebook statuses and Snapchats and Instagrams and blogs, watching how easily they navigate the world with undisguised FOMO. I consider trying to make friends with the ones I seem to have the most in common with; I type comments and the perfect replies to their captions. But I never actually end up posting anything or DMing anyone to try to forge a new relationship. Because how disappointing and awkward would it be if the person I reached out to reacted to my XP the same way the kids I used to go to school with back at Purdue Elementary did?

Zoe Carmichael had been the absolute worst. It’s not like we’d ever been friends, but we weren’t enemies. When I got diagnosed after a school trip to the beach that ended with me in the emergency room because my skin burned so badly, she started a rumor that I was a vampire, and that was that. Everyone was terrified of me, they started calling me Vampire Girl, and no one but Morgan would even talk to me anymore. Charlie had just moved to town and joined our class that year. We’d never talked (because back then I was all, Eww, boys), but I remember that when some of his friends were making fun of me he told them to stop and smiled at me apologetically. That was my last day at school. After that, my dad homeschooled me. And we started getting ice cream and going to the movies in other nearby towns just so I wouldn’t have to endure kids like Zoe (or actual Zoe) staring and pointing at me whenever we ventured out at night.

And that’s pretty much why I figure it’s better to stick to who and what I know than take a chance trying to branch out friendship-wise in the real world. I refuse to give any more bullies an invitation into my life.





3

I wake up from my “night’s” sleep to a ruckus outside my window: car horns blaring, kids whooping, general celebrating. This part I know I could participate in—if only Morgan actually liked anyone in our graduating class. Which she doesn’t. And if Morgan isn’t going to whatever parties might be happening right now, that means I’m not going either.

HOW I IMAGINE A SCHOOL PARTY WITHOUT MORGAN WOULD GO

Zoe Carmichael (who Morgan says is still a total mean girl): Who are you?



Me: I… um…



Zoe’s Minion: Are you even in our class?



Me: Well, you see, I kind of had to study from home… extenuating circumstances… but I would have graduated from Purdue High today otherwise…



Zoe (studying me carefully): Oh wait, no, I remember. You’re Vampire Girl, right?



Zoe’s Minion (screaming her head off): Aaaaah.



*The whole party goes silent. Everyone clutches their necks to keep from being bitten by me. I slink home and drown my sorrows in takeout Chinese food with my dad.*

And… scene.

So there’s no way I can go without Morgan. And she’s stubborn as anything about not “fraternizing with the snotty girls and fratty boys in the popular crowd at PHS, especially that flaming crotch rot Zoe Carmichael.” Even though it’s not like I think we’d have the best time ever if we were celebrating with our class tonight, we could probably avoid Zoe and her crew, and hang with the nice people instead. There have to be at least a few, right?

There’s a song by an Australian singer-songwriter named Courtney Barnett that I feel like sums up my entire existence as it pertains to parties: “I wanna go out but I wanna stay home.”

HOW I IMAGINE A SCHOOL PARTY WITH MORGAN WOULD GO

Zoe: Who are you?

Me: I… um…



Morgan: She’s my best friend, and she’s hotter than you’ll ever be.



Zoe’s Minion: Are you even in our class?



Me: Well, you see, I kind of had—



Morgan (covering my mouth with her hand before I can say anything else): You ditched so many classes you barely graduated. Who are you to talk?



Zoe (studying me carefully): Oh wait, no, I remember. You’re Vampire Girl, right?



Morgan (before I can even try to defend myself): That’s right. Say anything more and she makes you undead forever.



*We go play beer pong and I officially meet Charlie Reed and we fall madly in love and my dad never finds out I went to a party instead of going to Morgan’s to watch Netflix like I said I was.*

I sigh and throw the covers off my bed. My eyes land on my new guitar, and I decide to head to the train station to try it out. By myself. Just me, myself, and I. If I can get my dad to agree to my plan, that is.