Crave (Harlequin Teen)

was behind each mask. So instead he’d spent the entire night working the concession stand with me and refused to go have a good time with everyone else.
    Dating me must be really cramping his party-guy lifestyle.
    By Christmas break, Tristan and I had been officially secretly together for two months. Less time than Greg and I had managed, and yet…
    I was already completely in love with Tristan.
    I must have always been in love with him, because admitting my feelings to myself now wasn’t a discovery. It was more like how he said he felt when he did magic…as if I were finally relaxing a muscle I’d kept tensed up for years. Allowing myself to love Tristan was a relief, giving in to something I’d been fighting for far too long.
    Just being around Tristan was a relief, an escape from the rest of the world and the future. When it was just me and him together, I forgot all the rules we were breaking. He made me feel normal, and good, and right.
    When I was with him, I liked myself. And I knew exactly who I was.
    But when we were apart, I remembered the world we really lived in, and it all came crashing down on me. I remembered that we were breaking the rules, and the people I was lying to, which only seemed to get harder to do with each passing day, and the things Tristan was giving up just to be with me. And when I remembered all of that, I didn’t like myself much. When I looked in the mirror, I saw a weak, selfish girl who kept giving in to her emotions instead of doing the right thing.
    When we were apart, I didn’t recognize myself at all.
    Something else that I remembered when I was away from Tristan was the continued absence of my father. My refusing to return his calls was way different from not getting any calls from him at all. Even when I’d refused to speak to him, Nanna had always mentioned when he’d called. But he hadn’t since October. He’d warned me that he might not be able to contact us for a while, so I was trying hard not to worry about him. But he hadn’t said he’d be out of touch for months.
    Mom and Nanna didn’t seem worried about his absence. They claimed the entire vampire society got together for some huge gathering every ten years or so, and that he must be busy helping prepare for this event. Yeah, right. What party, no matter how big, took four months to plan and kept you from checking on your kid once a week? Something was up. But until my father decided to share, I was in the dark and trying not to care enough to worry about him.
    And trying not to let anyone see it, either. After all, how could I possibly explain?
     
    Going to bed early on New Year’s Eve, as I’d promised Tristan, was tougher than I’d imagined. Mom had made a point to be home off the road for a change and wanted to stay up to see the replay of the televised New York City ball drop at our local midnight hour. She even tried to bribe me with a bottle of sparkling apple cider, my favorite. So guilty I could hardly speak, I claimed I was too tired and went to bed right after the live ball drop at eleven o’clock instead.
    The scene I found waiting for me in the dream made me temporarily forget the guilt, though. I’d landed in the middle of a city packed with a huge, noisy crowd. It was totally crazy.
    “Tristan?” I yelled, though I had no idea how he could possibly hear me.
    A broad aisle had been roped off in the center of the crowd. Tristan walked along this aisle toward me, wearing jeans, a black wool coat and the blue-and-gold scarf and hat I’d spent four weeks working with Nanna to learn how to make him for Christmas. The knit hat hugged his head, making his hair peek out along the edges in little curls I wanted to grab and tug. The blue in the hat made his green eyes sparkle.
    “What do you think?” He held his arms out wide.
    “This is nuts! When did you learn how to do this?” We’d both always been able to imagine small changes into being in our shared dreams, but never anything on this scale.
    “I had a lot of free time to practice on all those nights when we couldn’t connect.”
    “Well, I am definitely impressed. But where exactly is this supposed to be?”
    “Times Square in New York City, of course. Best place in the world to ring in the new year! Or at least as much of it as I can remember from last year’s trip.”
    I looked around me again, this time slower and with even more respect. “Wow. This is all from your memory?”
    “Yeah. Have you ever been to the Big