Then someone dropped the bombshell.
"Hey Becky, you know that there was someone asking around about you this morning?" The speaker was one of the creepier guys in the class. He had greasy black hair and little dark piggy eyes. There was always a revolting innuendo in every single word he said. It was no different today. He grinned at me lecherously. "You a bit of a slag now, or what?"
I ignored the insult, forcing myself to stay calm. "What did he look like?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" he taunted me. I thought briefly about mashing his nose against his face. I could do it too, easily. I'd increased my iron intake to seven hundred milligrams of pure elemental iron per day. Seven tablets. I was starting to feel a big difference in my strength and energy levels. Things were even starting to smell stronger, and I heard more.
"Shut up, Shaun, you toe-rag." One of the other girls spoke now. She was a decent sort, and kept to herself quite a lot. Nobody bullied her much - she had a vicious temper, and a biting wit. I had liked her because she never bothered me, and now I liked her even more. She clearly had taste.
She looked at me. "Nice looking guy, really nice looking. Hot. Big too, like your chap."
"Yeah, he was well fit!" interjected somebody else.
I felt sick. I didn't know what Jack looked like, but I had a bad feeling about this. I pretended to be intrigued and tried to get as much of a description from my classmates as I could, but they were rubbish witnesses. The mystery man was alternately tall, and really tall; built, whatever that meant; he had longish hair like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 2, except that it was brown or blonde or maybe something in between. There was one consensus - he was very good-looking. Well, that sure sounded like a vampire to me. Crappity crap.
I spent the rest of the day nervously looking over my shoulder, waiting for the end of the school day when Angus would fetch me and I could feel safe again. I was really starting to think that maybe finishing my A levels was not such a good idea after all. School was a weak spot for me, a place where I was vulnerable and exposed. I would have to talk to Angus about this. Maybe we could move somewhere else after the wedding. I thought about my family and how I would miss them. Fine. We'd take them with us. Poor Mum. Life was certainly becoming even more chaotic for her, and I knew it was going to get worse before it got better.