Transitions Residential Treatment Center was located in a sprawling multi-building campus in upstate New York. Oliver had offered to drive Bliss and Schuyler, since he had recently gotten his license along with a hot new Mercedes G500. The boxy custom-made silver SUV was his latest source of pride.
Schuyler was glad to get away. She'd been feeling guilty about what had happened to Dylan, how much they'd failed him by neglecting to alert the Conclave about his condition as soon as possible. Hopefully the Elders would know the best course of action. Bliss told them her father assured her that Dylan would come to no harm at their hands and would be given the best treatment possible, but she wanted to see it with her own eyes - they all did.
In the backseat, Bliss fluctuated between being kind of bummed and being a little too cheerfully manic, Schuyler noticed. She'd been morose and silent when they left, probably worried about Dylan and what condition they would find him in, and Schuyler was glad when halfway through the trip out of the city Bliss perked up and began to jabber energetically over the GPS.
"Peanut M&M's?" Bliss offered, leaning over with a large open yellow bag.
"No thanks," Oliver said, keeping his eyes on the road.
"Sure," Schuyler agreed. It was funny how the Committee couldn't predict everything: even though they were vampires they hadn't lost their taste for candy.
It was pleasant to leave Duchesne, if only for a day. Everyone at school knew all the details of Mimi and Jack's upcoming bonding already (or at least the Blue Bloods did) and couldn't stop talking about it. The others just thought the Forces were throwing a fabulous party that they weren't invited to again, and in a way their assumption was correct. Schuyler was sick of hearing about Mimi's dress and how this bonding compared to all the past ones in their shared history. Piper Crandall constantly reminded everyone that she had been a bondsmaid for Mimi three times already.
It was depressing to think that Jack and Mimi had been together for such an incomprehensibly long time. She almost couldn't believe it and didn't want to think about it right then, and busied herself by playing with all the buttons on the shiny new dashboard computer. "Dude, this is like, the most luxurious army vehicle in the world. Check this out! This is the button that launches the M-15s," she joked.
"Careful, that's the red button that destroys the world," Oliver said gamely, following the GPS's robotic instructions as he steered the car over the George Washington Bridge. Traffic was light on the highway.
It was the first time they'd cut school all semester. Duchesne students were allowed several cuts per year; the school was so progressive that even rebellion was written into the curriculum. Some kids, like Mimi Force, pushed this policy to its limits, but most didn't even take advantage of it. The school was filled with overachieving strivers who would sooner stay in class than blow a chance at getting into an Ivy. Every day counted.
"You guys know that this could ruin my GPA," Oliver complained as he looked over his shoulder to change lanes and get ahead of a Honda that was tooling around below the speed limit.
"Relax for once, will you?" Schuyler chided. "All the seniors have been cutting since they got their acceptance letters." Oliver could be such a stick-in-the-mud sometimes. Always following rules. He was a total nerd when it came to academics.
"Yeah, aren't you legacy at Harvard anyway?" Bliss asked.
"College seems like such a weird thing, doesn't it?" Schuyler mused.
"I know what you mean. Before we found out about the Committee, I thought I might go to Vassar, you know? Major in Art History or something." Bliss said. "I kind of liked the idea of studying Northern Renaissance art, and then working in a museum or gallery."
"What do you mean 'kind of liked'?" Schuyler asked.
"Yeah, you don't think that's going to happen anymore?" Oliver asked, flipping through the radio stations. Amy Winehouse was singing about how she didn't want to go to rehab ("No! No! No! No!"). Schuyler met Oliver's eyes, and they smiled.
"You guys, that is so not funny. Turn it off or change it," Bliss admonished. "I don't know. I kind of don't think I'm going to college. Sometimes I feel like I don't have a future," she said, twisting her necklace.
"Oh shush," Schuyler said, turning around so she could talk directly to Bliss while Oliver found something more appropriate on the satellite radio. "Of course you're going to college. We all are."
"You really believe that?" Bliss asked, sounding hopeful.
"Totally."
Conversation dropped to a lull after a few minutes, and Bliss drifted off to sleep. In the front seat, Schuyler chose the music, Oliver letting her DJ this time. "You like this song?" he asked, when she settled on a station playing a Rufus Wainwright tune.
"Don't you?" she asked, feeling as if she'd been caught red-handed. It was the same song she and Jack always played. She thought she could get away with listening to it in the car. Oliver had a bit of an emo streak in him. She liked to tease him that his musical tastes ran toward music-to-off-yourself-by.
"You'd think I would, right? But I don't."
"Why not?"
Oliver shrugged, looking at her sideways. "It's like...too blubbery or something. Ech."
"What do you mean?" Schuyler asked. "Blubbery?"
He shrugged. "I don't know, I just feel like love isn't supposed to be so ... angsty, you know? Like, if it works, it shouldn't be so tortured."
"Huh," Schuyler said, wondering if she should change the station. It seemed traitorous to play a song that reminded her of another boy. "You are so unromantic."
"Am not."
"But you've never even been in love."
"You know that's not true."
Schuyler was silent. In the past month they had performed the Caerimonia twice. She knew she should take other familiars - vampires were told to rotate their humans so as not to tax them - but she'd been able to go longer than she'd thought without a feeding. And she had resisted taking other humans, not quite sure that Oliver would approve.
But Schuyler didn't want to think about their relationship - friendship - whatever it was. After Oliver's passionate outburst at the Odeon, it hadn't come up again. She wanted to diffuse the tension she was starting to feel in the car. "Bet you can't even name one romantic movie you like," she teased.
She felt smug when a few minutes went by and Oliver was still unable to name one romantic movie he could profess to enjoy.
"The Empire Strikes Back" Oliver finally declared, tapping his horn at a Prius that wandered over the line.
"The Empire Strikes Back? The Star Wars movie? That's not romantic!" Schuyler huffed, fiddling with the air-conditioner controls.
"Au contraire, my dear, it's very romantic. The last scene, you know, when they're about to put Han in that freezing cryogenic chamber or whatever? Remember?"
Schuyler mmm-hmmmed.
"And Leia leans over the ledge and says, 'I love you.'"
"That's cheesy, not romantic," Schuyler argued, although she did like that part.
"Let me explain. What's romantic is what Han says back. Remember what he says to her? After she says 'I love you'?"
Schuyler grinned. Maybe Oliver had a point. "Han says, 'I know.'"
"Exactly." Oliver tapped the wheel. "He doesn't have to say anything so trite as 'I love you.' Because that's already understood. And that's romantic."
For once, Schuyler had to admit he was right.
