"Ow! Okay, enough."

  London flicked my forehead with her freehand, snapping me out of my dazed state. I winced at the sting and reluctantly gulped down my last mouthful. I gently unhooked my fangs from her wrist, hesitating for a moment as she lightly hissed at the pain. I sat up and leaned back against the side of the bath to catch my breath, while she clutched her wounded arm and looked around for where she'd left the towel.

  I grabbed it from where it lay scrunched up beside me and handed it to her with shaky hands. The sight of the countless bloodstains on what had once been the white linen irked me - the ghost of my girlfriend just had to haunt every aspect of the house.

  "You're definitely getting better at it," London offered, carefully wiping up the blood that had spilled to the bathroom floor around us, "Not quite as good as you used to be, but you did stop the first time I asked."

  "Mmhm."

  "I can't figure out what's still setting you back." She shrugged as she held out her somewhat clean wrist for me.

  "It's cause you're you." I licked my thumb and swiped it over the bite wound I'd left on her, barely able to keep my eyes open.

  "Tempted to take that personally." London mused, studying her slowly repairing flesh closely. "What, does my blood taste bad or something?"

  "No," I shook my head, "You're like... Your blood's fluffy."

  "Fluffy?"

  "But like wool. Like if you pet a wild sheep, that's... you." I trailed off as I started realising I wasn't making much sense.

  "So I'm... scratchy, clumpy, and kinda oily?"

  "No. Sorry." I managed a laugh. "I'm... uh... It made more sense in my head."

  "Okay, well, if I'm wool and that's a problem, then what exactly should I be?" She chuckled. "Satin? Felt?"

  "God, I don't even know where I was going with that." I sighed.

  A bit of blood dribbled down from the corner of my mouth, and I quickly wiped it away with the gross towel.

  "When I used to feed like this, I fed on... y'know." I brushed my hair out of my eyes. "It's probably just that."

  "Oh." London frowned slightly. "That's fair. Yeah, I can't really... fix that, then."

  "I feel like I'm cheating on her." I blurted.

  London widened her eyes, before her shoulders slumped in sympathy.

  "What? Zach, no. You're not."

  "Ughhhh." I half chuckled into my hands, my voice strained. "Have I always been this sensitive?"

  "A little," London raised a brow, "But it's not a bad thing."

  "I seriously need to move on. Just... get over it." I rubbed my eyes with a huff. "Get over her."

  "No one's rushing you-"

  "Why do I keep holding onto her? We're never gonna be together again. She's bound to rot away within the year, she doesn't even like me anymore, I..." I sighed. "I think, unless some mystical being showed up and gave her back her old body - or a new one - there's no possibility of us dating again."

  London nodded, staying quiet.

  "If my boyfriend killed me, I'd break up with him." I shrugged. "Especially if I came back as a zombie. Or whatever it is I made her."

  "If it's any consolation, she does willingly sleep in your bed each night." London added.

  "Yeah, and she hugs me all night like I'm a giant teddy bear," I rolled my eyes, "Then she wakes up and goes back to acting like she hates me."

  "Maybe she hates the situation and projects it onto you."

  "Or maybe she's a lying bi-"

  "If she wanted to leave, she'd have left by now."

  "She says she stays to 'monitor me'. Like I'm entertaining."

  "I'm not arguing with you on this." London sighed.

  "I'm not arguing, I'm right." I scoffed. "Watch. The second she sees me, she'll glare."

  I clapped my hands together and forced myself to sober up a little before I got up to my feet. London followed me, checking there wasn't anymore blood mess in the room. She grabbed the towel on her way out and chucked it in the laundry room as she passed it by.

  "Woah," I cringed. "Carly, I think you're insane."

  "Insane? Maybe." She grumbled. "But I'm getting somewhere!"

  "Uh, yeah. On a ride to a psychiatrist's office, maybe." London mirrored my expression.

  My fingers gently grasped the edge of a photograph of myself as a child as I studied the rest of the whiteboard in disbelief. Carly had hung up photos of me from different stages of my transition from human to vampire, with lines of marker connecting each to bubbles of her barely legible writing. She'd printed out snippets of studies from completely different fields of science - I couldn't really figure out how a research paper about whether or not snakes can dislocate their jaws connected to anything in my life.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  "Uh-" Before I could ask a single thing, Carly spun the whiteboard over to display the other side, and I only had more questions.

  I'd been slowly rereading my journal ever since I got it back. Whenever I found a page that I was somewhat alright with Carly reading, I'd send her a photo of it. I thought she'd keep it to herself. Now I was looking at printed copies of every one I'd sent her hung up on the board - annotated, highlighted, and cropped.

  "Why did you highlight the line 'I think I died last night' on the first one?" I narrowed my eyes. "Isn't that obvious?"

  "Well, look. You said 'think'!" Carly beamed. "You weren't sure!"

  "..." I grimaced further. "That answers nothing I asked."

  "Oh - God, Carly. Did you have to hang this one up?" London winced at one of the photos after circling around to see the other side again. "It's a bit much."

  "Which one?" Carly followed her. "Oh! No, that's the most important one!"

  "Wait," I furrowed my brow, "What one is-"

  "Don't look." London turned to me sternly. "It's triggering."

  "Really? To him?" Carly murmured. "He's done far worse to others."

  "That's not the point." London ripped the photo off of the board and held it against her chest so I couldn't see it. "Fuck - where did you even get this?"

  "I took it myself." The girl frowned.

  London gaped at her, almost angry.

  "When?!"

  "When I found him?" Carly muttered somewhat defensively. "Before I called you?"

  London looked at the photo again and shook her head, acknowledging that the story checked out, at least.

  I sighed. "Guys-"

  "Why the hell did you take a photo of him before you called me?" London talked over me.

  "I wasn't on medication yet. My doctor told me to take photos of whatever I thought I was hallucinating to see if they were real or not, remember?" Carly crossed her arms. "I was hoping it wasn't real."

  I rolled my eyes at the scene, feeling like the supporting character of my own life at this point. I headed over to the kitchen to inspect the bags of groceries Carly had ordered earlier.

  "Besides, you can literally see Victoria calling an ambulance in the corner." Carly pointed to an area of the photo. "It's not like I was taking a selfie with him."

  Putting the groceries away was a decent distraction, I guess. It felt bizarre. Each item I grabbed from the bags made me more and more confused, constantly asking myself 'where do these go again?' and 'how on earth could that thing taste nice?'

  "Why would you keep it?" London continued the argument across the room. "For four years?"

  "How do you even eat this?" My nose scrunched as I inspected a bag of some sort of powder.

  "I forgot about it until the other day. It's helpful! I'm serious!" Carly groaned. "We can compare the little details to Tori's experience, and maybe then we can figure out what went wrong for her."

  "Oh. It's an ingredient. Huh." I muttered and put the bag with some other weird looking ingredients in the pantry cupboard. "I think you bake with this."

  "We don't exactly have a photo of Tori, though, do we?" London crossed her arms.

  "Hey, does this go in the fridge?" I called out, holding up some weird spiky fruit.

  London nodded to me.

  "If it's that much of a deal, I won't hang it up. Okay?" Carly raised her hands. "Don't need to make it a big thing."

  "Oh, sick. Thanks." I smirked upon finding an eyebrow piercing bar in one of the bags. "I forgot about that."

  London took a break from her arguing to shoot me a confused look.

  "You're keeping the piercing? Really?"

  "It already healed itself. May as well." I shrugged. "I just wanted new jewellery for it. The one I have's been missing a ball."

  Carly started the argument back up again while I put the last of the groceries away. I grabbed the jewellery and made my way back to the bathroom to change it, but paused as Tori nearly crashed into me.

  I blinked at her. She blinked back.

  "Uh, can you move?" I raised a brow.

  She stared at me.

  "Alright." I grabbed her shoulders and carefully skidded her out of the way, then pushed past her. She watched me go in silence. I hesitated for a moment and turned back to her.

  "What?" I muttered.

  No response.

  I tilted my head. She mirrored me.

  "Huh."

  I waved my hand in front of her face.

  "Hello in there?" I called with a furrowed brow. "Anyone home?"

  "Zach, you'll make her dizzy." Carly grumbled from the living room.

  "Go back to your fighting." I huffed under my breath.

  Tori blinked and shook her head, disoriented. She whined slightly in discomfort.

  I poked her nose.

  She flinched away from me.

  "You really did leave." I toyed with a piece of her hair.

  Tori stepped back with a sharp exhale through her nose.

  "You're like an NPC." I chuckled under my breath, somewhat mockingly. "What, are you just gonna idly stand there?"

  She blinked.

  "Jesus." I shook my head and headed into the bathroom.

  -

  I was really suspicious of Jean these days.

  I ditched the over the top disguises and shadiness I'd take on my trips here once I switched to human blood. There was no reason to now that sunlight was fine for me and I had better control over my features being more humane or more vampiric. I also was only buying for Tori now, unless also getting myself some snacks.

  I hadn't really thought about how the employees at the butcher shop would take notice.

  "I look what?" I frowned.

  "Good. Healthy." Jean gave a strained smile. "I mean, that's not really my business, but I look out for the community, y'know?"

  "Uh huh." I cringed further. "So... the cuts?"

  "Ah! Right. Sorry. Got distracted." Jean stood straighter and started bagging the selection I'd asked for a solid twenty sentences ago. "So how's Tori?

  My eye twitched. I willed it to stay hazel.

  "She's fine."

  I crossed my arms and glanced around at the many signs on the back wall, seeking a distraction. My gaze flickered to the older woman in the back who was carrying a freshly sharpened knife from one counter to another.

  A sudden scent hit me and I felt my body shut down.

  "Where-?" I spun my head around in search of it, suspecting each of the other ten people in the produce area of the mall.

  Not the buff guy next to me. Not the young couple inspecting apples at the market. Not the group of teenage boys heading into the grocery store with definitely non-malicious intentions. Not the girl I saw at 7/11-

  YOU!

  I glared tensely at the woman as if I'd witnessed her kick a puppy. She tucked her dark brown hair behind her ear mid-laugh, talking about something I couldn't make out with a worker at the cafe at the end of the area. As she shifted weight from one foot to the other, my attention was drawn to her black boots. They were decorated with a chain at each ankle - done by hand. Her jeans were ripped. Her band tee was distressed at the edges.

  Why does everything about her remind me of Victoria?

  "Zach?"

  "Huh?"

  "How many chicken hearts were you after?"

  "Uh, five, maybe."

  Jean watched me stare at the girl at the cafe and raised a brow.

  "You know her?" She tilted her head.

  "I... don't know. She reminds me of someone." I furrowed my brow, unable to look away. "Do you?"

  "She's a usual here. Buys the same kind of things as you, actually." Jean shrugged. "Mostly offcuts, blood, that sort of thing."

  That got my attention.

  "Like... often?" I murmured, unsure what I was even asking.

  Jean narrowed her eyes at the girl and smirked to me.

  "You're a lot alike, if you know what I mean."

  I shot her an absolutely lost expression.

  Jean sighed. "Don't make me say it, because if I'm wrong, I sound ridiculous."

  "... I have no idea what you're-"

  "She's the same... species as you." Jean said in a hushed whisper. "I'm like 90% sure."

  My heart stopped.

  The next thing I knew, I'd abandoned my order, and was marching off to follow the girl.