Vampire Kisses (gxg)

Chapter 26

The fire department arrived later that night, after reports of smoke were made in the town. Since the church had no fire prevention system of its own, it took them a long while to arrive, and there were no sprinklers to mitigate the fire.

By the time they extinguished the flames, the only thing left of the building was its skelton. And the two skeletons inside of it.

Everyone at first assumed it was two hobos who had sought shelter in there after the rain, started a fire, and burned it down. However, when dental records was pulled, they found out the corpse belonged to Mr Baker, who had recently gone missing.

The other corpse was a mystery. It had been found without most of its teeth, which made identification hard. But eventually, they came to the conclusion that it had to be Principal Hapthy, who had disappeared around the same time.

Everyone was confused. Why had they started a fire in the church? What did the two deceased have in common? They didn't seem overwhelmingly close, though the late Principal Hapthy was a long time family friend of the Bakers.

After the investigation and everything settled, they decided it was likely part of an insurance scheme gone awry.

Only four people alive knew the truth - Victoria, Penelope, Chris, and Aubrey. For the weeks after the event, Penelope felt as though Aubrey was going to tell on them. But the poor girl seemed a bit too shellshocked for that. And who would have believed her if she did tell them the truth?

Aubrey was a changed woman as well. Her eyes seemed a bit more hooded, and her words a bit more slow and in lower tones. She stopped talking as much, and she drifted away from her former friends. Eventually, she stopped sitting with them at all.

Despite all of her changes, it was still a surprise when Aubrey came over to sit at their lunch table one day. Penelope and Victoria looked at each other in slight shock, and Chris in slight disgust. But none of them made any attempt to shoo her away. Instead, they just stared in silence.

"It's been a while, hasn't it," Aubrey said with a shy smile. No one replied.

She looked away. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry for everything I said to you - Penelope, Chris, and Victoria. I called you slurs, and I made fun of you for being different. It was an incredibly cruel thing to do. And I did it over years, without reflecting back on my actions."

"I wish I hadn't had done that, but I did. I didn't realize how much it hurt until I was put in that position, after realizing... everything that happened. I felt alone, I felt like no one understood what I had been through or who I was now. That must have been the way I made you feel."

She sighed. "It shouldn't have come to that to make me realize that though. I should have stopped the second I noticed you were uncomfortable. But I didn't. Every single time. Because I maybe thought, that if I said I was better than you, it would be true."

"I know that nothing can repair the damage I did to you, but I just want to apologize for what I did. To get it off my chest, or something. To.. what's the word? Repent," Aubrey finished.

"You're right. That won't be enough," Penelope said. "But I feel like this is a good step. Plus, you've suffered enough already. Your teacher-boyfriend - whatever was going on there, it wasn't right. And he tried to kill you."

"Learning that vampries exist at the same time couldn't have been easy," Victoria chimed in, putting her fingers to the side of her mouth to simulate fangs.

Chris crossed his arms. "This doesn't mean you're forgiven though. We'll absolutely still remember what you did. But I do agree that this is the right thing for you to do."