I then called my other extremely beautiful and very cute girlfriend. My phone beeped once before she picked up.

“Roraaaa… I want to hug youuuu…” She almost sounded a bit like a zombie. A zombie who needed cuddles instead of brains.

“Mhmm. I’d love to cuddle you too right now.” Em hadn’t lied, Ria was indeed in a very cuddly mood.

“Can I take the phone with me to bed, so I can hear your voice while I fall asleep?”

“Awh, sure thing, sweetie. But can you listen to me first, I have something to tell you.”

“Okaayyy.”

I explained the situation to Ria and that Em and I had planned to talk about it on Thursday.

“Mhmm.” Ria made an agreeable noise from the other side of the line. “I think that’s okay.”

I hadn’t expected her to disagree, but it was important to keep her in the loop as well. “Good.” I smiled.

“I’ll put my earpods in now, so I can listen to you better while I’m in bed.” Ria stated matter-of-factly. It was still quite early in the evening to go to bed. But she probably just wanted to have some company. “Okay, I’m back.” Her voice sounded a bit different, probably since she was using her air phone’s microphone right now.

“Welcome back.” I giggled slightly while I walked over to my fridge to get me some ‘grape juice’. “I heard you were very cuddly in the car with Em?”

I heard the sound of blankets rustling before Ria whispered back to me. “Mhmm. She’s very soft and cosy.”

“Who do you like cuddling up to more, me or Em?”

She stayed quiet for a second before replying. “I can’t decide. It’s different.”

“Oh?”

Ria decided to humour me and explain. “Rora feels strong and safe… Em feels motherly and soft… comforting”

“So I’m not soft and comforting, then?”

“You are. But it just feels different.” I could hear the pout she was probably making right now.

I chuckled. “I think I know what you mean.”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“I know.”

We chatted a bit longer while the evening slowly but surely glided into the night. Ria was slowly starting to drift to sleep as I could hear her voice get softer and softer.

“Nini….. Rora….” She yawned.

“Good night, Ria. Sweet dreams, sweetheart.”

“Hmmmmm.” Ria didn’t hang up the phone. So I waited a minute to make sure she didn’t want to say anything more before I hung up. Now I was alone again, or at least, I was until Shima decided to use my lap as a pillow once more. Luckily my glass of ‘grape juice’ was still well within reach, so I didn’t have to disturb her to drink a bit.

I decided to watch a movie before heading to bed myself. It was an old anime movie about environmentalism and how people’s greed destroys it. Which was pretty on the nose, even if the movie was already almost forty years old.

Instead of heading to her cat apartment, Shima accompanied me to my bedroom as well. She didn’t do this often, as I tended to turn in my sleep a lot before I became a vampire. But her company was definitely appreciated.

Shima stayed with me throughout the entire night, and because of that I’d even been able to get a little bit of sleep in. The light of dawn came and awoke me from my slumber. I said that all dramatically, but I actually just accidentally rolled out of my bed when I heard the church bells ringing in the distance, which scared the shit out of Shima. But luckily it didn’t look like she was angry at me as she came to lick my nose while I was laying on the floor.

A shower and a little morning drink later I got my stuff ready, fed my lovely cat, and headed out to meet my girlfriend for our walk to school.

To my surprise, I met Ria about halfway to her house.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Ria? What are you doing here?”

She didn’t bother to reply and just flew at me for a big hug.

I embraced her and held her close to me before I asked my question again.

“I just really wanted to come and hug you.” She looked up at me and smiled.

“But I don’t want you to get hurt.” I brushed some strands of hair away from her eyes.

“I know. But I really couldn’t wait…”

“Still too much in a huggy mood?”

“Yesch.” She squeezed my waist.

“Hehe.” I hugged her tight once more. “Ready to go?”

“Mhmm.” She nodded. “But I want to make a little bit of a detour, if that’s okay.”

“Oh shit.” I heard a euro drop in my mind. “Talking about a detour. I still need to go buy some sweets for Em’s mom and for Karin.”

Ria laughed. “Let’s do that first, then. We are a bit early anyway. There’s a bakery not far from the place I want to go to.”

“Okay. Let’s go then.”

Ria took me by my hand and guided me along. It didn’t take long for me to figure out where we were headed. The park.

“Are you sure you want to go there?”

She nodded. “I just want to see what it looks like now.”

“It’s just a park… you know…” I was scared it would bring up some bad memories. Both for her and for me.

She shook her head. “It’s fine, Rora. You don’t need to protect me from that pain.” Ria squeezed my hand. “I think it’s important to face this. To leave it all behind us.”

I guess that’s true. It was the reason I had for visiting the park afterwards as well. Right until I met that strange child… -I wonder how the kid is doing…-

Ria first brought me to a bakery one street over, where we bought six éclairs to bring along to Em’s house. Ria and I also bought a couple of cupcakes to eat now and an extra one for Emma for when we arrived at school.

When we arrived at the park, Ria almost immediately ran over to the swing set I’d been pondering on last time I was here.

“Rora, Rora, look! They have a swing now! We can sit here like in the anime!” I’ve been spending too much time with Ria. Our minds have truly been linked.

I smiled and followed her. Both of our cupcakes in hand. “Want to eat them now.”

“We can eat them on the swings, right?”

“Sure.” I smiled again and handed one of the cupcakes over to her, after which I sat down on the swing next to her. “So, how does it feel?”

“It’s delicious!” Ria had already taken her first bite from the pink chocolate sprinkled cupcake.

“Not that, you dummy.” I laughed.

“I know…” She took another bite and stared in front of her. “It feels weird.”

“Mhmm.”

“Everything went by so fast. I don’t even remember much of it. I just felt scared. And then the pain…”

“I see.”

“But I don’t feel those things anymore. I can only see the beauty this park offers now. The birds that are singing their morning songs.”

“Hmmm.” I stared in front of me too.

“What about you?” She asked.

“I told you I came here alone before, right?” I looked back at my girlfriend.

She nodded. “Mhmm. Yes you did.”

“Well… I still really don’t like this place. To be totally honest, it still gives me the creeps.”

Ria held out her hand, which I gladly took in mine. She gave my hand a little squeeze.

“But, it definitely feels better than last time. And after a while I might actually feel neutral about it. But I’ll never forget about it.”

“I won’t either.” Ria said while squeezing my hand again. “We shouldn’t forget. We’ll get through this together and be stronger because of it.”

I smiled. “Those are some wise words, Miss Ria.”

Ria giggled. “Hehe.”

“We should probably get going before you’ll have to explain your wisdom to Miss Hill too.”

I finished my cupcake on the way to school while my other hand was being squeezed by Ria who’d obviously already finished hers in the park. When we got to the school gate, I saw Em’s car park up down the road to drop off my girlfriend and her sister.

“Ria, can you hand me the bag with the éclairs? I’m going to ask if Helen can take them with her to Em’s house already so they keep being refrigerated.”

Ria nodded and gave me the bag, she stayed behind waiting for us at the gate while I jogged to the car.

“Good morning, Aurora.” Karin greeted me as Helen gave her school bag to her from the trunk.

“Good morning, Karin. And hey Em.”

Em blushed at me. She already had her bag in hand. “H-hey.”

“Uh, Helen, could I ask you something?”

Helen closed the trunk and turned around to face me.

“Yes, of course.” She leaned a bit back with her hands resting on the trunk.

“Would you take these and drop them off at… uh… Em’s place? They are éclairs.”

“Ah, for refrigeration?” She took the bag off me.

“Yeah. If you’d want to.”

“Definitely.” She nodded

“Thanks!”

She then looked at Em and Karin, who were still standing next to the car. “Have a nice day, Misses.” Then she looked back at me. “See you this evening.”

I got on the side walk with my girlfriend and waved the car off.

After which Em looked at me and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Now I’ve greeted you properly.” She blushed.

“Mhmm.” I smiled and made the third cupcake appear from behind my back. “Here, I got you some sweets, sweetie.” -I know, it’s incredibly corny, but that was what I was going for.-

Karin rolled her eyes, smiled and started walking off towards the gate.

Me and Em stayed behind for a second, chuckling at her reaction.