In the heat of the midsummer afternoon—a baking August day—Edward held back his tears with Henry by his side in his office.

"I don't understand!" Edward yelled. "How can people be so deceptive! How can they be so cruel?" He paced around as Henry sat on the sofa.

He shrugged, "People aren't so perceptive."

"But to have the guts to lie to me like that?"

"It just goes to show you their true nature."

Edward stopped pacing to stare at Henry. "But doesn't it ever bother them? Don't they ever feel guilty for disrespecting another person?"

"It clearly didn't bother him."

"People take one look at me and assume I'm ten years younger than I am and that I don't deserve the things I have worked so hard for."

"They're jealous."

"Jealous of what? I can't possibly think of anything to be jealous for besides having you."

Henry smiled, but then shrank, "You're successful, you have a wonderful job, you turned this journal around and resurrected it from the dead—you write so beautifully that it's almost a crime."

Edward sat down and nodded solemnly. "I suppose that's true. But you're blowing it out of proportion. I'm not as good as other people, and I feel as though because of this, my whole career isn't going to be the same as it was turning out to be. I feel as though I was foolish and tricked by whomever it was that told me I was doing amazing at life. I'm only doing good, not amazing—and the difference is between keeping this company afloat and letting it be bought by some magazine."

"Hey, I wouldn't be disrespecting your new bosses like that."

"You mean 'our' new bosses." Edward slumped into the sofa next to Henry.

Henry placed his arm around him. "No, your new boss. You see, you'll still always be my boss, boss."

Edward gave a pathetic huff for a laugh and turned away. "I guess life is just life and should be taken as such. Not everyone can be superstars living the American dream." He sighed, on the verge of tears. "I know this will be good for me because that means fewer long nights at the office but, but it's like I just lost something that was a part of me."

"Embrace it! There's still greatness out there for you yet!" Henry whispered excitingly.

"Oh yeah? Like what? Like having to deal with this hideous monster that I have become?"

"You're not hideous, you're beautiful as ever."

Edward scrunched over. "You're too damn nice." His voice ached.

"What do you want me to say? It's true!"

A single tear welled in his eye. "Nothing, I guess."

"You're no monster, Mr. Edward Jones!" Henry got up looking astonishingly at him and gave him a kiss.

Edward tensed and prayed to God, but he was sure he'd left him years before he had the vision of Henry.

~~~~~~~

A pool of clear water—still and ghostly—laid a thin covering over Edward's new pristine body. It had finally recovered from the deep sunburn he withstood when he fell asleep in the sun the night he transformed. He laid underneath the water in his bathtub, his lungs deflated, sticking his knees out to showcase his long, tight muscled legs. Edward had fallen asleep, but as he was walking up, he saw a wavering figure of Henry stand over him, raise his sleeves up, and reach in. The dull sound the water protected Edward from was brought back when Henry pulled him up by the shoulders, and a whooshing of the water unplugged his ears for it ran down the sides of his temples. Henry lifted Edward's lethargic body, wrought with sadness, (dripping), and refusing to stand up, he let his feet drag across the floor to the made bed.

Ruffling his hair with a towel to dry, Henry chided, "Don't be so hard on yourself."

Anger arose heavily into Edward's mind, filling every crack and cranny within his body. He tensed. He scrunched his face. He began to quiver with rage, trying to contain it to himself.

"It's just a job."

"You don't know what it's like to let down your whole team!" Edward yelled.

"I know."

Edward scoffed, "No, you don't."

Even if Henry knew what it was like to disappoint someone at the stakes and measure that he had, or if he felt a need for his humanity back like Edward did, Henry still didn't know about what he'd been doing—his promiscuity—as Edward felt he'd done. And he felt that because of that he didn't deserve the kindness Henry was offering.

"I do."

Edward's internal conflict roared at the sound of those simple words. "Stop." He begged, "Just stop trying to help. It's not helping." He buried his face into the pillow.

"Sit up." Henry said longingly.

"No."

"Please, sit up." Henry tried pulling Edward up, "I want to help."

"IF YOU KNEW HOW TO HELP, YOU'D KNOW TO SHUT UP RIGHT NOW!"

Henry was about to open his mouth to say something, but then clamped his teeth. They sat there in silence for a while as Edward regained his breath, reminding his human tendency was unneeded, and didn't inhale the last time he exhaled. With the help of Henry Edward changed back into his clothes, yet Henry found it was similar to dressing a life-sized doll.

Quietly, Henry mumbled under his lips, "It's not your fault."

The apparent lie that was to only make Edward feel better about himself drove him over the edge. It was entirely his fault. If he had read the fine print, no one would have lost their job, and he'd have kept his company.

"Get the hell out of my place." Edward hissed. His voice was low and exact, but when Henry didn't move, Edward got up, grabbed his bag, and left, slamming the door behind him.

~~~~~~~

"I can't bear it any longer." Edward slumped in his couch, watching the rays of the sun pass over his head from the slits in the blinds.

Veronica brought him a tray of blood and placed it ever so gently on the coffee table before him.

She didn't say a single word.

"It's not like I'm this Virgin Mary Henry sees in me. I'm—I'm scarred, I'm burnt, I'm spoiled, rotten, overripe."

"Alright, that's enough." Veronica fixed the blinds, so they let in no light but the glowing sense that emanated on the walls. "What is wrong with you?" She didn't mean it to sound condescending, but yet, her sweet voice was still harsh with contempt.

"I'm sick of Henry's good nature. He's not the same as he was before."

"That's because he had the chance to love you. I wasn't a good person before the seventeenth century: I killed white men from the colonies. We scalped their heads and burned their guts."

Edward recoiled at the thought of what Veronica was capable of doing to the white English. "But I'm supposing something changed."

"Yes, it's because of Henry that I did. I had to care for him like he's caring for you, and because of that it shows and fosters a sense of love."

"I don't want to be like this anymore."

"You want to become human?"

Edward moaned in anger rising from his throat. "He's not going to let me! No one is going to let me! What am I going to do, Veronica? I'll never get to live life before I was with this monster. He was right!"

Veronica took a cold rag and placed it on his forehead. She dabbed it with soft gestures. "You can file for wrongful transformation. I know it was recently enacted, but if you portray it as extremely wrongful, I'm sure they'd allow for it."

Edward's head popped up. "Like what? What has Henry ever done to you?"

"I'm saying for what he's done to you, Edward."

Veronica backed away as he cringed at his old name. "You," Edward, in a suggesting manner, crawled across the couch to Veronica, zapping the information from her like a fish in a lure. "You know something that I don't."

Veronica laughed. She was nervous beyond measure. "I only know about Lucy and her mother's sickness."

"Yes, but I already knew that!" Edward, irritated, flung his arms. "There's something a-miss about Lucy's sickness!" Edward could see it in her tense face that she knew about his conspiracy and was struggling to keep it under the rug.

"There's nothing to be said about her death."

Huffing, Edward scrunched his brow, vexed with the puzzle pieces that refused to come together. "There is something! I don't think Lucy became sick because of her mother—because I became sick as well."

"Maybe you two shared something that caused the contamination?" She proposed.

"So, it is true?!"

"Pardon?" Veronica's face fell at the sight of Edward's epiphany.

He stiffened as the anger rose in him. "It was that damn cup of tea! That was the potion that he had Lucy drink! It made her sick, didn't it?"

The white edge around her eyes were all the confirmation he needed. . .

"Now, Edward," Veronica reached out her hands as to calm him, "Let's not get too rash." Her voice quivered at the sight of Edward.

"HENRY KILLED HER ON PURPOSE!" At the thought of remembering the most critical detail about his past life, Edward flipped the coffee table in anger.

He destroyed his apartment with the thought of Henry's old contemptuous self, conniving on how to lure him into his trap. . .And he did. . .Edward Jones fell right into Henry's trap of passing his immortality down for, Henry never wanted a family—getting close to someone—just a singular offspring to carry his legacy through transformation: a sense of fulfillment to spread out and cover the earth with vampires.

One

Measly

Human

at a time.

Edward concluded that his selfishness led him to his despair, but surely his decision on becoming a vampire wasn't final.

Surely it wasn't.

Chapter 22

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