April sat on the floor of her bedroom, her back pressed against the side of her bed, knees pulled to her chest. The quiet hum of the night felt suffocating, too still, too heavy with the weight of everything she had just learned.

Vampires were real. Compulsion was real. The lies, the secrets, the missing gaps in her memories—it all made sense now.

But the part that hit the hardest? You.

Her best friend. Her boyfriend. Someone she had laughed with, cried with, loved. You weren’t just tangled in all of this—you had been part of it for centuries.

Her fingers curled around the vervain bracelet Jeremy had given her, a silent reminder that she couldn’t be fooled again.

A knock at her window made her breath hitch. She didn’t need to look to know it was you.

“April,” your voice was quiet, hesitant. “Let me explain.”

She let out a bitter laugh, shaking her head. “Explain? What part, exactly? That you’ve been alive for hundreds of years? That while I was worrying about prom and exams, you were—what? Drinking blood? Watching history unfold like it was some kind of movie?”

Silence.

That hurt more than anything—because if there was no quick denial, then it meant she was right.

You sighed. “I never wanted you to find out this way.”

April stood abruptly, crossing her arms as she stared at the window, torn between slamming it shut or letting you in. “When was I supposed to find out? When I was just another body in this town’s growing list of victims? When I finally noticed that you never changed, never aged, never let me see you bleed?”

The words hung between you, sharp and unforgiving.

You swallowed hard. “I never lied about how I felt about you. Not once.”

April closed her eyes for a long moment before finally turning to face you, her expression unreadable. “Then tell me everything. All of it.”

Because if there was one thing she knew for sure—it was that she wasn’t going to be left in the dark ever again.