I continued to heal with my weekly dose of vampire blood, and I'd been careful to change clothes and shower alone. Not even Sarah had seen the marks from "that night in Chicago". One night after my late night shower I examined my scars in the mirror. They were no longer raised and had turned a soft white color thanks to my consistent feedings. To my eyes the difference in color to my 'normal' skin was night and day but I knew that it would not be too much longer that I'd have to try to hide them. Soon the only people who would be able to see them would already know what they were and where they came from. Lost in thought as I studied my form in the mirror I didn't hear Sarah wake, or remember that I'd never locked the bathroom door. I stood frozen in shock as I stared back at her horrified look on her face in the mirror.
"What the hell!!" she screamed, roughly tugging the towel from my body to expose the full length of the scars running from collarbone to tailbone along my spine. I tried to quickly regain control of the towel, unconcerned with covering my nakedness but wanting to hide the hideous scars from her eyes. "I... I can explain..." I stammered trying to repair the situation, "It's not what it looks like!"
She stood there speechless for a moment and my heart fell with each emotion that played across her face. Recognition, betrayal, disgust, and horror painted her face as I slowly sunk to sit on the floor. My best friend was disgusted at what she saw...disgusted at me. My face buried in my hands as I sobbed, I never saw the guilt that wiped all other emotions from her face. I felt her pull me from the floor and guide me onto my bed, not brave enough to look at her face again I kept my eyes on the floor but tried to regain some sort of composure. I was eventually able to contain the sobs but the tears still flowed. It took me awhile to process what she had been repeatedly saying over and over again as I sobbed. "Shhh... I'm so sorry.....It's gonna be OK..."
I blinked the tears from my eyes and tried to focus on her face stammering out my question, "S..sorry... for wh.. what?"
"For this" she said as she traced a finger over one of the pale white lines. I looked at her confused. "For hurting you" she added. My growing confusion must have been obvious because she sighed, stepped away from me, and started to pull her long t-shirt over her head. "Just try not to freak out on me ok?" I must have nodded. Not two seconds after her t-shirt hit the floor the large black wolf with amber eyes I'd never forget stood where my friend had been moments earlier. Before I even had a chance to scream the wolf was gone and Sarah stood clearly out of breath where the wolf had been.
I recoiled on the bed as I finally pieced together what I had just seen and what Sarah had said. She'd hurt me, she'd been the wolf who had taken me in the subway. But how was that possible? Sarah standing naked before me was clearly a girl in every way. Her breasts larger than average but not out of proportion to her curvy hips and narrow waist was without a doubt female perfection. The wolf in the subway had been undeniably male. As if she could read my mind Sarah approached the bed slowly, her hand out as if trying to calm an animal ready to attack. "I'll explain everything but please understand that when I did those things... I wasn't really me. It doesn't change that I hurt you, a lot I'm sure, but please, can we talk things out?"
Sarah and I stayed up all night talking about our "other lives" the ones we'd never been able to share with each other before. She explained that to keep the wolf's male to female ratio more in balance stronger women would actually have male wolf forms complete with the ability to breed. I showed her my vampiric form, we'd even stood in the same bathroom mirror that had started the whole mess in our true forms making faces at each other till we laughed so hard we cried. In the end we passed out together from sheer exhaustion. Not another word was said about what happened on that subway platform.