Something about the old school alarm clocks playing music spoke to Vexys, as the loud screams of Kids with Beards filled the airwaves as well as her room. She yawned and stretched before hitting the off switch and checked her phone. No messages. About how it went these days. She was running out of hobbies.

She had asked Silas not to give her too many interviews as she also had a real job to do, but in reality, she didn't want to be around him that much anymore. She freaked the night she accidentally turned him to stone, and even though he swore over and over that it wasn't a problem, and that they would find ways around it, it just didn't feel okay to her. Most other creatures were able to either withstand it or knew better than to look directly in his eyes. Which is what Silas did.

And when they got him un-statued, he said that painfully Human thing. "Sorry, I didn't mean to. I just wanted to look into your beautiful eyes." Stupid. Such a stupid, pathetic thing to say. Hearing that hurt her more than anything else. He would always want to look into her eyes, and he would never be able to do it. So she pushed him away. She even chose to take less interviews so she would have an excuse not to talk to him. But she couldn't bring herself to fully disconnect.

Even when she started hooking up with Jarek, she was too curious and too connected to fully disappear from Silas. She still checked for messages. She stayed updated on the blog. That's how she knew he was starting to bond with that Felsya chick. She wanted to be happy for him, but it hurt. She ended up pushing Jarek out of her life too. He wasn't worth much except some fun but even that began to bore her.

Marie invited her out to do things all the time. She sometimes forced herself to go, but more often than not, she declined. She wasn't interested in any of it. She spent most of her days watching some trash reality television or scrolling through pointless entertainment on her phone.

She kept checking for Silas to message her. Kept checking his blog. Her heart leapt when he met the genie, but she was mad at herself when she became disappointed that he didn't wish for something to protect him from the Gorgon Stare. But she guessed that when you're dating a succubus, there's no need to worry about the cute gorgon next door anymore.

She threw her phone across the room and debated even getting out of bed. Her snakes were pissed, but she ignored them. They wanted to do something besides sit around all day, but Vexys just wasn't having that. If she could let them roam free, she would. But they didn't get to dictate what she did.

As she thought that, one of them started nipping at her ear. She sighed and got up. They at least had the power to make sure she fed them. She walked to her kitchen and she fed each of them before sitting on the couch and turning on the news. Some debate was happening between some human representative and one of the founders of Unhinged about whether or not humans should mix with non-humans. They kept talking about How I Met Your Monster. Vexys groaned and turned the television back off.

She scooped up her phone and found a message from Marie saying she was coming over, like it or not. It was about three minutes old which meant-

BAM BAM BAM

Her front door slammed against its hinges. Vexys unlocked it and Marie charged in and grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her to the bathroom.

"Take a shower. I'm grabbing you an outfit. We're going out. Even if it's just for lunch or something. You need to move past this. It's time to grow up, Vexy."

"Don't call me that. You know I hate it."

"Well, you know that I hate my best friend moping around. We're going out. We're going to have some fun. And you can stop being all sad and pathetic over some human."

"He's not just some human, Marie."

The werewolf stopped in front of her and grabbed her face to force her to almost meet her gaze, "I know, love. But we have to retrain your mind, okay?"

Tears threatened to emerge from her eyes, but Vexys nodded. She went to shower as Marie ran around her apartment.

"Baby steps." She told herself.