Nightshade Manor

Chapter 60

Vaggie wore a pale blue satin, regency dress trimmed in a taupe chiffon and decorated with champagne gold butterfly embroidery and black beading. Her hair was crimped, pulled up, and pinned. She wore black opera gloves, onyx earrings, a simple gold chain, and champagne gold mask that resembled a butterfly. Just like with Charlie, Rosie and Niffty had done their best to make her look radiant for the evening and by the time they had finished with her, she felt very healthy. Re-freshened. Strong. Not at all how she felt this morning and that's what worried her.

"Vaggie!" Charlie excitedly approached her friend, taking her gloved hands into her own and pulling her into a waltz. "You look so beautiful!"

Vaggie smiled.

"So do you." She replied.

"Isn't this exciting?" Charlie asked her. "I mean look at all this. Have you ever seen anything so wonderful in your entire life?"

"It is impressive, I'll admit."

"I'm so glad you were able to come. This wouldn't be as much fun without you."

"Do you really mean that?"

"Of course. Vaggie, you're my best friend. I want to share moments like these with you all the time."

"So you've forgiven me?"

"Forgiven you? For what?"

"For how I've been acting this whole trip. For all the things I said. I'm sorry Charlie, I know I can be a nagging, judgmental, bitch."

"Well...Nagging? Maybe. Judgmental? Sometimes but you're only human. But a bitch? Never. Bitches just do whatever the can be mean and hateful, you may let your temper get the better of you sometimes but that's only cause you care. I know you'd never do anything to hurt anyone."

"But I have hurt you, haven't I?"

"Yes." Charlie confessed gently. "But I know that I've hurt you too, and it's nothing for us to condemn ourselves for. My uncle once told me that we always hurt the people we love at some point. It's in our nature. But he also said that the difference between people like us, my parents, Angel, his family, and people like your father and his, is that we don't try to hurt the people we love and once we realized that we have hurt them, we fell bad about it and try to make it right."

"I'm really sorry for how I get so protective and fly off the handle at times hon. I don't think you're stupid, really I don't. I'm just so scared of seeing anyone else in my life end up exactly like my mother."

"I understand. I know what happened to your mother isn't something that's easy to recover from. Or if it's something you can even recover from."

"I just don't understand why she stayed. I don't understand how she could have loved him and thought that he loved her. The people who love you don't do what he did."

"I know and I can't understand it either. And I may have had a sheltered upbringing Vaggie but believe it or not there is wisdom that comes from a life like that."

"What do you mean?"

"My parents are the ones who taught what real love between two people is supposed to be. It's supposed to be honest, supportive, loyal, tender, full of mistakes, but mistakes that you learn from and give you the desire to be a better you. And above all, it's never, ever supposed to hit you or control you or make you feel bad about yourself. So you don't ever have to worry about me ending up like your mother. Because while I am not streetwise, I know what real love is."

Vaggie didn't say anything but in her eyes, Charlie could tell that she finally understood, and she started to feel guilty for all that time she thought Lucifer and Lilith were just putting on a show of a happy marriage.