TW: Themes of Suicide Ideation

Hope watched Kaleb wheel the podium away, not moving to help him with it. She didn't feel particularly motivated to assist.
“You don’t like me very much do you?” she asked instead. 
“Honestly? No.” Kaleb wiped his palms on his pants and looked at her evenly. “Look, I am all for vamp-power and not hiding what we are, but the no-humanity business … I just think vampires like you give us all a bad name.”
“So you don’t like me because I turned my humanity off?” Hope arched an eyebrow and leaned against the stage. 
“There is a long list of reasons you and I will never be friends,” Kaleb said.
“Really?”
“Yeah, starts with how you treat my boy, MG, as your murder-spree entourage and ends with how you’re supposed to be helping me move everything.”
Hope crossed her arms. “You’re a vampire. It’s not like anything’s heavy.” She shrugged dismissively. “And besides, MG can say no.”
“That’s the problem, Hope!” Kaleb abandoned the equipment and marched up in front of her. “He can’t say no! And you constantly offering isn’t helping his control!”
“And sitting in those Salvatore classes where the closest thing he got to experiencing blood was some red ink splashed on a textbook page was helping him?” Hope countered, standing up straighter. 
“At least there he wasn’t hurting anyone!”
“At least here he’s having fun!”
Kaleb shook his head and went back to moving the rest of the equipment, muttering something about no humanity and fun.
“You know why I turned my humanity off?” Hope asked, admiring her nail polish under the stagelights. 
“Hmm?” Kaleb was half-listening.
“I was so sick of feeling guilty all the time.” Hope stared straight ahead. “Guilty that I wasn’t as good of a hero as my family need me to be, guilty that I got my mom killed, guilty that I was never guilty enough, guilty that I felt guilty - I couldn’t escape.” She shrugged. “So I turned myself into a vampire and shut it all off. It was just as easy as that. One flip of a switch and I can sleep now, I can eat, I can do magic again - I can breathe again.”
“I hear you, Hope,” Kaleb said. “And that backstory is tragic as hell, but it does not excuse what you’re doing now - to MG and to those people you kill.”
“I know.” Hope smiled. “But the nice thing is: I don’t care.”