"Stephen, could you leave us please?"
God, Bonnie is hot when she's annoyed…wait… what?
"Bonnie, I don't think that's a good idea. She's a young vampire; even though she's still Caroline, she's unpredictable. I don't want to leave you in here by yourself unprotected, Elena would have my fangs"
Ouch, that one stung a little. The implication that I would even try to hurt my best friend… even if I had just drained a guy at the carnival for no reason.
"Hey guys, still in the room you know"
They carried on like I hadn't even spoken.
"Stephen, I'm a witch, I can handle myself. If she comes at me I can just give her one serious headache to tell her to back the fuck off"
She looks as though she's about to deliver Stephen one of those headaches right now
He sighs,
"Fine, but I'll be just outside"
Bonnie shakes her head.
"I suggest you leave and go and find Elena or something, Caroline and I need to have a serious 'Girl talk' and it's not going to be a short conversation"
Stephen looks at me with concern,
"Can you guarantee me that you are going to be fine?"
I look him straight in the eyes and nod solemnly. As scared as I am of the things that Bonnie has to say, I want to hear them.
He sighs again and looks to Bonnie,
"Okay then, but what about the sun ring"
She smiles tightly,
"I'm still going to do it, but like I said, 'girl talk' first"
He closes his eyes and rubs his temples before standing up.
"Alright then, call me when you finished and I'll come back over and we can do the sun ring thing together"
Bonnie grins,
"Deal"
Stephen leaves, closing the door behind him. I look at Bonnie.
"So, what did you want to talk to me abou-"
"Ssh"
I give her a confused look. She rolls her eyes and explains,
"He's still outside"
"Huh?!"
She holds up a finger for me to be quiet. I know exactly where I want that finger to be. Argh, Caroline, stop it! Best friend!
A car door opens and closes then the sounds of a motor coming to life permeate the air. It's not until several minutes after the car has driven off and its noise can no longer be heard that she turns to me and smiles.
I love that smile. Her teeth are perfect and always so white and those lips are always coated in strawberry lip gloss making them look even more luscious than usual, which is a hard thing to achieve.
Oh wait, she's talking.
"-you alone."
"…hmmm, what?"
She looks exasperated
"Are you even listening to me? For the first time since I found out that you were a vamp, I'm trying to talk to you here."
"Sorry Bonnie"
She sighs
"I just need to know one thing before our talk goes any further"
"And what's that Bonnie?"
She pauses, as if afraid of the answer.
"Do you feel remorse for what you did… to that guy at the carnival?"
I feel bad saying this, but I had to think about it.
"Do you want me to lie to you to make you feel better or do you want me to tell you the truth in the hope that one day you can trust me again because all I've ever done is be honest with you?
She looks apprehensive
"…Both?"
"You must be sure Bonnie because I can't make you forget what I tell you. I would never use compulsion on you and you would never let me get close enough.
She turns away from where I'm sitting on the bed, as if looking at my face makes her decision harder.
"Tell me both"
I wait for her to turn again so that she is looking at me.
"Okay,"
I take a breath and prepare myself for the possibility that she might hurt me once she hears what I have to say.
"The human side of me feels remorse over the fact that I looked at another person as a meal, that I couldn't resist the temptation that he offered."
She releases the breath that she has been holding, only to take another one and give me a look that urges me to go on.
"… But the vampire side of me feels nothing; that guy was just a means to an end, a solution to a problem, lower on the food chain. She doesn't feel remorse, she feels satiated"
She looks as if she's about to run out of the room screaming, either that or slap me silly. She slowly breathes out and sighs,
"…Ooooookaaaaaay"
I look at her with regret in my eyes,
"Sorry Bonnie but I don't know how else to explain it"
"No, no, it's okay, I asked you to explain it to me and you did. Just…"
"Just… what?"
"Is that how you really see yourself now, as two different sides?"
"Yes, right now I'm in my human side, I'm calm; I don't want to eat anyone. Then there is my vampire side which is hungry all the time and is unpredictable because of that, and she fights me for control every second of the day"
"So there is a constant war between the two of you, inside yourself"
"Well yeah, Stephen says it comes with time but I need to accept both sides of myself. That when I do that this vampire thing will become easier because I'm not fighting myself all the time. I'd be able to control my hunger better and my extreme emotions won't make me go all scary face."
She giggles at that. I glare at her but it just makes her giggle more.
"It's not funny Bonnie, you try looking at yourself in the mirror when your eyes go black and dark red veins stand out on your forehead and over your cheekbones."
She's full blown laughing by now. I can't take it.
"BONNIE!"
She goes silent immediately and just stares. I look over to the mirror on my night stand and pick it up to have a look… yup, scary face.
"Damn it!"
She looks scared to approach me. I lay back, look up to the ceiling and close my eyes so as to try and slow my breathing to calm myself down. It's not working. I have to relax so that I don't attack Bonnie but the pressure that I feel to do just that is making the situation worse.
"Bonnie, I'm going to need you to leave, okay?"
"No"
"Bonnie," I whine, "I'm not under control"
"I know, but I trust you"
The excitement that I feel spark inside me at that statement will have to wait to be processed as my brain is solely focused on keeping itself in check. I hear her moving and suddenly there's a weight on the bed next to me but I don't open my eyes. I feel her moving around and I ignore it until I feel her arm place itself across my stomach. I open my eyes but keep them fixed to the ceiling.
"Bonnie, what are you doing?"
"Do you remember that sleep over that we had before we got along so well. Elena couldn't make it because she had an assignment to do but she said that we should still do one by ourselves and have a little bonding time without her being in the middle."
I smile as the memories of that weekend came back to me. She was right, before that weekend we had both been best friends with Elena but weren't really best friends with each other. We were friendly but not nearly to the extent that we were after that. That weekend had changed everything
It had all started with a Friday night food fight. My mother was pulling a late shift at the Sheriff's office so we had the house to ourselves. We'd decided that it was a good idea to make pancakes for dessert but Bonnie couldn't get the whipped cream can to work. She gave it to me so that I could have a go. I did end up getting it working, thing was, it was pointing towards her at the time and she got whipped cream all over her face. That was when she thought it was a good idea to attack me with the maple syrup. To this day I still can't use maple syrup without getting nervous about it getting in my hair.
After that, it was like the breaking of a damn. After we'd cleaned up, we'd shared stories from our childhoods and told each other embarrassing moments that we wished we could forget. We talked about first crushes and current crushes and how far we'd gone with a boy. We talked about our first impressions of each other, which was funny because we both said similar things. I told her about how I have issues from my Dad leaving and she talked about her situation with her Grandmother. By the time we stopped talking it was nearly sunrise and we were both really tired. We just feel asleep on the mattress that I had laid on my bedroom floor for her. When I woke up a couple of hours later, I was feeling the most happy that I had in a while and I tried to roll over to see if Bonnie was awake, only to find that I couldn't because her arms had wrapped around my waist during the night. My movement had awaked her though and when she realised what she was doing, she tried to take her arms back. I had grabbed onto them and rolled over to face her.
"Don't," I had said, "it makes me feel safe"
She had smiled sleepily at that and had re-wrapped her arms around me, closing her eyes and placing the tip of her nose against mine. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders to try and let her feel what I was feeling. We had stayed that way for another half an hour or so before I could hear movement from my mother downstairs. We had untangled from each other and gotten dressed before going downstairs for breakfast.
We'd just hung out for the rest of the day talking about anything that caught our fancy, our opinions on different things and I had found it so interesting just finding out the different ways in which she thought about things. Where I was impulsive and reckless, she was a thinker who barely ever took a risk that she wasn't certain she could handle. We watched some movies and had popcorn and just enjoyed being in each other's presence. Going to bed that night, the first thing I did was lay facing her on the mattress before gently gripping her arms and placing them around my own waist before placing my arms around her shoulders like we had been that morning. I didn't want that weekend to end; just being able to be that carefree with someone was a new experience that I thoroughly enjoyed. Of course, back then it didn't matter; we both had boys that we had crushes on, it was just nice to have a prolonged physical comfort that wasn't from a family member. If that were to happen now though, I have an idea that the feelings would be different.
Feeling her reach over me to pull my arm and turn me on my side was enough to bring me back to the present. She placed one of my arms under her neck and my other one over her shoulder then wriggled one of her arms underneath my waist while wrapping her other one over me in the same position. She then pulled me close, until we were firmly pressed into each other. She closed her eyes and brushed the tip of her nose against mine before lowering her head and burying her face into the crook of my neck.
She invaded my senses. Her warmth and her smell were divine and that scared me for a moment before I realised with a shock that my vampire was content just to keep basking in all that Bonnie was rather than try to bite and devour her. I don't want to hurt her, I don't want her to be hurt by anyone or anything and neither does my vampire side. This puts my figurative heart at ease and with Bonnie surrounding me and the good feelings I get from the memory of that weekend, my breathing begins to slow and I can feel myself calming down, getting back in control. I feel my face return to normal and release the last breathe that I was holding.
"Thank you Bonnie"
She mumbles a reply and the movement of her lips against my neck sends a spark of heat to my abdomen. I lean back my head so that I can look at her. Her eyes are closed as if she is trying to absorb as much of me as I am of her. She looks so adorable that I just can't stop myself from doing what I do next.
I lean in, slowly so as not to frighten her, her eyelids remain closed but I can see her eyes moving rapidly underneath them.
"Bonnie," I say in a whisper.
She hums and slowly opens her eyes, her pupils are huge and she looks drowsy like she's on the peak of a high.
"What are you thinking about?"