2011, Mystic Falls

My phone buzzed on the floor where it was charging, but I made no move to get it. All morning, it had been buzzing like the disappearing bees, making me think somehow an insect got trapped in the Apple product. Unfortunately, I knew the truth. It was either Damon or Elena trying to get my attention. As I had said last night, I didn't want anything to do with either of them. I didn't know what Damon meant, I didn't know who he was and I definitely thought he was crazy when he told me that he was a vampire.

Who the hell said that to people?

I didn't give a flying fuck if he thought himself to be a blood-sucking creature, but I did care that he tried to pass that off as a reason that we knew each other in the past. There was a reason the town didn't see too much of Damon Salvatore; he was crazy.

Elena told me not to worry and not to freak out over this, seeming more like the sane one, but she didn't act as though Damon was crazy. She was nervous. As if she actually believed what he was saying, and that I was somehow a supernatural creature that reappeared after Damon saw me die. I didn't trust her either.

Carly groaned in her sleep, twisting and turning on my bed. Just to keep out of her way, I moved closer to the unpainted wall and give Carly's hung-over self some space. She still reeked of alcohol; at some point in the night, she got vodka spilled all over her and then she refused to take a shower when we got to my house at nearly one in the morning. Carly wanted to stay at the party to see if she could sleep with the one and only Damon Salvatore, but he was too interested in me to pay attention to her. I finally dragged her out of the house, unwillingly on her part, and aimlessly wandered around in her car until I finally found the way back to my house.

Aunt Nikki knew as soon as we walked in the door that Carly would need to throw up. Being the dope aunt she was, she didn't ask any questions and helped me get Carly to my bed. She gave me the stern look telling me not to pull this shit again, but didn't give me the talk we both knew I needed but she didn't want to give.

Carly vomited her guts out. Three times in fact. I could still slightly smell the puke pizza on her breath if she was close enough to me.

Not only did I not want to look at my phone, I couldn't. If I moved even just to get off the bed, Carly would be woken up. I knew that I would have to deal with her once she woke up and that wasn't something I was ready for yet.

The only thing I could do right now was try to think about my life now that I was the object of an obsession the first day in a new town. Was this going to affect school? Would Damon just show up in the middle of my class and demand my audience? Would he follow me home and night, screaming at me that we were in love once?

Or would he get so angry at me for ignoring him that he would try to suck my blood?

"Fuck."

My head snapped down to see Carly with her eyes beginning to open. Despite throwing up a few times last night, it definitely looked like she needed to puke her guts up again one more time. My mind went from Damon and the rest of the crazies to how much Carly drank last night as I looked at her pale, sick face. Her voice was weak and cracked three times within saying one word. My new friend definitely wasn't going to have a good morning. And if she couldn't control her

"Please tell me we're not at mine," she mumbled into my pillow, loud and coherent enough for me to understand.

"Nope, we're at mine. I figured you wouldn't want me to bring you to a mother that would kill you if she saw you like this."

"It's not even that she would be mad at me for drinking. She'd be mad that I looked and acted trashy."

"What do you need from me?" I asked her, pushing myself up by my arms. Carly groaned again for some reason, probably now realizing her hangover was making itself known to her, and possibly soon to me.

"Tylenol, and then I'll be out of your hair," she said quickly, picking herself up from my bed after me. She sat on the edge of my bed, holding her head in pain. With her face looking down, I couldn't tell if she had closed her eyes because of the sun flooding through the sunroof I couldn't cover up just yet or if she was trying to get used to the flashing pain that went along with looking around in a brightly lit room.

Of course she just had to ask for something I didn't have access to. Now I had to go and ask my guardian to give me something ten-year olds had access to, but I couldn't in case my nightmares got too bad and I wanted to kill myself. Sure, I had been there before, but I'd at least given some kind of warning before just downing thirty pills.

I pretended to look around my room; in boxes, drawers, and bags. When I (consciously) didn't find anything, my heels spun me around to look at the girl. Carly was still looking at the ground, but this time she was holding up her head with both her hands. Her breathing was so subtle and shallow, I was scared there was something physically wrong. Then I reminded myself that hangovers sucked and all you wanted to do was lay down; not move around.

"I'm sorry," I told her, "I couldn't find anything. But I can quickly go ask Aunt Nikki."

She took one of her hands off her head to wave me off. "It's okay. I'll just take some water."

Nodding, I hopped out of my room and down the narrow hallway to Nikki's room near the kitchen. Instead of knocking, I opened the door slightly, popping my head in the room only to find her not in there.

"Looking for me?"

My auntie's sudden voice behind me made me jump five feet in the air, making jump higher than I had ever before. Ever since I woke up from my coma, I was more scared than ever, at least that's what my parents told me. Kara told me I used to seek out danger and adventure, but ever since I woke up in a ditch, I wanted nothing to do with the unknown.

"Jesus," I gasped, holding my hand to my to my chest. My aunt simply smiled at me, leaning against the doorframe of the entrance to the kitchen. "You scared the actual shit out of me. Now I have to go change my panties."

My aunt scrunched up her nose. "Fuck, Lana, you know I hate that word."

I actually couldn't remember anything past a few months ago, so no, Auntie, I didn't know you hated that word. Instead of saying anything, I just gave her a small smile and nodded, returning back to my work of getting Carly water.

"So do we have any Tylenol?"

"What? Your head is pounding and your body is aching?" my aunt guessed, crossing her arms. I shook my head.

"Her head is pounding and her body is aching. You know, the good influence you introduced me to." I felt slightly terrible for talking shit about Carly like that when I knew that she would never say something like that about me. Carly was a genuine person; if she didn't like you, she wouldn't waste her time on you. That was one thing I could gather about her from the night we had together.

Aunt Nikki pushed herself off the frame and went to the cabinet to get the medication. I made a mental note of where it was just in case things in Mystic Falls didn't work out. "Okay, don't bash the party girl. You were like that, you know."

"Autie, I don't know if you know this, but I have retrograde amnesia and I can't remember anything past the ditch. So, no, I don't know." Her little comment didn't need a snappy reply. As soon as I said it, I regretted it. Her face fell, making me feel even worse about myself, as she pulled out the Tylenol. "Wait, I'm sorry."

"No, you're right," she sighed. "I keep forgetting the reason you moved here is because you can't remember. And you couldn't deal with life back in Philly. I need to start being a good caretaker." She put the Tylenol back in the same spot, completely forgetting that I was a suicidal teenage girl. I almost wanted to laugh at how contradictory she was, but I refrained myself from doing so.

She handed me the two pills just after I turned off the faucet from the sink. "You are a good caretaker, Nikki," I told her, but she just shook her head.

"You don't have to lie to me, Lana. The reason your parents sent you here was because they thought giving you more freedom would be good for you. I'm the one they can send you to because they know I can't pay attention for shit." We both laughed. "But I promise to pay close attention to you. You're not broken or fragile, but you are… I don't know. You're something."

I furrowed my brows at her weird speech. "What are you trying to get at, Aunt Nikki?"

She sighed. "What I'm trying to say, Lana, is I want you to know how much I love you. I remember when you were just a little baby. I would hold you and cuddle you and love you, and you loved me too! I swear, you loved me more than you loved your mom. Every time you saw me, your face lit up and you would come running my way. After hearing about your accident, about what he did to you, my heart broke. I didn't know what to do. The light of my life was in pain and had this terrible condition that caused her to not remember me."

I forgot how hard it was for other people. I forgot that they felt pain when I didn't remember them. I could remember myself in the hospital, lying in the bed wondering what was going on and what would happen to me. My parents came running into the room, hugging me and kissing me all over my head. I just remembered how confused I was. I couldn't recall who they were or why they were so happy to see me. Of course, I put two and two together and figured out they were my parents. But I couldn't remember growing up with them—I couldn't even remember growing up—or seeing them before my accident. They told me before the accident, I told them that I loved them and that I would see them later that night. Apparently, I was missing for three days before they found my comatose body in a ditch three miles outside of town.

Setting the meds and the glass of water down, I hugged my aunt as tightly as I could. She eventually hugged me back moments after being caught off guard by me. Love wasn't the emotion I felt towards her, as terrible as that sounded. I just felt pain and pity towards her; I wanted to take away her pain, knowing that the past me loved her like no other. She didn't deserve the suffering that was being forced upon her, neither did my parents.

I felt wetness on my cheek, causing me to pull back to find the source of the water. I pulled back to find my aunt shedding just a few tears out of her brown orbs. I wanted nothing more than to halt those tears right in their tracks and stop any more from falling. Although I liked to consider myself the kind of girl who didn't give any fucks, I cared about people I didn't know. I couldn't just watch her cry and not feel like a complete asshole for being the one to make her do so, even though it wasn't necessarily my fault.

The only thing I could think of to make her feel better was to lie. Lie straight through my teeth like I was an actress about to be paid thousands of dollars for my performance. "Auntie, I hope you know I still love you, right? I love you like I did all those years ago. I didn't forget that."

She genuinely smiled at me like she believed the lie. Maybe I should have been paid thousands of dollars for my performance. "Thank you, Lana. I love you too. More than you'll ever know."

I sent her one more fake smile before grabbing what I needed and heading back to my room down the hall. Carly was still in the same position, head in her hands and leaning over the bed, probably still in the same amount of pain.

"I got your shit," I announced as loudly as I could without irritating her ears. She looked up at me with half closed eyes, then smiled. She threw her hands up to rejoice.

"Thank the Lord! My savior has come."

"Yeah, yeah, I have come to save you, my child."

For some reason, we had already started acting like we had been best friends for years with our weird talk, but I didn't mind it. Sure, I would have preferred to be here with Kara in this new, mysterious town filled with creepy, weird vampire men; Carly was a good substitute. She knew how to let herself go when she had to, and she knew when to keep her cool at other times. Unlike Carly, Kara would have been bitching and moaning to me about her pounding head, not that I remember if she's ever done that—she just strikes me as the kind of person who didn't know how to handle pain.

I handed Carly the pills and the water before looking through my basically empty drawers and boxes to look for new clothes to change in. When I dragged in Carly's sweaty body to my room, I didn't think to change my clothes before passing out beside her. I woke up in an itchy crop top and restrictive jeans.

Without thinking, I began stripping in front of Carly, which, apparently, is the reason I got myself raped, according to Jacob. (Jacob Quentin was the reason there were such things as Femi-Nazis. He was the most misogynistic man I had ever met in my life, and blamed me for my rape and amnesia. He told me if I wasn't such a tease to everyone that I would have been perfectly fine hanging out with my future-rapist at the lame party I so cleverly decided to attend alone back in Philly. Jacob was the man.)

Once I got my clothes on, I turned back to look at Carly, who returned to having her head in her hands. The poor girl probably had experienced hangovers before but nothing like the one she was experiencing in the present. I had never seen someone drink so much without overdosing or fucking dying; Carly knew how to handle her liquor. She wasn't even as drunk as the other girls who had taken off their clothes at the party and ran around with their tits bouncing up and down. Carly was maybe just as drunk as the new boy I met Matt Donovan was.

Matt was the life of the fucking party. After having my little confrontation with the weird and elusive Damon Salvatore, I fled the scene and bumped into the one and only Matt. He tried to use his charms on me, and though they were working for a little bit, I wasn't interested. Matt was the kind of guy who deserved someone who wasn't as damaged as i was. If he knew all the baggage that came with me, I knew for a fact he would walk, not run, though it would be a speedy walk, in the other direction as soon as he found out.

The Donovan boy basically ran around the house, singing and dancing with a drink in his hand, while drunk off his cute, bubble ass. When he found me, I was wandering around the party senselessly, trying to get as far away as I could from the crazy who claimed he was a vampire and knew me over one hundred years ago.

Matt sent that Donovan smile my way, melting me right in the spot I was standing in. I could have melted into the wall I was leaning on too, leaving a Lana-looking stain on the nice wallpaper.

"Hey, Lana, right?" he said in the loudest soft voice I had ever heard. It made me want to be his girlfriend right then and there; I knew he would treat me right. He would do everything in his power to make me happy, but I wasn't easily entertained. It would be a hard job for him, yet I knew he would be up for the challenge. Was Matt my first love interest in town?

I nodded with a new smile on my face, bringing the cup up to my lips as if I were about to drink the contents in it (truthfully, I just picked up a random cup that I had saw on the nice mahogany end table just so I could look like I was having fun too).

"Having fun?" he had asked.

"I mean, I kind of just had a really weird run in with a vampire, but other than that, I'm good." Matt's jaw dropped. He looked at me as if I had grown four more heads with fire coming out of their mouths. Was it possible that Matt reacted this way because he knew Damon claimed he was a vampire? Well, that would make sense, sort of. If Damon had the balls to tell me, some random stranger who just arrived in town, he could definitely tell Matt, someone who had lived in this town for, I assumed, his whole life.

I laughed to get him to stop looking at me like that. It made me feel more uncomfortable then than when Damon claimed that I was his second true love. Matt started laughing along with me a few moments after I began, realizing that I was "joking."

"Funny."

"Yeah," I had agreed, raising my eyebrows. "What I really mean is, the guy who owns this house is fucking crazy. He told me he was a vampire and that we had met a hundred years ago. Something about me being his epic love."

He changed the subject very quickly, as if what we were talking about was taboo in this town. It made sense that the town called Mystic Falls had some weird shit going on in it, but I didn't realize nearly everyone here were crazy and thought vampires were real.

The rest of the night I spent with Matt, talking about random things on the couch of the Salvatores. Matt seemed like the kind of guy who had his head on straight. He actually wanted to make something of himself out of high school, the reason why he maintained somewhat good grades and worked his ass off at the Mystic Grill when he needed to.

I learned a lot more about him than he wanted me to know. Being drunk, he spilled every secret of his life, to his deadbeat mother to his dead sister. My heart ached for Matt when I heard of all the shit he went through in his few years, but I didn't feel close enough to him to share my own hardships. That was a conversation I could have with him at least twenty-five years into our relationship.

The night ended with Damon Salvatore finding me again, after Matt and I had gone our separate ways, before I could find Carly running around the house. We met in the kitchen, the one place in the house that wasn't filled with sweaty, intoxicated teenagers. Maybe we had met in another life, if that's what Damon had really meant; brown eyes connected with his icy blue ones. It was almost as if time, and everyone around us, had stopped when the windows to our souls found each other.

It scared me, this feeling. My heart had never fluttered like that for anyone. Ever since I woke up in that ditch, Damon Salvatore was the only person I felt like I knew. Sure, once I heard Kara was my best friend, I clung to her like a small baby to their mother. She was the only person who hadn't treated me differently when I awoke from my coma. But Damon...for some odd reason, I felt like I knew him; like him and I were close at some point. Maybe I knew him before, when I would come visit my mother's hometown, and we would play together when I had the chance to, between fucking about with my cousins and seeing my elders. Although, Damon did look quite a bit older than me, so he couldn't have been one of the boys I played with as a child.

"Lana, right?" he had said when we got close enough to each other. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I knew I would say some shit that didn't make sense, or embarass myself to the point of making Damon think I was an illiterate, mentally disabled six-year old. "I just want to apologize for everything I was saying to you before. That must have been creepy for you."

I let out a laugh. What a guy; he was actually self-aware and knew when he was acting a very desperate man towards a teenage girl. Thankfully he knew how much of a pervert he was, though that did not excuse his behavior. My mind was swimming with thoughts about this man, but all came back to one road: his eyes.

"Damon?...yeah, Damon, I was definitely a little creeped out, but it's all good now," I had said back, trying to make the situation lighter. Maybe if I forgave him and made him feel good about himself, he would stop being such a freak and turn on the charm I knew he had. (There was no way he could look that good and not have the personality to back it up. I had never actually met a stupid beautiful person who didn't know how to use their charms for good or bad.)

"Maybe we can start over," he suggested, and I laughed again. If I were to date anyone in this godforsaken town, it would not be Damon Salvatore. Even though I just said he was the only one I had met since I woke up that made me feel okay inside. He made me actually feel at home with him, which didn't make sense since I was sure we hadn't met before. Wouldn't I remember a character like Damon?

He actually looked hurt by my laugh. I had to rapidly cover it up with a cough, but the damage was already done. "What I mean is you don't want me."

He raised his eyebrow. "I don't want you? And that means, what?"

"Exactly as it sounds. I have a lot of baggage, and I don't think you would want to deal with all of it."

This time it was his turn to laugh. "Oh, honey, I don't think you know about baggage. If either one of us has it, it's me."

I just smiled in response, no words leaving my mouth. If he wanted to argue with me, he could. But I wasn't about to argue with him. My real mission was to find Carly in the sea of teenagers, not argue with a man who claimed he was a vampire about who had a more fucked up past. At least I could go to bed easy without thinking too much of my chance encounter with an escaped mental patient hiding out in the biggest house in town.

Damon got the hint that I was done talking and bowed back out of the conversation. "I should get going, make sure none of these intoxicated teens haven't fucked up any of my expensive art. Enjoy the party, Lana."

With that, he left me to only my thoughts. I watched as he slunk out of the kitchen, almost too quickly, through the shadows of the light. He left me with more questions than when I saw him. When I was speaking to Matt, I had almost forgot about the curious man who claimed I was his true love at some point in the past, and there he had to come, again, leaving me with more questions than answers. He knew that I wouldn't be able to get him out of my mind. It was too much to think about to just forget about it.

Carly's grunt broke me out of my memories of last night, bringing me back to the reality of our situation. I looked over to find her smiling up at me from my bed, sparkle in her eyes. With the sun shining down on her features, rays of light peeking through the silk curtains that were already in the room, I got to see how beautiful Carly really was.

Her milk chocolate hair cascaded down her shoulders, loose beach waves falling just below her bosom. She was one of those rare creatures who had green-hazel eyes, instead of blue or brown, that mesmerized even the most beautiful of creatures. Her cheeks still held a little baby fat in them, looking like she had some gum in her cheeks or as if she had just been punched and the swelling was just going down. There was something so beautiful about her; maybe it was the fact that she was so genuine when she spoke and how she acted. She didn't play games with people, and I could actually appreciate that for what it was: honesty.

"I heard that you and Matt had a pretty good time last night," she said suggestively, winking her left eye. I furrowed my brows in response, confused at her innuendo.

"Meaning?"

"You guys made out, didn't you?"

I thanked her inwardly for her bluntness, happy that she didn't tiptoe around the bush like my feelings were on a glass shelf ready to break. Carly was a true person, I knew that, but it felt all the more for her to prove it to me. Now I really knew I could be friends with this person. Maybe even better friends with her than I was with Kara, only because my memory was the most shit thing there ever was.

I laughed, shaking my head, and turned to look in the full length mirror Auntie brought in sometime yesterday after I left. Just as I thought, I looked tired as all fuck. My outfit didn't match as well as I thought it would and my braids looked a little worse for wear, but my faux dreads pulled off the messy look. I hadn't washed my hair in a few months like dreads, even though I was supposed to wash my hair, I was too depressed to take care of myself properly.

"No, we didn't make out," I informed her softly, still staring at my reflection. I realized how vain I looked by talking to her while still looking at myself, but I didn't care much for appearances anymore. "We only talked, and I really feel like we vibed."

She raised her brows and winked at me, making me laugh again. This time, I turned around to face her again when I spoke. "Seriously, we only talked. But it's nothing really. I don't think I'm looking for a boy right now."

"Okay, but that's how love works," she tried, "it just hits you at random times. Unexpected times. Times you're 'not looking for a boyfriend.' Come on, Lana. Just give the boy a chance."

I shrugged. "I'm not going to not give him a chance. But I'm just saying, I'm not looking for a boyfriend right now."

"Okay, sure, you're not looking for a boyfriend right now. I get that."

We both knew she was lying straight through her teeth without any kind of remorse, but I didn't feel like calling out a new friend on her bullshit. Better to put up with it and have a friend than to have no friends at all—that was my motto at least.

Silence fell over us. I hadn't a clue what to say to her after she lied to me, as I didn't respond well to lying even though I did it more than I cared to admit. She didn't know what more to lie about, or she was thinking about how unbelievable her previous lie actually was. She probably knew that I knew that she knew she wasn't going to give up on trying to find me a boy.

I wanted to turn around and look at myself again. That was one thing I actually liked to do. I had this fear; this fear that I would forget everything around me, even myself. I wanted to get to know myself as much as I could before I did—if I did.

"Let's go to mine," she said suddenly. "I have something to show you."

Hello, guys, it's katherineismikaelson. I know it's been a long fucking time since I've been on this site, and those reasons are kind of personal, but I promise I will try to keep up on my stories again. I hope you enjoy this chapter and the next chapter I plan to post in the next few days.

Thank you everyone who is reading this story and I hope you enjoy the whole thing. I plan to answer fans, so leave your questions and predictions in the comments, or just anything in the comments really. I love feedback from you guys.

katherineismikaelson