The Damsel in Distress Diaries
Chapter 4: Let's Talk about Sex and Ex-Girlfriends
A/N: I hope you guys enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. While doing so I listened to One of the Boys by Katy Perry (Sidney and I definitely don't share the same taste in music) and Mind Reader by Dustin Lynch.

"An animal attack?" I asked the next afternoon at soccer practice, repeating what Madison Crull had told me about Vicki Donovan's episode the night before. "They're blaming it on an animal attack?"

Madison nodded as the two of us ran sprints across the soccer field, our fellow midfielder, Sutter McCreevey tailing along closely behind us. "That's what my mom said." Madison would know. Her mom was one of the best doctors at Mystic Falls Hospital, after all.

"That's definitely what it looked like to me," Sutter added, coming up on my right. "I was right up next to that table." She grinned cheekily. "Corbin and I were hooking up when Sid's brother started screaming."

Madison gasped in excitement for Sutter. "Get out," she said, squealing when Sutter nodded in affirmation of what had happened last night. She and Corbin had been running on pure sexual tension for the past two years. It was about time, and I said so.

"What about you and Andrew Deveraux?" Madison asked in reply to my statement. "Anything happen?"

"Unfortunately, no," I said, biting my lip when I remembered what I had seen on my way into my Economy class that day: Andrew leaning over Anastasia's shoulder as she laughed at something he was telling her. I knew I was probably just being paranoid, but it had just looked… suspicious to me, I guessed.

I shook my head to clear it and pumped my legs harder, pushing ahead of Madison and Sutter by a few feet. "I got distracted," I called back to them, nearly out of breath from the exercise. Soccer conditioning was rough. "There was some hot guy by the trail head that I started talking to." Damon- hot but not an option for dating. He was too creepy, but Madison and Sutter didn't need to know that, they just needed to know that Andrew and I weren't any close to getting together than we had been before the party… and that was just depressing.

"Anyway," Sutter called, pulling the conversation back onto Vicki Donovan. "Yeah, Vicki was attacked by an animal. I saw the bite. Whatever it was took a huge chunk out of her neck."

I wrinkled my nose. "Gross."

"Yeah, I guess. It's a cool story though," Sutter said.

We didn't get to talk much more about it that afternoon though, as Coach kept us too tired to talk for the rest of practice and I had to rush back into my clothes and into my car, having promised Caroline that I would help her, Elena and Bonnie with folding fliers for the Night of the Comet festival that night.

"They're informational brochures," Caroline told me, shoving a part of the stack in my direction after I had ordered my usual iced tea and settled into my seat at the table on the patio of the Mystic Grille. "Just stuff about the comet's history and its impact on the town and stuff. I don't know, Mrs. Fell just wants us to fold them."

So we did. And as we folded, the subject somehow turned to Elena's fluffy and fuzzy relationship with one hot hunk of boy named Stefan Salvatore- or more precisely why the hell she hadn't f*cked him yet.

"I mean, it's simple!" Caroline insisted, smacking her palms flat against the table top we were sitting around. "Boy likes girl, girl likes boy- sex! Just… Just jump his bones already!"

I snorted into the straw of my iced tea, sipping so hard I was on the verge of a brain-freeze. "And now we know why teenage pregnancy is up five-percent," I joked lamely. I shot Elena a sideways glance and wondered whether or not I should tell the others about how I had run into Stefan trying to sneak out of our house at four in the morning the night before.

He had insisted that he and Elena had just been talking, after having scared the bejeebus out of me while I had been fixing a glass of water in the dark kitchen after another one of my nightmares. I had asked Elena about it that morning, and she had told me it was exactly what Stefan had said: just talking. I wasn't so sure, but I knew she wouldn't want Bonnie and Caroline to know about it, so I kept quiet and folded up another flier.

"Caroline," Bonnie started, in that I-want-to-hear-more-because-it's-funny-but-Elena-is-really-sensitive-so-shut-up voice she used whenever Caroline said something that made Elena all bashful, but for the first time ever, Elena wouldn't let her finish.

"No," Elena said, getting to her feet and tugging on the caramel-colored leather jacket that I had passed down to her the winter before. "No, she's right."

"I'm right?" Caroline repeated incredulously. She grinned then and preened in her seat. "Would you look at that, I'm right!"

Elena gave her a tight-lipped smile. "Don't get used to it, Care," she joked. She glanced at me then and took the kind of deep breath that pushed her shoulders back until she looked like a ballerina. "But Caroline's right, I need to… to take life by the reigns and… and stop being such a wallflower." She gave the cheeky grin that I hadn't seen since before the crash, the one that I had missed, and continued, "I'm gonna go over to the Salvatore Boarding House, and I am going to hook up with him."

My eyes widened. "Yeesh, Elena," I hinged. "God, you're just gonna jump in the sack with him?"

Elena smacked me in the arm with her worn wallet before tucking it into her purse, making me yelp in pain. "God, Sid! No!" she shrieked, attracting several looks from everyone else sitting out on the porch, which made her blush and say in a quieter voice, "Not that kind of hook up, the boyfriend-girlfriend hookup."

"O-oh." I laughed sheepishly and bit my lip. "Sorry. Yeah, that kind. I'm cool with that kind."

But was I? The truth was, Stefan had grown on me, a little bit. I didn't trust him completely, but, I reminded myself, in the end it wasn't my decision to make. If Elena wanted to put her emotions on the line again and "hook up" with him, then it was my duty as her sister to support her, no matter what I thought the end result was going to be.

I regretted that decision the second she asked me to drive her to the Boarding House, and I regretted it even more when we were rolling up the gravel driveway, Elena having guilted me into taking her.

The Salvatore Boarding House was creepy to say the least. Dark green ivy climbed up the side of a sprawling, four story, red brick and dark stone mansion. Light reflected off of the many, stained windows dotted across the face of the house, but even that wasn't enough to get rid of the hundreds of shadows surrounding the Boarding House from the close-knit forest. There was a covered, wrap-around, mahogany front porch that probably would have been really nice to watch sunrises or take pictures from or something, and before I could blink, Elena was already standing on it, hand raised to slam the door-knocker.

She didn't hit it that hard, but the door must have been already ajar or something because it swung open with a creak I could hear from where I was standing next to the car. Elena stared in shock at the open door for a moment before squaring her shoulders and stepping in.

"'Lena!" I hissed, rushing forward and grabbing her by the wrist before she could get her other sneaker over the threshold. She turned to me with eyebrows raised. "Elena, you can't just go waltzing into someone's house without an invitation."

Elena shrugged and cocked her head at the front door. "It's open," she stated, with plenty of duh in her voice. "And it's a boarding house. They probably get people walking in all the time."

"Yeah, but you can't just… you can't just walk into someone's house like that- Elena!"

True to pre-accident form, she ignored me and walked through, leaving me no other option but to follow her because I sure as hell wasn't going to just let my little sister waltz into what looked like a house straight out of a slasher flick… without me, that is.

If I thought the outside of the house was from a slasher movie, than the inside was straight out of a 1920's vampire film. There was stained, chestnut, immaculate wood everywhere, gleaming in the dim light of a black, cast iron chandelier hanging from a chain from the vaulted, rafter-crossed ceiling four stories above our heads. Oil paintings of the Salvatores' ancestors hung from the walls, and woven rugs from some far-off country dotted the floor. The furniture was all either dark-stained wood or dark-stained leather, with no throw pillows or blankets in sight. Hard-cut crystal glasses of brandy and some other dusty liquid were set on a rolling bar behind the couch, and in every direction I turned I could see shadows and darkness and secrets. If I weren't so terrified of an awkward conversation, I would have been chomping at the bit to explore.

"Elena, let's go," I tried again, but she ignored me and called out, "Hello? Stefan?"

There was a noise from behind us. I whirled on the heel of my boot and shrieked loudly and shrilly at the crow now fluttering up and down in the doorway, cawing at us and screeching. Black feathers were flying everywhere, and the noise was so loud my heart leapt in my throat as I stumbled back, crying, "Oh my God!" over and over and over again until the door finally slammed shut (only later would I realize that neither Elena nor I had touched it). Elena and I both whirled around, and I screamed again when I found myself met with a black cotton-clad, sculpted chest (six pack, I registered blankly) and looked up to see Damon staring down at me, eyes wide and pupils dilated.

I let out a shaky breath and stepped back so we weren't nose-to-nose anymore. "Damon," I breathed. "Oh my God, that was scary. Do crows like to follow you around or something?"

"Yes," he answered immediately. "Why are you here?"

I opened my mouth and then shut it, biting my lip as an automatic reaction and then saying, "I'm here with my sister, Elena… Elena!" I said suddenly, remembering that the two didn't know each other yet. "Elena, this is hot cemetery guy, Damon. Damon, this is my little sister, Elena."

"You think I'm hot?" Damon asked with a cheeky smirk in my direction, not even looking at Elena as he shook her hand, although he seemed a little bit taken aback when he finally laid eyes on her, for what reason I couldn't fathom but didn't care much about.

"Uh, hi," Elena said awkwardly, making him blink and smile charmingly, if a little fakely. "I'm Elena, like Sidney said. Um… Sorry for barging in like that but the door was…" She pointed a thumb back at the now-closed door and then explained, "Well, the door was open, and then this crow showed up and… Yeah." She nodded awkwardly. "Anyway, I'm looking for Stefan Salvatore-"

"My younger brother," Damon interrupted, making my eyes widen in surprise. Damon was Stefan's older brother? Stefan had said he didn't have a brother! But wait, no he hadn't.

"None that I talk to…"

So Stefan and Damon weren't on good terms then? I couldn't even imagine that. Elena and I were close- so close, closer than either of us were with Jeremy. What had happened between Damon and Stefan, then?

"God, you remind me of her so much," Damon commented suddenly. I blinked and paid attention to the conversation again. He was staring at my sister. "I- I'm sorry, it's just… It's uncanny."

"Wh-Who?" Elena asked. "I'm sorry, but what are you talking about?"

"Katherine," Damon explained, casting his eyes down and taking a sip of what was probably whiskey from the glass he was holding that I hadn't noticed until now. "Stefan's ex-girlfriend. Died in a fire. Tragic. Seems like it was just yesterday."

My mouth opened slightly, and I shut it with an audible snap, biting on my lip hard enough to draw blood. My teeth weren't that sharp though, so I didn't actually bleed, but… Well, you get the picture.

"Elena," another boy's voice said suddenly. I glanced up and saw Stefan had come out of a door that probably lead to the kitchen. "Sidney. What are you two doing here?"

Elena nodded stiffly, and replied, "Looking for you actually, but"- she angled her head toward the front door- "I think we'd better go."

"Yeah, you should," Stefan muttered, glaring daggers at Damon, not even looking at Elena.

"Okay then," she said quietly. "Come on Sidney." And I mumbled a quiet good bye to Damon, who was staring at his younger brother in amusement, and nodded at Stefan, and followed Elena out the door and down the porch and into the car and started it up, and as I backed down the driveway, she told me, "I don't want to talk about it," and so we didn't.