November 23, 2015

Dear diary,

I ended up getting an A on that Chemistry exam. I've heard Caroline murmuring behind me, either into her own beard or into Bonnie's ear, that I should put all of that extensive Chemistry knowledge into discovering what reactions occurred in my brain that made me think that dating Stefan Salvatore would be a good idea. If she had said it to Bonnie, Bonnie had no to reaction to it. I've prayed no one had heard her, since Bonnie told he she hasn't said a word to anyone. Yet. I could face the entire school on this matter with the support of my friends, but with only half of the army I don't feel as strong and secure in my decision as I did when it was charged to one hundred percent.

I, on the other hand, think that I should put my extensive Chemistry knowledge into finding out why the hell am I seeing white feathers, not only floating in my neighbors bushes, but on my boyfriends back as well. But seeing them on his back, the tip of the wing protruding from his shirt, finally made me realize what they remind me of. Stefan is heavenly, some might even describe him as glorious, and he does have angelic features, but thinking about him in the frame of biblical creature is a bit too much.

My mind can stretch so far and so thin to accept the possibility of rebirth or reincarnation or whatever people call it, but it's impossible for me to accept something so inhumane. Something so out of this world. Those things belong in dystopian novels and movies, not in the real word, and not in my life. I'm a simple girl, I live in Mystic Falls, which is a fairly simple town, and I've always lead a simple life. I want to go to college, I want to find a job, I want to start a family of my own. I don't expect greatness from life, I want to leave my mark on the world, but I don't expect it to appear in History books fifty years from now. What I expect is simplicity, what I expect is happiness and love in its purest form - that has always been enough for me.

But lately I feel like, maybe, that's not what's expected from me, or meant for me. Lately, I feel like I'm meant for something more. Like I am more.

And that scares me.

I don't want to be more. I want to be enough.

I want to not be scared of my own existence.


"Stefan," I groan into his mouth. His name rolling off of my lips sounds like what happiness would look like if it had a physical form. "I really have to go now," my words collide with the soft skin in the corner of his lips.

At the sound of that, his hold on me tightens, and he squeezes me, pulling my body closer to his.

"What an ugly thing to say," he says each word between one of the six butterfly kisses he plants on my lips. "What an ugly though to bare," he makes a rhyme, which throws both of us into fits of ticklish giggles.

I have wanted him to stop kissing me so I can finally wiggle out of his arms and run into my house, fall into my bed and sleep for a week. But now that he had actually stopped, I almost start begging him for more. To kiss me again, one more time, maybe twice. Twice sounds better.

I almost beg him to kiss me endlessly, eternally, until the end of time. And beyond.

"I know," I exhale. I nuzzle my nose against his.

I hate this part, where we have to say goodbye. Where I have to detach myself from him, where I have to continue existing in time and space without him by my side. Sometimes, I wish I could materialize into air when he's not next to me. And I don't mean that in that I-would-die-without-him sappy, immature, teenage girl kind of way.. I mean it in a way in which you get so accustomed to being with someone that you forget what you did with your hands before you were holding theirs.

Which is funny, because I've been doing okay for the past 17 years without him. I knew what to do with my hands, they had their purpose.

Yes, I've been doing okay, but with him, I'm doing splendid. I'm discovering a whole new purpose of my hands. I never knew they could touch, squeeze, hold like this.

Humans are not made for empty spaces, or empty hearts. We have to fill ourselves with knowledge and emotion everywhere we go, and we have to fill ourselves with other humans as well. We're not self sufficient, we depend on the existence of other people - people who are like us, people who are nothing like us.

"We will see each other tomorrow, though," I try to console us both. "Well, today, since it's past midnight," I point out with a smile on my face.

I throw my arms around his neck and give him one last kiss. Our lips collide awkwardly, like when you're trying to kiss a person who's already intent on kissing you, their lips taking an entirely different approach from yours. Thankfully, we get a hang of it pretty quickly.

His fingertips sneak under the hem of my shirt and graze my skin, making me shiver. The goosebumps appear under my skin.

"I'm going to miss you," he says as I detach myself from him. I make a first step, because if I don't, we're going to end up standing in front of my house like this until morning.

When I pull myself completely away from him, my body starts aching for him as it would ache for some essential part of me, like an arm or a leg.

"Drive safely," is all I say because I know that if I say anything else to that, I'm going to fall right back into his arms.

I can't wait until I can kiss him in the daylight, in public, for everyone to see. I can't wait for the darkness to stop being our safe place, like we're monsters under the bed who can't be seen during the day.

I can't wait to find out how his lips taste bathed in sunlight in the middle of the town square.

He takes his helmet and fastens it around his head. "I will," he says before straddling his bike.

I kiss my palm and blow one more kiss his way as he drives away from me. I watch him until he disappeared behind the curve of the other street, where my eyes can't reach. Which is when I run inside.

I go straight for the stairs leading to my bedroom, but a familiar voice half yelling, half whispering my name puts me to a halt. I freeze in place, and so does the blood in my veins.

I turn around and follow the direction in which my mothers voice came from, praying that she hadn't seen me with a boy. Praying that she hadn't seen me riding on a motorcycle. With a boy. Whom I kiss. Who kisses me back.

I step into the kitchen, where I can see the outline of her shape in the dark, only because she's standing near the window, her body covered in silk and moonlight.

"What are you doing in the dark?" I try to find the light switch on the wall, but my fingers can't seem to find anything except the vast space of our kitchen tiles. You would think that by now I know where the switch is by memory.

"I couldn't sleep," her voice shakes as she speaks. "So I came downstairs to make myself tea."

I finally find the switch, and when I press it, our kitchen lights outshine the moon. My mother wears a serious, stoic expression, but somewhere deep inside her facial lines I recognize the sadness and pain she's trying to hide from either me, or herself.

"That was fifteen minutes ago," her voice sounds harsh, but quivery. My mother is a collection of paradoxes right about now. "You know, you have school tomorrow," she feels the need to point out, even though she knows I'm very well aware of that.

"I know," I gulp, ignorant to how to react to this version of my mother seeing as I've never met her before.

"You've never had a curfew, because there was never a need for one. You were always a responsible child," her voice becomes more harsh than quivery, an equivalent to a light slap on the cheek.

"It's not that late," a need to defend myself overwhelms me, and my voice rises like a phoenix inside of my mouth. I can feel the ashes on the insides of my cheeks. "When I go to movies with Bonnie and Caroline, I don't come home sooner than this."

She fixes her look on me, squinting, as if she has an X-ray vision for my thoughts. "Well, you weren't with Bonnie and Caroline tonight, were you?" she snaps.

All my prayers go to waste. She had seen me riding on a motorcycle with my arms pressed around my secret. She had seen me kiss it until it materialized in front of her eyes in the shape of a teenage boy.

I clench my jaw. "No, I wasn't."

"You said that you're going to the library." She sounds angry. Is this how mothers of the children who do wrong sound like?

"And I did," I look down, ashamed of.. conveniently avoiding the truth. Saying half truth, half lies. Finishing my sentences inside of my mouth instead of out loud. "I just didn't stay there the entire time."

Silence falls between us, gross, heavy silence, growing continuously until it steals all of our air.

"Who is he?"

I look up at her. I think about lying. I could make a good, convincing lie. A boy I've been seeing. Someone I have fun with. A waste of time. Guilty pleasure.

But I don't want him to be a lie, not anymore, and especially not to my mother.

"My boyfriend," I say, and her cheekbones twitch as many times as there are letters in the word boyfriend. "His name is Stefan."

"Why didn't you tell us?" she sounds angry, and she sounds hurt, which means that she's not displeased by the fact that I have a boyfriend. She's displeased by the fact that I haven't mentioned him to her.

"Because he was supposed to stay a secret," I say honestly.

"Why?" the lines of her face go up, squeezing, pinching her eyes in a confused matter.

"Because he's not the most popular person in school," I try to explain to her something she can't even begin to understand.

"Why? Is he dangerous?" she has so many why's stored inside of her mouth, and I'm too tired to answer them all. But then I remember Stefan and my eyes shoot wide open.

"No!" I raise my voice, because I don't want that word stuck in her head next to his image. I don't want to have to convince her that he's not torturing puppies or burying bodies in his back yard. I don't want these thoughts residing in her mind. My mother has always been susceptible to rumors, they could always find a safe place to stay behind her teeth, but never a home. "He's a sacrificial lamb."

She starts shaking her head, either to clear it or to get rid of my confusing words. "You're making no sense."

"Mom, every school needs a sacrificial lamb! Someone who will stand idly by while the popular kids make rumors about them until other kids start believing them and then join in!" I say, frustrated by her ignorance. Angry because I have to remind myself of my failures, angry for not putting a stop to it sooner, angry at myself for being friends with people who had hurt him more than he would care to admit.

"But why do they do that?" she asks, as if she's from another planet where cruelty and hatred do not exist. As if she was never a 17 year old girl in high school. "And why does he let them?"

"They do it because it gives them power. To make sure they never end up in his position. And he lets them because he doesn't care."

After those words leave my mouth, she stays quiet for a while, pondering on them.

When she speaks up again, the tone of her voice changes alongside her expression. It becomes warmer, but more concerned. "Were you ever mean to him?" she asks, her voice quivering in a different way, quiver born out of fear that she had raised a daughter capable of hurting someone in that matter.

"No," I say calmly, because I find her question justified. "But I didn't do anything to stop it either."

She either hasn't heard anything after the word no, or she pretends that she hasn't, because she jumps straight to another question. "But you know someone who did?"

"Yes," I admit. "And that's why he had to stay a secret."

Her entire composure, alongside her expression, falters, and she hurries towards me. She throws her arms around my shoulders and pulls me into a hug.

"Oh, my sweet baby girl," she whispers, caressing my hair.

I didn't even realize how much I needed this until she had done it. My mothers support. For Stefan to stop being invisible to her.

I bury my face in the crook of her shoulder, and I revel in this moment.


Mom texted me to come to The Grill as soon as the school is over. They probably need another pair of hands.

If it were any other day I'd probably groan or complain or try to see if there's any way to get out of it, but after a day of watching Caroline study Stefan like he's a lab animal, and trying to avoid her look, I couldn't wait to get out of that place. The way she kept staring at me crept me out - like she's trying to burn his skin off with her look to peek under it, out of sheer curiosity. Or boredom.

When I walk into the restaurant, there's no one but two businessman giving an evil eye to the family with three screaming children seated not so far away from them. So my parents probably don't need me to help out, and all of a sudden my mothers text fills my bones with fear.

I frown, because my father is usually very careful about placing the businessmen from every other group of people. He even has a special corner for them, which is now full of noise and.. wait, is that kid drinking vinegar?

"Daisy, I know you're new here, and this is partly my fault for not telling you sooner," I hear my father lecture someone whom I can't see behind his frame. "But we have a seating schedule. You can't set people who are here for a business meeting next to a family with children."

When I come closer to the counter, I see a small girl, with her head bowed down in shame, standing in front of my father. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Gilbert," she says with a teary voice. "I made a mistake. I wasn't thinking. I swear it won't happen again." She's staring at her hands, playing with her intertwined fingers.

My father is not a scary man, and I've never seen anyone this afraid of him.

"It's okay," he tries to console her. He's probably as confused as I am. His tone of voice isn't even sharp, everyone always say he has a voice perfect for a professor. "Like I said, it is partly my fault, I should have told you."

"Dad?" I decide to intervene before he goes ahead and makes her cry by being too nice to her.

He twirls on his heel in my direction and a smile beams up on his face as soon as his eyes fall on me. "Elena!" he exclaims my name, as if he's surprised to see me here.

"Is everything alright?" I ask, sneaking a peek at the girl standing behind him who had dared to raise her head a little at the sound of my voice.

"Oh, yes!" his smile widens, the skin around his lips threatening to crack. "Darling, meet our new waitress. Daisy," he presses his palm against my back and pushes me forward. "This is my daughter, Elena."

I stretch my hand towards her and when she raises her head, I almost gasp. She's beautiful - beautiful in a way people shouldn't be. Get-away-from-my-boyfriend kind of beautiful. She's tiny, tiny like a fairy, and her skin is as fair as snow, but her hair is as dark as coal. She has a set of huge, piercingly blue eyes, nose as small as a button, and her lips are so tiny that they almost seem invisible.

But I guess that, what makes her truly beautiful, is that she has no freaking idea how beautiful she really is. She holds herself as if she just crawled out of a cave and can't get accustomed to the sun.

"Hello, I'm Elena," I say, still in awe.

My politeness seems to delight her, because she pulls her small, but full lips, into a smile. "Hello, I'm Daisy," she takes my hand and shakes it lightly.

When she smiles her entire face becomes brighter, like she shines from within, but a storm breaks in her eyes like all hell broke lose somewhere inside her mind.

"Your mother needs us in the back," he says, trying to tell me that it's time to go.

"Right," I nod, allowing him to lead me to the back room. "Dad, what happened to Millie?" I whisper in case Daisy can still hear us.

His hands are still on my shoulders, his fingertips hovering above my collar bones. "Your mother and I decided that she's not the best asset to The Grill."

I grin. Smart decision.

When we enter the back room, I notice my mother sitting by the desk, filling out some forms.

"Oh," she gasps once she hears the doors opening and sees us coming in, "You're here! Wonderful!"

She jumps to her feet, a playful smile dancing on her lips.

"You call, I come.." my father lets go of me and moves to stand by my mothers side. "What's going on?" I look at them, my eyes continuously moving from my mother to my father.

"Well, me and your father have been talking - "

"She was talking, I was listening," my father interrupts her in the middle of the sentence to make that clear. She clears her throat with a cough. I shift my weight from one leg to another.

"I've told him that you have a boyfriend."

My cheeks flush. My father knows that I have a boyfriend. A new feeling. Weird feeling. Discomfort stirs inside of me.

"And we want you to invite him over for dinner."

Oh for the love of..


AN:

1. Stefan is not lying to Elena.