AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is probably the shortest chapter of the entire story. Sorry.


It's been a total of three weeks now that Reese has lived in Mystic Falls. Each one of those days has been spent with either Bonnie and Caroline, Caroline and Stefan, all four of them together, or just Caroline by herself. And each one of those days, they either had lunch or dinner at the Grill where Reese had now become one of the regulars there, and she got to know a bit more about Matt. Bonnie had let her know that Matt knew all about the supernatural realm, even though he himself was fully human, so Reese let Matt know about her. Matt, being the kindhearted person he was, took the news and sat on it for a couple of days before feeling at ease with Reese once again.

Though she loved being in the company of the two vampires and her other witchy friend, Reese decided that she could use some time alone. There was a shop, Mystic Thrift, that she had seen on her first tour of the town that she'd always wanted to stop by but Caroline was always walking right by it.

So when Reese woke up on this beautiful Sunday afternoon, she cleaned herself up and left her house decked out in a fitted dark gray Bon Jovi graphic tee, a pair of fitted jean shorts, and a pair of gray high-top converse. Her hair fell in big loose curls around her face and a pair of black ray-bans shielded her eyes from the afternoon sun.

As Reese parked outside the thrift shop and got out, she grinned up at the seemingly out of place maroon building with white trimming. The streets were oddly bare, a few people sitting outside at a bakery down the street and a few walking towards the Grill. She pocketed her keys and made her way inside.

Bells jingled to alert the workers or worker of her entrance, and an elderly man in a black sweater vest with a white undershirt and khaki pants looked up from behind the counter. "Well, hello there!" He waved at her. "What can I help you with today?"

Reese smiled at the man as she took off her sunglasses and hung them on the neckline of her shirt. "Hello." She politely replied. "And I'm not sure yet. I think I'm going to look around and see what I find."

"Well alright, honey. Just holler if you need me."

"Will do." Reese smiled at him as he walked towards an open doorway and disappeared into the back room.

Turning her gaze on the small tables around her that's crowded with clothes (used and barely used), used books, jackets, sweaters, purses, and shoulder bags- Reese can't help but beam at the vibe of the place. No matter how much money she has, thrift stores will always be the place for her. You never know when you're gonna find an old record player and run across a great selection of vinyls. Or even an old-school boombox and some really great cassette tapes that no-one cherished anymore.

As Reese looks around a table that's filled with every sized snow globe that had every possible woodland creature, state landmark, or the name of a popular city- the bell above the front entrance jingle and in walks another customer.

Glancing up to see who had entered, Reese is surprised to find Caroline there. "What are you doing here?" Caroline asked as tried to hide her distaste for the store.

"Just looking around." Reese replied. "I like finding random objects to buy. It's kind of a hobby of mine."

"But you're loaded!" Caroline sounded surprised. "You could possibly buy out an entire shop here, hell even maybe multiple shops! Why stick to a lowly thrift shop?" She murmured her question lowly.

Reese would have taken offense but she knew that that's just the way Caroline was hard-wired. Shrugging, she turned to study the shelves off to the side. "It's something my mom and I used to do every Saturday morning. She loved thrift shops"

Caroline didn't say anything after that as she followed her friend around the tables. Reese suddenly stopped in her tracks, bending over to pick something up. When she turned around, Caroline saw that she had a ukulele in her hands that had tribal spirals on the body of it. When she glanced back up at Reese, she saw that Reese was smiling fondly at it. "Do you know how to play?"

"Mhm." She mumbled as she traced the tribal work at the bottom. "My mom taught me when I was little. I had my own but after my mom's passing, I flew into a rage and smashed it."

"Oh." Caroline smiled sadly. "Well, can you play something for me? People always say they know how to play when in actuality they suck so I won't believe you can actually play until I hear it for myself."

Reese chuckled lowly but ended up taking on Caroline's challenge. She played a couple of chords but hearing that it wasn't tuned properly to the sound she was looking for, Reese took a couple of minutes to tune it correctly. "Okay." She grinned as she held the ukulele properly. "Uh, don't laugh. This song should be played on an electric guitar but since I don't have one-"

"Oh, just sing already!" Caroline eagerly cut her off.

Reese bit her lip to keep from laughing as she started to play the chords, the semi-fast paced music echoing throughout the quiet shop.

"You got it all down, got it all down, down to a science.
Breaking hearts is what you do for fun, little one.
But see I wrote it all down, wrote it all down into a song
I'll break your heart in just three minutes now..
Look who won."

Reese grinned as the music flowed, her fingers easily playing the right chords as she relished in the feeling of singing her own song for someone. Caroline watched in awe as the blunt, sarcastic, and playful girl sprang to life in song form.

"Yeah, I'm moving on but that's the way it goes.
When you break my heart everybody knows-
don't pull that shit again."

Caroline giggled at Reese's words, her shoulders moving in rhythm with the beat.

"For me now but I'm building up, I can see that I've had enough of you.
I'm finally through.

And all I see in you is another mistake right over my shoulder.

Now I see who you are..

All I saw in you was a guy just looking for love,

now all I need is an apology..

but damn, that's too much!"

Caroline laughed outright now, clapping her hands and resting her chin atop her clasped hands as she watched Reese walk backwards still playing. The beat of the song was actually pretty catchy and Caroline caught herself dancing just the slightest around an amused Reese.

"Everybody's talking 'bout how you're not the guy
that you say you are with that deceiving little smile and your black hole of denial.

I'm not the least bit surprised that your whole wide world

is crashing down right before my eyes.

And all I see in you is another mistake right over my shoulder.

Now I see who you are..

All I saw in you was a guy just looking for love,

now all I need is an apology..

Is that too much?"

Reese continued to play the remaining song as she hummed the ending, her body swaying from side to side. She found Caroline beaming at her with sparkling eyes, her hands clasped beneath her chin. "Wow." Caroline laughed. "That was.."

"Brilliant!" Slow clapping caused Caroline and Reese to turn in the direction of the noise, the elderly owner of the shop praising Reese. "That is some amazing vocals you have there, darling. And some great energy."

Caroline nodded in agreement as she looped arms with Reese and started to drag her towards the front of the shop. "Thank you." Reese politely replied. "Um, how much for this?" She held up the ukulele and the man smiles at her.

"Whatever you want to give me for it. You have a beautiful voice that needs to be heard." He tells her.

Caroline nearly awws out loud and feels slightly guilty for talking down his store. Reese smiles fondly at him, picking up a handful of worn out band tees from the tables that look to be her size as she makes her way towards the front counter. As she places everything on the counter, Caroline's jaw drops open as Reese reaches into her back pocket, pulling out a thin wad of cash. Her jaw wouldn't have dropped if the wad of cash wasn't made up of hundred dollar bills.

Reese drops two hundred dollars atop her purchases and the owner looks completely baffled. "What? No, that's too much." He tries to push the money back towards her.

"It's fine." Reese grins and pushes back into his hands. "The ukulele is still in pretty good shape and I picked out about eight shirts. I'm just giving you your money's worth, sir'."

"I- I don't know what to say." The man caves. "Thank you." He says with such honesty that Reese feels suddenly compelled to hug the old man but she resists. As he packs up Reese's shirts in a plastic bag, Reese takes the ukulele just as it is and leaves as the owner calls out his thanks one last time.

As Reese tosses her bag of shirts in through the open window of her car, she hears Caroline chuckling behind her. "I can't believe you just dropped two hundred bucks in a thrift store."

"I can't help it." Reese laughs. "I really love these type of stores and plus, that old man was really sweet."

Caroline smirks as she shakes her head in amusement at her friend. "He was also correct, you know? You're pretty amazing and when you said you knew how to play, I didn't think you actually knew how to play."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Reese dead-pans.

"Yeah, well I didn't think you could sing either but damn, you're good." Caroline tells her. "Like, really good and that song was amazing! You wrote that, didn't you?"

"Yeah." Reese smiles gently. "Right before I turned seventeen."

"It was awesome." She pulls her friend into a brief hug. "And you should really think about singing at open mic night that the Grill holds every now and then."

"I don't know." Reese says. "Singing in front of a few people is totally fine but a whole bar?"

"Just think about it. Karaoke night is coming up! You can sing any song of your choosing and make a fool of yourself. No-one will care."

"I'll think about it." Reese assures her.

"Good." She grins. "Listen, Bonnie and I are going to visit her Mom tomorrow. You want to tag along?"

Reese weighs her options before politely declining. "No, thanks. I think I just want to lounge about my house."

"You're always lounging around your house." Caroline playfully huffs. "But if you change your mind, call one of us or text us. We're leaving in the morning."

Caroline starts walking backwards, smiling at her friend as Reese climbs down into her car. "I'll think about it but I'm pretty positive I won't be awake in the morning."

"As long as you think about it!" Caroline shouts over start-up of Reese's Camaro.


The song used for this chapter, that Reese apparently wrote, is called "Liar, Liar" by NeverShoutNever! I changed the word 'girl' to 'guy' and made it slightly shorter. Hope you enjoyed it.

Once again, sorry for the shortness but I needed to get the girls out of there so Stefan had a reason to hang out with Reese by himself.