"Hey, hey! Bye, bye, bye!" I sang as Elena pulled into her driveway.

Elena laughed and got out of the car. "You remember how we used have the dance to this song memorized?"

"Used to?" I challenged, getting out of the car to go unload the pizza. I turned and did the signature "bye, bye, bye" move, and Elena almost fell over laughing.

I joined in as I grabbed the three pizza boxes.

"I can't believe you still remember that," she said, unlocking the door.

"Girl, I still remember the 'Toxic' dance," I said. Elena laughed.

Bonnie popped out from the kitchen with a weird look. "What did I miss?" she asked.

"Just Caroline trying to bring back the early 2000s," Elena said, putting the movies on the coffee table and took the pizzas from me to add them to the coffee table.

"Hi, Bon," I said, awkwardly waving.

Bonnie smiled.

"Damon!" Elena yelled suddenly, causing Bonnie and me to jump. "You better not be in this house!"

"He let me in and headed out," Bonnie said. "He said there's some kind of boys' night going on after they close the bar tonight."

Elena rolled her eyes. "Of course there is."

"Can we eat please?" I asked. "I've haven't eaten since lunch, and that pizza smell took over the entire ride over here."

Bonnie and Elena laughed, but we went to the kitchen.

"God, Bonnie, there's only three of us," Elena said, looking at the spread on the kitchen island. Chips, cookies, candy-everything that was necessary for a girls' night.

"Sorry," Bonnie said. "Everything just looked so good."

"I'm not complaining," I said, rushing forward to open a bag of barbeque chips.

"Good to know you still love to eat," Bonnie said with a laugh. She held out her hand for some chips, and I handed her the bag.

"You can take girl out of Mystic Falls, but you can't take the Mystic Falls appetite out of the girl," I said, grabbing a few more chips out of the bag.

We all laughed.

"At least two of us are still able to eat whatever we want," Elena said, gesturing to Bonnie and me. "I've gained like ten pounds this last month alone."

"You can't tell, Elena," Bonnie said. "You're still crazy thin."

Elena rolled her eyes. "This really is like high school. One of us complaining about our weight."

"All we need is one of us having relationship problems, and another of us bitching about our parents," I said.

"I feel like those have both always been you," Elena said with a fake questioning look.

"Ha ha," I said sarcastically, bumping her hip with mine.

Elena laughed. "You guys grab the snacks, and I'll grab the wine," she said, going over to the wine rack and grabbing three bottles. "Everyone wants their own right?"

"Of course," Bonnie said, wiggling her eyebrows.

"I think this night is going to be amazing," I predicted. We all smiled.

"I mean, why hasn't he proposed?" Bonnie asked. She took a long drink of her wine and finished off the bottle she and Elena were sharing.

"My brother is stupid," Elena said. She pulling the cork out of another bottle of sweet red, sloshing a little on the floor, and danced to hand it to Bonnie.

You would think our tolerance would have built up over the years, but we were all smashed. Elena went first after just a half bottle. Bonnie was next after her first bottle, and I was next after a bottle and a half. However, now I was now working on finishing my second bottle, and Elena and Bonnie had just opened a third. We had also eaten two full pizzas. We were champions.

"I looooove him," Bonnie said. She stuffed a few Skittles in her mouth. "Does he not love me?"

"Of course he does," Elena said, sitting down hard in the middle of Bonnie and me. "He's just stupid."

"He's so much better than when he was with Vicki Donovan," I said. "I actually like this Jeremy." Elena swiped my bottle of Moscato and took a drink.

"I just thought after we bought the house…," Bonnie said.

"Maybe Rebekah threatened him not to propose to your after her wedding," I said darkly.

"So you still hate Rebekah," Bonnie said.

"I'll hate her forever," I predicted.

"Rebekah came in the shop today and gave Caroline a stern talk," Elena told Bonnie in a stage whisper.

"More like she threatened me if I ruined her wedding," I said.

"She wants me to cater it," Elena said, picking apart a brownie.

"She asked us to be bridesmaids!" Bonnie said in shock. "How can you do both?"

"I'll die," Elena said without blinking.

Bonnie and I giggled.

"Stefan tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn't hear it," Elena said. "She's already bridezilla, and they don't want to have the wedding until May."

"That's," I stopped to count, "six months from now."

"And she wants to have the groomsmen suits specially made," Elena said. "Damon and I don't know how we're going to afford it."

I knew Elena was drunk because she would never talk like this.

"Make her pay for it," I said. "The Mikaelsons are loaded."

"Speaking of the Mikaelsons," Bonnie said. "I saw you driving around with Kol a few nights ago."

"Ooooo," Elena sounded.

"You're not going there again are you?" Bonnie asked.

"Ew. No," I said quickly. I took another long drink. Maybe the drunker I got the better this situation would get.

"So are you, like, what?" Bonnie asked.

"Nothing," I said.

Bonnie and Elena looked at each other and then at me with disbelieving looks.

"I guess, we're, like, friends, or something, okay?" I said.

"Friends with Kol Mikaelson?" Elena asked.

"Is this the same Kol that you hoped 'got his balls chopped off'?" Bonnie asked.

"It's just...I mean, he's...It's not like that anymore," I whined.

They both started laughing.

"What?" I asked.

"Kol Mikaelson doesn't have friends," Elena said.

"He has me," I said indignantly.

The two shared a skeptical look.

"He's not that bad," I said. "He was really nice to me when I first got back into town."

First with the sex, then with the hug. Different comfort for different situations.

Bonnie and Elena directed their skeptical looks towards me.

"Leave me alone," I sulked, leaning back on the couch and crossing my arms.

"We just don't want to see you hurt again," Bonnie said. "You remember what he was like in high school? He hasn't changed."

"But I have," I said.

Bonnie and Elena looked at each other, and I knew they saw their opening.

"So, what have you been up to for the last five years, Caroline?" Bonnie asked.

I bit my lip. There was no getting out of this now. I had to talk about it. My only option was to storm out, and that would make things worse instead of better.

"How long have you been planning to ask?" I asked with a short, humorless laugh.

"You can't blame us for being curious, Caroline," Elena said. "You've been gone for five years, and you randomly come back into town."

I looked at them with their worried, curious expressions. These two girls were my best friends in high school, and Elena had only become a better friend since I moved back. If I could trust these two girls, whom could I trust?

"Well, you know that I got my full scholarship to NYU," I began.

I noticed Bonnie grabbing the bowl of popcorn like she was getting ready to watch a really intense movie. She had no idea.

"My four years at college were amazing," I said. "I loved it. I loved the city, and I loved my classes. I graduated at the top of my class with a degree in communications. I got an entry-level job at a publicity company, which was basically like party planning and talking, and everything seemed perfect."

"You know I moved up there with Tyler," I continued. "We were together while I was at NYU, and he was at Columbia. I thought everything between us was great. After we both graduated, we got an apartment in Soho, which was closer to his work than mine, but I didn't care. I loved him."

I got up and began pacing. I didn't even look at Elena and Bonnie because I was worried their expressions would break me down.

"I was almost five months into my job when I noticed that Tyler was having to stay later and later at work," I said. "I didn't think anything about it because lawyers work all the time, and they make their interns work with them if not longer. I thought it was normal."

"Then, I finally got a big project at work, and they sent me to LA for two weeks," I said. "I was so excited. You know that I've always loved Hollywood. I was finally getting somewhere. However, the client hated me, and everything I did for him. I got sent back to New York after just a week. I went home and found Tyler with another of the interns, Hayley."

Bonnie grasped. "Sorry," she apologized quietly.

Elena motioned me to go on.

"Hayley told me that they had been together for months," I said, my voice cracking. I tried not to cry. "Tyler just didn't want to move out of our apartment, so he didn't break up with me. But I made him move out, so I had to pay for a $2000 a month studio apartment by myself instead of splitting it with him.

"After that, I was a mess," I said. "I took a week off of work, and when I got back, I found out they fired me because of my work in LA. I tried to explain that it wasn't my work that was the problem but the client. That obviously didn't work, and I didn't even get a positive reference."

"New York is an absurdly expensive city. I hadn't been able to save anything. So I had two weeks before I had to ask my landlord for an extension on getting my rent, but he had always liked Tyler more than me. He told me I had a week to get out before he rented it out to someone else.

"I didn't have anywhere else to go," I said. "I had no choice, but to come home. I called my mom and told her I needed a place to stay, and I asked Stefan to pick me up at the airport. I had kept Stefan updated on this entire situation, so he wasn't surprised when I told him I was coming home."

"That's my story," I said with a shrug.

There was not even a moment before Elena and Bonnie engulfed me with hugs.

"Oh my God, Caroline!" Bonnie said.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Elena said.

I couldn't help it. I started to cry.

"I left thinking I was so much better than this town and the people in it," I cried. "But you guys have done so much better than me and have fantastic lives. I'm so jealous of you."

"Are you kidding?" Bonnie asked, pulling back.

"Our lives aren't that great," Elena said.

"Yeah," Bonnie agreed. "I have a boyfriend that won't commit."

"Damon and I have almost worked our way into debt with the restaurant and the bakery and the house renovations," Elena said.

"And I've never been out of Virginia," Bonnie added.

"I had to get my appendix out two months ago," Elena said. "What kind of adult has to get their appendix taken out?"

I laughed through my tears. This was what true friends did. They ragged on themselves to make you feel better. I pulled them back into a hug.

"I'm so sorry that I didn't keep in touch," I said.

"It's a two way street," Elena said. "We didn't either."

"But we're here now," Bonnie said. "We're all here."

"Best friends forever," I said, holding a pinkie out to both of them. We all smiled and connected pinkies.

"Best friends forever," they repeated. For the first time, I truly believed it.

A/N: So now you know Caroline's story, and why she returned to Mystic Falls. Sorry, guys, but I'm in the camp that believes something happened between Hayley and Tyler, don't you agree? But, anyways, hope you enjoyed girls' night and some back story. Review, if you'd like!