The Damsel in Distress Diaries
Chapter 10: Royally Screwed, Thy Name is Sidney
A/N: Fair warning, there is a lot of cursing this chapter. Proceed with caution. On a lighter note (not really), I recommend listening to Heart of Stone by Iko for the entirety of this chapter. And since I'm on spring break at the moment, you can expect maybe one or two more chapters this week. Also, to read a sneak peek of next time, leave a review or try to find the A Very Potter Musical reference in this chapter. Hope you enjoy!

"Sidney, I'm a vampire."

I wish I could say that I had done what any sane person would do in this situation and scream- or laugh because- haha, bitch no way in hell, you belong in a fucking mental institution, but damn it… I knew that Damon was telling the truth. As fucked up as it was, (as fucked up as he was) I knew, saw it in the burning, resigned intensity of his gunmetal-blue eyes, that he was telling the truth.

Vampires- monsters- were real.

Half of me wanted to faint, the other half of me wanted to throw up.

Instead, with a giant shudder that racked my whole body, I choked back the vomit, the revulsion, the horror, the attack, the blood, and I straightened my spine, forced the tears away, and whispered, "I need to get my family home."

And then louder, because Elena was half watching me and half hugging Jeremy but obviously didn't hear: "I need to get my family home."

I saw Elena pause, frown, scrunch up her perfectly-plucked eyebrows, say, "Sidney, I don't think you can-"

"I can drive, Elena," I interrupted, stumbling to my feet, shoving away Damon's hand when he tried to help me up. I refused to look at him- couldn't look at him. "I need to drive."

Elena looked like she was about to argue, but I wasn't about to let her, because I wasn't so much horrified and freaked-the-fuck-out anymore, as much as I was mother fucking pissed and Elena was going to fucking get it when we got home for not telling me-

"Sidney, really," Stefan said, strong and silent and for the first time I could really see how old he was- "you should be having a panic attack right now. Driving really isn't the best idea at the moment."

I glared at him- full on glared, which I didn't do very often but really seemed to make an impact because Stefan obviously got what I was trying to say- but didn't know how to- and nodded, glancing at me before nodding at me again.

"I am taking my siblings home," I said in a shaking, I-am-trying-so-fucking-hard-not-to-scream-right-now voice, "and when I get there, you are going to tell me everything."

I stared at Elena (innocence, pleading, and hot chocolate), Stefan (angst, chivalry, and smoke), and Damon (fire, brimstone, and vampire-douche-ery) each in turn before digging my car keys out of the waist band of my ballet skirt and limping over to Jeremy's side. "Come on," I whispered in his ear, and he nodded numbly, shooting one last glance at the decaying corpse (that was not Vicki's body, because Vicki Donovan sure as hell wasn't a monster) before following me back into the haunted house, Elena on our heels.

It was like something out of a nightmare. The black lights still danced and shone, people still laughed and screamed (and I wanted to do that with them because oh my actual fuck, vampires exist), there was still fake blood everywhere, and I wanted to throw up again.

Elena grabbed my blood-soaked shoulder once we were in the parking lot, pulled me aside, and said, "Sidney, are you sure you're okay to drive?"

I didn't look at her. "Yes," I replied, slowly, carefully, the words feeling strange in my mouth.

(Read: No, I am not. But I'm pretty much absolutely sure that if I don't concentrate on something normal at the moment I am going to need to go to the mental asylum and that would just be the perfect way to end this perfect night, wouldn't it?)

I didn't wait to see what Elena's reaction was, and instead hopped into the car, stared at the keys in my bloody, stinging hands for a long second before starting the engine, listening for the tell-tale snaps of two seat belts buckling, and pulling out of the parking lot and down the crowded Main Street as sanely (read: sanely), as I could.

"Sidney-" Elena tried again.

"Elena!" I inhaled shakily, pulled up to a stop sign, closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and started breathing again. "Elena," I said again, quietly, "please don't. We can- trust me, we are- going to talk about this when we get home, but our little brother is currently sobbing his eyes out in the back seat"- (and the fact that Jeremy didn't kick the back of my seat at that was a testament to the fact that Vicki Donovan had really screwed him up)- "and I am this close to having a mental break down, so please, please, for the love of God, just don't."

And she didn't, and I was grateful, I think, so I scowled and concentrated with laser-point focus on the darkened, crowded road as it stretched and winded up to our house.

"Oh God," I said, when I saw the car sitting in the driveway. "Jenna."

"It's cool," Elena said hastily, waving her hands in the general direction of my arm. "It's okay; I'll take care of her. Get Jeremy inside."

I stared at her for the split-second she was still in the car and nodded, but she didn't see me because she was already outside, jogging up the porch steps and inside the house, and there was still blood all over the nurse-outfit she was wearing from Halloween last year. And oh my God, I could still remember last year's Halloween and the way I had helped Mom hand out candy to the little kids and the horror-movie marathon I and my then-boyfriend had shared when he took that semester off from college. And I remembered the way Elena had hugged me and how I had told her that she looked really hot before she rolled her eyes, smacked my shoulder, grinned, and followed Matt out the door and- Oh my God, everything was so normal back then.

"Come on," I said to Jeremy, easing him out of the car. "Let's get you inside."

He sniffled quietly into the sleeve of my light pink shirt, and I hoisted his arm over my shoulder, towing him around the side of the house to the window over the kitchen sink that everyone always forgot to lock for some reason. I urged him in before me and followed, and as I snuck him up the stairs I could hear Elena saying, "No, Jenna, we're fine. Sidney and Jeremy are just really tired. I think we're all just going to head up to bed."

I managed a snort (because, really- huge mind-fuck), and escorted Jeremy through the door of his bedroom and onto his bed. We sat there in silence for a while (his bed smelled like pencils and teenage-boy), and there was a faint clomping noise as Elena came up the stairs.

"Go," she told me as Jeremy continued to cry softly. "Go. I'll... I'll tell you everything after I... after I talk to him."

I inhaled shakily and nodded, stumbling through the hallway and into the bathroom, kicking off my shoes (even they were blood-stained, God!) as I went, and hopping into the shower, clothes and all.

I shuddered again, shaking now, and turned the knob on the shower, letting out a muffled yelp when the water cascaded down, icy cold. Shivering, I stripped out of my clothes, water mixing with blood and circling down the drain, Pepto-Bismol pink, and when there was finally heat, I let my hair down from the carefully-twisted bun and flung the sopping mass of fabric at my feet out of the shower.

I smacked my palms against the wet tile and immediately bit my lip to hold back a wince at the pain. (Right: pavement, Vicki, glass, blood.) "I'm fine," I hissed at myself. "I. Am. Fine."

No you aren't.

"I'm fine."

So why are you crying?

Was I? I scowled and wiped at my eyes, stinging from the mascara and eyeliner running down my cheeks. I couldn't tell if the moisture there was tears or just shower water, but I told myself, "Shut up. No I'm not."

Vicki was a monster, Sidney. She was a monster and now she's dead. How long had the two of you known each other for? Since birth, practically?

"Shut up!" I snarled, smacking the tile again. More pain sprung up on impact, and it seemed to chase the voice away. "Shut up, Sidney. You're fine, you're fine, you're fine." I fought back more tears. "You have to be."

And I remembered Jeremy's eyes when he found me in the woods, and I remembered Elena's shaking hands when she held my hair back for me as I puked and puked and puked and cried because Mommy and Daddy why did you leave me? And I remembered Jeremy's cries and screams as the ambulance rushed me to the emergency room and Jenna's voice saying, "Sidney? Our Sidney?" when Madison's mom, Doctor Crull, said, "She has alcohol poisoning", and I remembered Bonnie's and Caroline's and Anastasia's shock when they heard what happened, and I was not going to let them see me weak like that ever again.

With a jerk of a gasp, I slammed the shower off and stumbled out, robotically toweling my hair, drying my still-blood-stained body off, hissing when I brushed against a cut or a bruise, going through the motions of tying my hair back in a braid while it dried and using a makeup-remover-wipe to get rid of the black streaks under my eyes and on my cheeks. I slipped into the comfiest clothes I owned: Mickey Mouse sweatpants from a trip to Disney World years and years ago, Beatles t-shirt, neon pink socks with clouds on them, and a disgustingly hideous knit sweater that had belonged to Dad before I'd stolen it from him. Like things were normal- only they weren't. Things were so, so wrong now, and I didn't know if they would ever be right again.

Elena was waiting for me when I walked into my bedroom.

I stared at her for a minute before (not begging- I was calm, I was sane, I was rational- so totally, fucking zen) saying, "Tell me."

Elena faltered. "I don't know if I can," she admitted quietly, and I realized that if I was not freaking out this much, then how bad had it been for her to face on her own? "There's so much... And I don't want you to get hurt, Sidney."

"I've already been hurt, Elena," I told her coldly. Because what the actual fuck? She didn't fucking tell me? She didn't think that I might want to know that she was dating a vampire- and oh my God, she was dating a vampire. A motherfucking vampire! Oh my God!

And then Elena told me- all of it: How Damon and Stefan had become vampires, how they'd burn in the sunlight without their magical rings, how they couldn't enter a house without permission from someone who lived there- which really sucked ass because I had invited both of them in myself. Katherine and compelling and vervain and Damon hating Stefan and Damon threatening Elena (and I was going to shove my foot so far up his sparkly, vampire ass) and the truth about what had happened to Caroline (once again, my foot, his ass) and about how Damon had turned Vicki into a vampire because he had been bored.

Case in point: Damon and Stefan were vampires (and apparently currently sitting on our front porch for whatever fucking reason), Damon was less of a douche and more of a psychotic vampire dick-head, and Elena had known but hadn't told me.

What the hell even is my life?

October 31st, Halloween, 2012
Dear Diary,
So, um, apparently vampires are a thing now.
Please don't ask me to tell you how I feel about that, because I really don't fucking know, and I really don't want to think about it, but I don't think I have a choice anymore. Tonight... Damon asked if I wanted him to wipe my memories the same way we agreed that he should do to Jeremy (which I'm grateful for, by the way)... and I said no. I said no because I want to be able to be there for Elena and to protect my family the way I'm supposed to, but...
Can I really do this? Can I really pretend like everything is normal now that I know what the world is really like? Now that I know that monsters actually exist?
What do I do?
I wish Mom and Dad were here- I wish they were here so fucking much that it actually hurts, and I can barely stand it I miss them so much, because I need them to tell me what to do.
I can't take care of Elena. I thought that I could, but that was before vampires existed and before she started dating one of them (are they even dating anymore?), and as much as I feel like a bitch for it, I'm so mad at her for not telling me!
I mean, didn't she think that I might want to know? She needs to understand that I'm the one who's supposed to be protecting her, not the other way around! I mean, technically, I can be considered her and Jeremy's legal guardian if anything happens to Jenna now that I'm eighteen. I mean, seriously? She should have told me!
But things have changed. The world is so much darker and more twisted than I could have ever imagined, and it scares me. I'll admit it. It terrifies me out of my mind, and a part of me wishes that I had just let Damon erase my memories so I could go on without ever knowing the truth.
But I can't.
Elena has gotten herself mixed up in all of this, and I know, if what I've seen is the truth, her being in love with Stefan means that there's no turning back for her. Which means that there's no turning back for me, either.
This is the start of something new. Something unimaginable and unordinary and completely insane. And no matter what comes my way, I will be ready for it. I can promise you that, at least.
Sincerely,
Sidney

To say that I felt awful once I woke up would be a complete and total understatement: I felt like hell. It was so bad, in fact, that I skipped school Friday, and actually didn't get out of bed until Sunday afternoon, but my entire perception of reality had just been torn apart at the seams, so you could hardly blame me. In fact, I probably wouldn't have gotten up for another week if it weren't for Sutter and Anastasia.

"You need to get up," Anastasia told me softly on Sunday evening, perching on the edge of my bed and frowning at me. She had been understandably worried when I dropped off the face of the planet Thursday night, but I couldn't really tell her the reason without, you know, pretty much screwing her over for the rest of her life.

"There's a party at the Grille," Sutter informed me, already flicking through the clothes in my closet. "Caroline Forbes is throwing it and we're going." She turned and frowned at me. "And you aren't allowed to say no. We're really worried about you, Sid."

"I don't care," I said stubbornly, blandly, even if something in my frozen heart had come back to life at the realization that I had an iron-clad safety net of people who genuinely cared about me. "I am not getting out of this bed, and I am not putting pants on."

Sutter smirked at me and sat down on the bed next to Anastasia. "I beg to differ."

I put pants on.

The moral of the story is, never challenge Sutter McCreevey. It doesn't matter what the issue is, she will win every time. Needless to say, she would make a damn good lawyer.

"Who all's going to be here?" I glumly asked, not happy that I had been ripped away from my admittedly-beginning-to-stink fortress of solitude.

"Andrew, Colin, Madison, and Corbin," Anastasia told me, gorgeous in a crocheted top the same beaten gold color as her hair.

"Unfortunately," Sutter said as her lip curled up.

Anastasia leaned over to me as we hopped out of my car and whispered in my ear, "She and Corbin broke up on Friday."

I blinked cluelessly. "Oh my God, what? Why?" I said, passing through the restaurant doors, Sutter sauntering ahead in her hot pink heels, pretending like she couldn't hear us.

Anastasia shrugged and tucked a curl behind her ear. "I don't know," she said honestly.

"It's because he was just looking for a good fuck. Can we change the subject?" Sutter snapped back at us, and we didn't bring it up again, trying to ignore the way she glared at Corbin when we met up with him and the others at a large booth just off of the dance floor.

To be honest, I was pretty pissed- well, as pissed as I could be at the moment. (Read: I was still in an almost-comatose state of shock from, you know, monsters existing and everything, so it was pretty damn impressive that I managed to summon up a scowl that would land Corbin in the morgue if looks could kill.) I had known since freshman year that Corbin Baker was nothing more than a glorified (and admittedly pretty nice) fuck-boy, but a part of me had still been thrown into surprised rage that he had turned Sutter into a bang-and-drop, especially considering the heated looks and flirtatious banter they had shared for the past three years. My glares turned especially vicious when I noticed him checking out some poor girl from across the restaurant.

I bit my lip angrily and swatted his shoulder. "At least try to act like you're sorry for breaking Sutter's heart," I hissed at him.

He frowned at me, thin eyebrows creasing over dark brown puppy-dog eyes. Corbin sucked on the inside of his cheek and cocked his head toward the packed dance floor. "She certainly doesn't look heart-broken to me," he pointed out drily.

And he had a point. Sutter seemed to have gone out of her way that night to make Corbin realize what an incredible girl he was missing out on, dressing in her tightest pair of jeans, sheer black tank top that showed off her tanned abs, and the pink stilettos that she always wore when she needed a confidence boost, and even dragging a bashful Colin out onto the dance floor and grinding on him like there was no tomorrow.

"Yeah," I grumbled, searching for a reason to continue my case. "Well, you don't know her as well as I do."

Corbin grinned sadly and lifted one of his shoulders in a what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it kind of way. "Yeah, well..." He trailed off and waved at the girl he had been making eyes at. "Hey!" he called.

The girl paused and stared at us, and I took the time to give her a quick run-over. She was pretty enough, with legs for miles, highlighted by dark-wash skinny jeans, and dark curls. When she approached our table (Anastasia and Andrew had slipped away to make out somewhere, and Madison had been pulled onto the dance floor by Josh McCusker, who'd had a crush on her for forever) I could see a bright, blindingly white smile and kind brown eyes.

"Hi!" she said cheerfully, if a little cautiously. "Can I help you?"

Corbin smiled and folded his hands under his chin. "I haven't seen you around before," he said, motioning for her to take the seat across from us. "I'm Corbin Baker, student council president, and this is my friend, Sidney Gilbert."

He emphasized the word 'friend', probably to make it loud and clear to this girl that he was single. I scowled and took an angry sip of my iced coffee. "Hi," I said moodily, and the girl frowned just the tiniest bit.

"Um, I'm Keeley Saltzman," she said with another cheerful smile. "My dad's the new History teacher. I just stopped by to pick up a job application."

And that was when I saw him, the undisputed king of vampire dick-faces.

Damon Salvatore was across the Grille from us, yucking it up with some curvacious blonde chick and looking way to cheerful for the guy who had single-handedly torn my life apart, probably forever.

"Corbin," I snapped suddenly, interrupting his making-the-moves on Keeley.

"What?" he asked me irritably. Keeley shifted uncomfortably, told us good bye, and escaped while she could. Good for her.

"Why did Caroline throw this party again?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at the vampire-asshole in the leather jacket.

"I don't know," Corbin growled. "I don't care. Parties are parties- also, you made Keeley leave before I could-"

"It was never going to happen, Corbin." I rolled my eyes at him and scowled. "She obviously wasn't into you. Think with your head instead of your dick for once- it'll get you further than you think!"

And with that, I stood up and marched across the restaurant, leaving him staring after me with a hard look in his brown eyes and a troubled scowl on his much-abused lips.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I demanded the minute I sat down next to Damon, scowling at him with a level of intensity that I had never used before but really should have scared the undead piss out of him- it didn't. He just smirked at me, raised one of those un-Godly well formed eyebrows, and took a long sip from his drink.

Before he could open his mouth to speak, the blonde woman sitting next to him said, "Who's this?" and then, as an after thought: "She looks like she really hates you. I like her."

I frowned at the blonde girl. "I'm Sidney Gilbert," I told her cautiously.

"Lexi." She took a shot of tequila, and I guessed that I wasn't going to be getting a last name, but once she had swallowed she added, "Stefan's best friend", without looking at me.

My eyes widened. "Oh my God, you're a vampire."

Lexi chuckled and turned to me with an angelic grin. (Read: So angelic it was hard to believe that she was a blood-sucking, murderous demon.) "You catch on quick."

"It's kind of hard not to," I told her, letting some of my I-am-this-close-to-hunting-down-all-supernaturual-entities-and-shoving-my-foot-up-their-asses seep into my voice, "considering this bastard" -I glared, Damon smirked- "turned a girl I've known since childhood into a vampire who attacked me Thursday night."

Damon shrugged, like he didn't care that he had simultaneously ruined multiple lives with one small action (which, I reminded myself, he probably didn't. Vampire-douchey-ness and all). "Guilty as charged."

"God, I hate you," I muttered.

"No you don't," Damon scoffed, taking a swallow of his drink and rolling his eyes.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I said again once he had set his drink down, more aggressively this time.

"Enjoying a good party?" he tried innocently.

"Shut up," I snarked. "You aren't either. I'm not a dumb ass, Damon. You can't just expect me to believe that Caroline Forbes- the queen of planning things to death- would throw a massive rager for no good reason. And you just so happen to show up after compelling her into an abusive relationship with you for two weeks? Cut the shit. Why did you do this?"

"It's not an abusive relationship if she was asking for it-"

"She wasn't asking for it!" I practically screamed, although it wasn't as loud as it normally would have been, considering the pounding music. "She was being brain-washed by you, dip shit! And- and Vicki and Mr. Tanner and all those missing-persons reports on the news? That was you, too! You're a monster, Damon. And you think that killing people will make them like you? But it doesn't. It just makes them dead!"

By this point even I had no idea what the hell I was raving about (which wasn't that surprising because Elena had gotten all of the talent with words in our family and I had gotten nothing) but it didn't really matter so much because it felt right, and judging by the small glimmer of a reaction in Damon's eyes, it was right. And I wanted to punch him in the face because I didn't know what to do- and monsters existed, and my world had been destroyed over the course of just one night, and for the first time since the day my parents had died, I was completely and utterly helpless.

And I hated it.

I stood up abruptly. I'd had enough.

"I'm going home," I said in a much softer voice, so soft, in fact, that I was pretty sure they wouldn't have been able to hear it if they weren't, you know, vampires, and I stormed out of the Grille in a flurry, not even bothering to stop and say good bye to my friends on my way out.

I didn't write in my diary that night, either.

The next week was one of the toughest that I had ever faced, second only to my first week without Mom and Dad.

Monday certainly started off on a shitty note, with Elena informing me that Damon had the Council members (because apparently there was now a council that hunted down vampires in Mystic Falls- my life now, seriously!) kill of Lexi, essentially letting her take the blame for his murders and cementing himself as town hero and resident vampire-slayer.

Asshole.

Anastasia was, predictably, mad at me for rushing out of the party and leaving her stranded after I had promised to take her home, although she had gotten a ride from Andrew and I agreed to spend the night at her house on Friday, so she forgave me by lunch time.

On Tuesday there was a Literature test that I hadn't studied for and subsequently bombed, as well as an extremely apathetic rejection letter from Winston-Salem University in my mailbox, and on Wednesday I was so distracted during practice that Angelica rammed into me during a scrimmage and I twisted my ankle, which meant I would be in an accursed brace for about two weeks.

On Thursday Corbin apologized for being such a douche, which was nice, but he also commented on Kelly Leach's ass in front of Sutter, who had sort of forgiven him but still looked a little hurt, so it was less nice, and to top it all off, I fell in a mud puddle first thing Friday morning and spent the rest of the day looking like I had taken a shit in my favorite pair of jeans.

By the time Anastasia and I were settling in for the night at her house, I was ready to punch someone in the face.

"Please, please, for the love of all things holy, tell me you have an ice pack," I begged as she sifted through her fridge, finally emerging with a freezer pack that she immediately set on my throbbing ankle.

"That looks really bad," Anastasia commented, settling onto the couch next to me and tying her glossy blond hair into a ponytail. "Did you forget to take the anti-inflammatory the doctor gave you?"

"I left it at home," I told her with gritted teeth, shivering slightly as the ice relieved some of the pain in my ankle. As great as playing soccer was, I really hated it sometimes.

"I'm sorry," Anastasia said with a frown. She stared at my ankle for a few more minutes, that familiar look on her face that meant she was trying to decide something, before she finally leaned back into the couch cushions and pressed play on the movie we were planning to watch: Labyrinth.

And, of course, right when David Bowie comes on for the first time, my phone rang.

"Elena," I hissed when I saw who was calling and answered, "you'd better have a damn good reason for interrupting eighties sexiness."

And, of course, she did.

"It's Bonnie. She's being possessed."