"My parents have officially gone insane!" I yell into the phone, my free palm plastered all over my forehead.
"Elena, I found out your parents are insane, like, ten years ago when they used to make us mushed banana spread on ray bread and call it a snack," Bonnie, on the other side of the line, agrees with my statement. If I were talking to anyone else, they would probably lecture me on the proper phone etiquette. When someone greets you, you greet them right back, you don't start yelling about your parents mental state. But Bonnie knows my ways, and she knows they're nowhere similar to the ways of other people. "That was off the record, though. What made it official?" she inquires.
"Well, I told you my mom found out about Stefan, right?" I try to keep my voice low so he doesn't hear me. He, of course, knows my parents know about him, but he doesn't have to know I'm freaking out over it to my friends.
"Yes, you may have mentioned it several million times," she groans. I guess I have gone overboard with retelling her the story.
"She told my dad," I say pointedly, trying to stress out what a big deal that is for me. "It's weird having my dad know that I have a boyfriend."
"I think your dad has probably already made peace with the fact that his 17 year old daughter is interested in boys."
"He had known that ever since he had seen me drooling over Justin Timberlake, but the idea of me liking a boy and the reality of me dating one are two completely different things," I try to explain. I shouldn't have to, she has met my dad. "I mean, this is the man who cried when he realized I know how to tie my own shoelaces!"
She stays quiet for a while. I can hear her chewing on her lower lip over the phone. "That is true," she gives in.
Now that I've won my battle, I continue with the story. "Anyway, they want to have him over for dinner," I exhale, like I can't imagine anything more dreadful than that. "Tonight."
"No way!" she exclaims, the tone of her voice more lively than before.
"Way!" I confirm.
"Okay, but, while that might be awkward, it's still in the lines of sanity," she argues.
"Yes, it is. But then, when I woke up this morning, my mother was already battering and mixing and baking! Our house smells like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Halloween all rolled into one! When I came downstairs, she asked me is there anything he doesn't eat, and when I said I don't think so, she made me call him to make sure!" I complain, not blowing this out of proportion one bit. I wish I was.
On the other line, a roaring laughter rises in Bonnie's throat.
"Bonnie, this is not funny!" I scold her.
"I'm sorry!" she snorts. "But it's a little funny," the words come out of her mouth in the form of a laughter. "Is she making her famous pumpkin pie?"
"I have no idea. I ran away out of fear that she will ask me to put an apron on and bake a cake on the burned work of Bronte sisters."
"Wait, you're not at home? Where are you?" she asks, curiosity dripping down her voice.
I stay so silent that I can literally hear crickets in the background. I basically stop breathing.
"You're at his place, aren't you?"
I don't say anything to that because, yeah, I am. I am at his place. It's my sanctuary. My safe haven. Place I can run off to when things get too messed up in the real world.
"Are you on his bed?" she asks, her voice daring.
"No!" I exclaim, even though I am. I'm laying on his bed, on my back, with my waving legs in the air.
"Did you do it?" she asks quietly, her voice descending into a whisper.
I bring my brows closer together and crease my forehead out of confusion. "Do what exactly?"
I can basically hear her rolling her eyes. "Did you have sex?" she says the word sex less loudly, but more sharply than the other words in the sentence.
"What?" I ask, almost offended by that question. Not because I'm little miss chaste and pure, but because I would like to think that if I had sex, I would tell my best friend about it. But then again, I don't have a best track record when it comes to sharing events from my life that involve Stefan with my friends. "No!"
"But you're thinking about it, aren't you?" she challenges me.
I pull my lips into a long, thin line, still managing to exhale in the process. "Maybe."
She makes a sweet ooooh sound on the phone, but before I manage to say anything in return, Stefan walks into the room.
"Okay, how about this one?" he asks exasperatedly, slowly walking into the room with his shoulders slumped. In this moment, he seems too small for his body.
"Oh, no, you can't wear that one," I shake my head. I make a mental note that he looks damn fine in it, though.
"Why not?" he moans, and I half expect him to stomp his foot against the floor like an irritated child.
"Because you're going to blend in with our dining room wall!" I argue. "Try the green one."
He frowns. "I don't have a green button down."
"No, but you do have that green sweater thingy," I raise my finger in the air victoriously.
He sighs, but starts moving towards his dresser out of which he produces a green sweater. He heads back towards the bathroom to change.
"Thank you!" I yell after him.
Bonnie fakes a cough on the other side of the line, just to make sure I didn't forget about her still being there.
"Well, that was weird," she says, sounding completely overwhelmed.
"What was?" I furrow my brows, rolling onto my stomach. People think that laying around and being lazy is easy, but let me tell you, it's not - the back pain, holding your pee in, all very difficult things to do.
"I don't know," she exhales. "You. Him. You two together. I didn't really know how his voice sounds like. I think this is the first time I've heard him say more than one word. And you're so familiar.. You're my best friend. I just can't put the two of you together. I have all the how's, but not the why's."
I stay quiet for a while, thinking of the best way to approach this subject. "I think I, at first, wanted it because I knew we aren't going to be under a microscope. If I were with some other guy, someone like Matt, everyone would know everything about us. Back then, I haven't put much thought into the possibility of us going public, but I knew that if we did, people would be too shocked to pry. But the reason why I stayed with him, other than that he spins my world around," I bite my lower lip to stop myself from giggling. "Is because I can talk to him. Really talk.." I don't know how to explain it without sounding snobbish. "For instance, when I went on a date with Mike, he spent twenty minutes talking about how he doesn't understand languages, about how he doesn't understand how people know how to translate English to some other language. He ended that amazing twenty minute speech by saying that he knows how tongues work, and then he winked at me. I spent half an hour under the shower after that date."
She laughs on the other side of the line, even though I'm pretty sure I've told her this story already.
"And don't get me wrong, Stefan has his immature moments as well. And he often laughs at me, or makes fun of me. But when I'm serious, he knows it, and acts accordingly. Things he has no interest in often turn into our main topic of conversation simply because he knows they interest me, so I pay him back in the same measure. You simply have to get to know him, and then all of your why's will become as clear as your how's."
"Ah," she exhales. "Get to know him. Hang out with him. Like we're best buds," she says sarcastically.
I roll my eyes, because that tone of voice is nothing like Bonnie, but so much like Caroline. "You don't have to be best buds with him, Bonnie. But you are buds with me, and he is my boyfriend, so I can always set up a play date for the two of you," I grin at that.
"Elena, I can't wear this, I look like a freaking lawn!" Stefan yells from the bathroom.
"Bonnie, I'll have to call you back," I sigh, rubbing my forehead, creasing it with my fingertips. "I'm dating Kim Kardashian, apparently."
"Sure," she says through laughter. "I'll talk to you tomorrow. You have to let me know how the dinner went!"
What she actually means is, you have to let me know all the ways in which your parents decided to embarrass you in.
"Will do." I hang up, throw my phone on the bed, losing the sight of it somewhere between the creases of his covers, and swing my legs towards the floor. I push myself off of the bed and make my way towards the bathroom.
"Wow," I widen my eyes at the sight of him. "You really do look like a lawn."
The color doesn't really suit him, and the sweater stretches itself over his broad shoulders and torso, wrapping itself around him like rubber.
I cross my arms over my chest. "How is this possible?" I frown. "The color of the sweater should bring out the color of your eyes."
He grabs the hem of his sweater with his fingertips. "I'm sorry both my sweater and me disappointed you," he cocks his eyebrow at me.
He tugs at the treacherous sweater and pulls it over his head. "I don't know what the big deal is, anyway. Will your parents really think any better of me if I dress according to their wishes?"
I bow my head and put my face in my palms, gently massaging my temple with the tips of my thumbs. "Oh boy," I exhale before looking up at him, giving him a pointed look. "You're so not ready for my parents. Especially not my mother," I cock my eyebrow at him.
He smiles before taking several steps in my direction, closing the awfully small distance between us. "What?" he cocks his head to the side, his eyes trying to catch mine. "The fact that I'm losing my mind over you is not enough for them?"
In times like these, when we're standing this close to one another, he has to look down at me, and I have to look up at him, his shape blurry through my lashes. I lower my eyes down his bare chest, continuously reminding my brain not to let me drool in the process, to the perfect V shape half visible behind the elastic band of his boxers.
I feel like my whole face is on fire.
"It's so hot in here," I blurt out, my cheeks illuminating like it's 4th of July. He starts leaning in, and continues doing so until my back presses against the wall. "Can you feel it too? Did you turn the heating on? Because I think you went overboard," I start blabbing like a flustered schoolgirl, his face so close to mine that I can feel his breath on my skin even before he exhales.
A mischievous smile makes an appearance on his lips. "Yeah, I can feel it too."
And then, before I get a chance to say another word - not that I would be able to think of one - he presses his lips against mine. The kiss surprises me, when every sane person could have seen it coming from miles away, and the impact of it makes me weak to my knees.
He grabs me by the hips and pulls me away from the wall, but closer to his body. My palms collide with his chest, which is such a huge mistake, because I release a loud, violent moan into his mouth. He seems to like it, because one of his smiles creeps into my mouth and crawls down my throat.
I have to stand on my toes to keep the kiss alive, and by now he knows very well how much my toes hurt after standing on them for too long, so he slowly lifts me up into his embrace. I wrap my legs around his waist, and my arms around his neck, to spare him the trouble of supporting me with his arms.
I didn't know that kissing a boy could be like this. I thought these kinds of kisses only happen in movies, as our resemble a more modern version of Casablanca. Maybe this is how everyone feel like when they like someone this much - their kisses vary from innocent Disney descriptions to something not even HBO would feel comfortable airing.
He stumbles with me in his arms, the extra weight he has to carry throws him off balance, but he finds his way out of a tiny, crowded space of his bathroom and moves us to the hallway.
Sometimes I wonder about what Caroline would think if she could see us like this. Maybe it's a silly thing to think about while making out with my boyfriend, but her ignorance and prejudice is on my mind almost every minute of every day, so it sneaks into moments like these as well.
I wonder how Stefan looks like inside of her mind, so I try to remember how I've seen him before, only to find out that I'm unable to. I can't see anything before now, and sometimes I wish she could see him like I do, so that everything she had seen before simply disappears.
He pushes me against a wall and a dull pain surges through my spine, but I barely notice it because it's nothing compared to the pleasure coursing through my veins.
I've been thinking about having sex before. Who hasn't? But I never obsessed over it, because I never minded being a virgin. I don't see losing my virginity as some kind of a ritual, which is why I never thought I would make a big deal out of it. And I'm not, making a big deal out of it. So why can't I just go through with it? When every part of my body wants it, except my lousy brain that keeps laughing at the very idea of it.
I can hear my phone buzzing all the way from his room.
I start squirming in his arms unintentionally.
"Mmm, don't answer that," he groans.
"I have to," I murmur between the kisses. "What if it's my mother, asking do you like radish. Do you want to end up eating radish?"
He stops kissing me. "Boy, do you know how to kill the mood," he looks at me pointedly before lowering me down on the ground.
I wink at him before running after my screaming phone.
"And you're sure he's not allergic to anything?" my mother asks me again, carefully eyeing the food laid out on our kitchen island like it's a weapon of mass destruction.
"Yes, mother! For the hundredth time, yes!" I exclaim, throwing my arms in the air out of annoyance and exhaustion.
"I'm sorry," she huffs, "I just don't want the boy choking to death at our dinner table because I didn't know he's allergic to salmon."
I crook my nose. "You made salmon."
"Among other things. Why?"
"Because it's pretentious," I push myself away from the wall and start towards the kitchen. "And it smells like dirty gym socks."
"Elena!" she scolds me. Don't speak that way about food, my mother always warns me when I compare one of her meals to something unflattering. "And I told you to stay away from the food so you don't taint your dress." Yes, she had made me wear a dress.
"I can't stay away from the food, mom. It's everywhere," she made a ton of food. Literally. You could feed several small villages with the amount of the food she had made. "I know I didn't clarify, so I take my part of the responsibility, but I'm not dating an entire football team."
Before she gets a chance to answer that, our doorbell rings and the sound washes away the appalled look on her face, and replaces it with excitement.
"I'm on it," I shout loudly to make sure everyone had heard me, and then run for the door. Thank God for my reflexes.
I straighten my dress, because somewhere inside of me lies an 18th century old girl who had been told to always look proper in front of her man, and yank open the front door. "Run," I hiss through my teeth even before I make sure it's him standing in front on our front porch.
Thankfully, it is. "Excuse me?" he asks, surprise and shock plastered all over his face.
"Run while you can. She made salmon. She's crazy. I'll cover for you."
He cocks his eyebrow at me. "Elena," he says my name with a warning.
I push the door wide open. "Don't say I didn't warn you."
He smiles and steps in. Well, let the games begin.
Once I close the door, I notice him looking around our hall with awe. "You have a thing for halls? Is that your fetish?" I joke, going in for a kiss.
He gives me a quick peck on the lips - it's over before I get a real taste. "It's warm," is all he says, as if that sentence explains every single thought going through his head. I look around, as if I'm looking at it for the first time - I guess it is warm, and cozy, and the pictures on the wall scream love.
There are no pictures on the inner walls of his house.
"Oh, honey, you didn't have to," I say with a grin.
"What?"
I point my look towards the bouquet of flowers in his hands.
"Oh, no, these are for your mom," he explains.
"Well, you didn't have to bother for me, either," my mothers voice surprises us both. I can see Stefan's eyes go wide at the sight of her.
My mother is not a scary woman. Frankly, she's quite ordinary with her brown eyes and brown hair - she doesn't stand out from the crowd in any way.
"It was no bother," Stefan says, his voice wavering a bit. He's nervous. How adorable.
My mother takes the flowers out of his hands. "Well, thank you, they're quite lovely."
"Stefan, you've probably already figured it out, but this is my mother," I look at her. "Mom, Stefan."
He shakes her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Gilbert."
"Oh, the pleasure is all mine," she beams up. She likes polite people who know how to address people in a correct manner. "And you don't have to call me Mrs. Gilbert, Miranda will do just fine."
I shake my head. Nope, no, it won't.
"I have to put these in some water. Elena, would you mind leading Stefan to the living room."
"Actually, I was thinking about leading him to the shed," I start walking down the hall, motioning for Stefan to follow me.
"What?" she asks, confused.
"It was a joke, mom."
I lead Stefan into the living room, where my dad is waiting.
"Dad," I call for him with a smile on my face.
"Oh, Elena," he feigns surprise. Mom probably made a scheme where everyone should be once Stefan comes over.
"Stefan arrived," I announce him.
My dad releases a soft laugh. "Yes, I can see that."
He walks over to Stefan and extends his hand to him, and Stefan grabs it to shake it.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," he says politely, checking Stefan out from head to toe, in a less subtle way than mom did.
"Likewise," Stefan replies.
"Would you like anything to drink?" he lets go of Stefan's hand a moves towards the cabinet where all the drinks are stashed.
"A glass of scotch. No ice," I say.
He laughs again. "How about a soda?"
"Seems fair," I shrug. "Where's Jeremy?"
"Upstairs. He said he would be down for dinner. Please, take a seat."
I motion for Stefan to sit down. I take a spot next to him, but not too close, because I don't want my mother to come in and start throwing condoms at us.
"Grayson, look," she saunters into the living room. "Stefan brought me flowers."
My father looks at the flowers my mother had placed in one of her favorite vases, and then back to Stefan. "You didn't have to bother," he says, but he seems quite pleased by his action.
"It was no bother," Stefan repeats. I reach for his hand and squeeze it for support, only to feel his wet palms. A whole new level of nervous.
"So, Stefan, you go to school with Elena?" he asks as he hands us our sodas, and my mother throws four coasters on the glass coffee table.
"Yes." What a stupid question. There's only one high school in Mystic Falls, it's not like he has a choice.
"And what do you plan to do afterwards? College?" he inquires.
Stefan stays quiet for a while before giving his answer. "Actually, I'm not sure yet."
He's not sure there will be any money, even for community college.
"Oh," my mother releases a disappointed exhale. "Elena, where are you applying, again?" she asks, as if she wants to point out the difference between us, between what kind of future we want or plan to have for ourselves. As if my boyfriend doesn't know where I've applied.
"Vassar. And Sarah Lawrence," I say.
"And Yale," he adds.
"Yale?" my father asks, and my mother adds. "This is the first time I'm hearing anything about Yale."
"Well, I've never mentioned it before, since there's no way I would ever, in million years, get in."
"You don't need million years, you just need one," he squeezes my knee, and I smile at him. My heart starts beating faster, because he believes in me more than I believe in myself.
"So, yeah, I've decided to apply. Sending one more application won't kill me."
My parents exchange a look that is, I guess, meaningful to them.
"You know, Stefan," my mother smiles, "Elena has never brought a boy home before."
I groan, "There was never a boy to bring." Plus, it's not like they gave me much say in the matter now.
"Shush," she waves me off, "I'm sure you've already met Stefan's parents."
I wince, and she notices it, which is how she knows she had said something highly inappropriate.
"Actually, it's just me and my brother," he explains the situation.
"I'm so sorry," she apologizes instantly, her cheeks as red as wine.
"It's fine," he says, because he knows there's no possible way she could have known.
"Your brother.. Damon, right?" my father asks with his thinking face on. The only thing he's missing is a lit bulb over his head.
"Yes, sir," Stefan nods, surprised that my father knows his brother. As surprised as me.
"He used to work for us, remember Miranda? Tall, dark haired boy from several years ago?"
"Oh, yes!" my mother exclaims, looking at Stefan. I know what she's thinking - they look nothing alike.
"He had quit once he started college. Said he wants to find something closer to the campus. How's he doing?"
"Fine," he answers, an uncomfortable smile dancing on his lips. "Just fine."
"Good, good."
"So," my mother starts, "Tell us about how the two of you met. School?"
"Actually, we've met at Summer camp," I admit.
Both of my parents stay silent at that fact, and if I could see inside of their heads I would probably see -
No, screw that, I don't want to see inside of their heads, because our daughter, unsupervised, with a boy in a cabin, at Summer camp written all over their faces is just enough for me.
"We've seen each other around the school, obviously," he says.
"But we've never really talked before," I add.
"I see," my mother manages to cough out.
"And what are your intentions with our daughter?" my father asks.
"Oh boy," I exhale, bowing my head down, embarrassed by my own parents.
"Are we supposed to ask that?" he asks my mother.
"Well, that's what my father asked you," she points out.
"I wasn't sure parents still do that," he shrugs.
"What would you say if he said he wants to get me drunk and tie me to a hog?" I ask, and they both look at me, bewildered. Score!
Stefan laughs. "I don't have any intentions with her, beside whatever intentions she has for herself."
Nice save. Color me impressed.
Color my parents impressed as well, because they share another meaningful look.
"Should we move to the dining room?" mom stands up.
"I'll call Jeremy," dad says.
"I'll get the food," mom yells, already on her way to the kitchen.
"Let's go," I poke him with my elbow.
When my father notices us standing up and walking towards the dining room he calls for my brother one last time and hurries after us to make sure we don't make him a grandchild on a dining room table.
When we enter, he leans in and whispers in my ear. "You were right, that shirt would really blend in with the color of the walls."
I smile.
AN: I'm sorry it took me so long to update, I've been out of the country for several days.