Chapter Ten

"Aunt Jenna?" Two voices cried it out at the same time. Jenna was frozen. Sitting up in bed, covered in sweat, tangled up in her sheets again... Her door flew open with a bang, bouncing off of the wall as Jeremy turned the light on. Elena hurried into the room behind him, looking anxious.

"Are you okay?" Elena stood at the side of the bed now, running her hands through her dark hair and working out the tangles. "Was it another dream? What kind was it?"

Overload. Jenna pulled her knees in towards her chest and hid her face, trying to calm her heartbeat down. She heard Jeremy move to her other side, patting her on the back comfortingly and a little awkwardly. Elena sat down, too, and if Jenna used her peripherals, she could see the brightly-lit screen of her niece's cell phone. TO RIC: COME NOW. But before Elena could press the little green button to send the text, Jenna reached down and closed her hand around the phone.

"Don't," she whispered. "Don't bother him. I'm fine." She was trying to convince herself as much as the two of them. Jenna's voice was shaking, and she was sure that Elena and Jeremy didn't even believe her for a second, but Elena put the phone down on Jenna's bedside table anyways.

"You have to tell us what happened," Jer told her seriously. Jenna kept her face hidden as he went on. "Or we'll get him to come over no matter what you say."

Jenna took a deep breath and looked up. Did she really have to relive the dream now? Her voice shook as she described it. "It was another kind of dream. Different than all the others again. It seemed like a normal dream at first. You know, with no vampires at all. I was just having a totally normal day. I went to the grocery store, but it was the pool, and I went swimming. To the very bottom. And then it was an ocean... I climbed up a vine and I was in a jungle and it was all like in The Jungle Book. And then I fell and I was on a cloud... You know, like in that Katy Perry music video. But then everything went all dark and scary... Some guy came up to me and -" Jenna thought for a moment. She didn't think she could handle saying out loud that she'd seen herself as a vampire. "And he attacked me," she lied quickly. "And I woke up."

She was falling away from Ric. Not in the literal sense; no, this was purely metaphorical. And it wasn't as though she was falling out of love with him, either. She was just starting to realize exactly what being in a relationship with him meant. His ex-wife was a psycho vampire who probably hated Jenna's guts - how was she supposed to deal with that for the rest of her life, knowing that Isobel could be out for revenge? Oh, of course, Jenna knew that Ric wasn't her only connection to vampires.

But it was impossible to sever her relationship with her niece and nephew, wasn't it? Alaric was someone she could walk away from without being completely overridden with guilt. Jenna had been the only person even remotely willing to take care of Elena and Jeremy; she was certain that nobody else would step up for the job if Jenna wasn't there. Ric could live without her - and she could live without him.

Who was she kidding? Life would suck without Alaric Saltzman to go through it with. But she had to do it. Because the closer she was to him, the closer she was to vampires. And the closer she was to vampires, the closer she was to becoming one. She would rather die than become this thing that she feared so much.

So she had to do it. No matter how hard it was.

It reminded her so much of the day she'd confronted him about keeping the vampire secret from her. They were supposed to go out for dinner. For a while, Jenna fooled herself into thinking that she could go out and then do it. But that was a bad plan - not only would it be cruel, but she just knew she would lose courage if she did it that way. So she paced anxiously around the house and waited. Each time she glanced out any window that faced the driveway, she felt this nearly overwhelming mixture of both impatience and relief that he wasn't there yet.

Jenna's heart nearly stopped when the doorbell rang. Hurrying to the window, she saw his car in the driveway. Crap. She stopped with her hand on the doorknob. Okay. I'm really going to do this. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door.

"Hey." He smiled and held out a bunch of brightly-coloured flowers. Flowers! He'd brought her flowers... Her fingers brushed against his as she took them, another wave of guilt sweeping through her. Turning away, she laid the bouquet on the hall table. He shut the door as he stepped inside after her; when she turned back towards him, he kissed her softly until she pulled away.

"I have to talk to you," said Jenna, trying to clear her head. "It's... it's important." He looked confused, but he nodded. She glanced at the pretty flowers, gathering her courage slowly, slowly. "I... I don't think we should see each other anymore."

Jenna couldn't look at him properly. "What?" he said slowly. He sounded heartbroken. He was making it so much harder than it needed to be... She took a deep breath and finally looked up at him. Huge mistake. She looked back down as quickly as she could. It had never been so hard for her to break up with someone before; the guy had usually done something horribly wrong that made it easy. Alaric hadn't done anything wrong at all.

"I don't think we should see each other anymore," she repeated in a whisper, and made the mistake of looking at him again. He leaned down swiftly, kissed her long and deep. It made her head spin; the taste of him nearly made her change her mind.

He pulled back slowly, looking down at her with more intensity in his gaze than she'd ever seen. "Don't do this," he pleaded. "Don't. I love you." And I love you. So much. Jenna took a couple of steps back, doing her best to clear her head. Carefully avoiding his eyes, she turned away and attempted to stop the tears that were threatening to roll down her cheeks.

"I think you should go now."

She could tell without looking at him that he wasn't planning on going anywhere. "Jenna..." He took one step towards her, but she held out one slightly-shaking hand and he stopped.

"Just go. Please go." She choked on her words, but he listened. She held as still as she could while he sighed and turned the doorknob. The door clicked shut behind him - through the wood, she heard his car door slam, the tires squealing against the pavement as he drove away. It was only then that Jenna sank down to the hardwood floor and let the tears fall.

Her eyes fell on the pretty bouquet of flowers on the hall table. They were going to die there. She would let them die.

She wished she could die.

Author's Note: Sorry for the short and overly depressing chapter, guys. I would have continued, but it wouldn't be able to end for ages and ages... Sorry about that. Anyways, this is my first update of 2011 and my last update before school starts again! Tomorrow. Ugh. I've gotten used to sleeping in, and now I have to go and set my alarm... Which sucks. I hope all of you had a fantastic New Year's! And, um... Reviews are nice. Plus, you'll get a couple of paragraphs from the next chapter. Which is going to be an awesome one, I must say. At least, I rather like it.