Hey, my lovely readers. Please, check out my first drama called "Appearances Can Be Deceiving." Thank you! Without further ado…
Chapter 21: In Need of Therapy
Sitting across from Damon on the field behind our elementary school, I was mindlessly pulling up tufts of grass. It wasn't a kind thing I was doing to the earth but I didn't care at the moment. All I cared about were the visions of things that no child should ever have to bear witness to. "What's up with you?" Damon snapped, placing his hand on my shoulder and nearly knocking me over because I wasn't expecting it.
"Nothing is the matter with me," I snap at him. Then I find myself flat on my back with my best friend on top of me like he's about to beat me up. "Damon, get off," I yell, feeling furious as he pins me down because he's slightly bigger than I am this year.
"Tell me what happened, Nik." Damon yells at me. "Or I'll kick your ass until you do."
"You wouldn't," I shout at him, furiously trying to budge. "Get the bloody hell off of me."
"Tell me what happened, Nik." Damon pleads, rolling off and laying on his back. "You're not going to stop talking to me again are you?" He grunts bitterly.
I roll my eyes. "This has nothing to do with you," I inform him, staring up at big white clouds above us.
"I dare you to tell me," Damon whispers. "I tell you everything, man. I told you about Stef getting pneumonia that one year and he was in the hospital like Mom. I wet my pants because the doctor said he might not be okay. It's bad enough having a dead mother but I thought I was going to lose Stef, and that was too much."
I sighed deeply. "You can't tell anyone else." I responded, glaring at him.
"I won't," Damon says, looking at me seriously, zipping his lips.
"Alright then. Lijah, Finn, Kol, Bekah and I were supposed to be out of the house for the day. But I forgot the football -" I begin when Damon interrupts me.
"Soccer ball," he reminds me.
"Yes. Whatever. Does it matter?" I inquire, trying to avoid getting into the other subject.
"Here in the US, yes, it does. Now, spit it out before we have to go back inside," Damon tells me in a rush, eager for the real tale.
I grimace before speaking. "Well, I forgot the foo- soccer ball at home. So, I went back to retrieve it from the house. Walking inside with my key, because Father made me one, I go running up the stairs and I hear these sounds. Didn't know what in the world it was about. Moving slowly down the hall, it sounds like someone's being hurt and then I realize it's my Mum. I go to Kol's room and grab his baseball bat. Walking back to my parent's room, I rip the door open. I expected to see something like Tyler's Dad and Kat or worse…"
"What was it?" Damon asks in awe as I lie there silently, trying to make the images go away.
"My mum was on top of my father and they were… Oh, it was the most horrible sight I ever laid eyes on. They were having sex, Damon. Oh, if only I had borrowed a bloody ball." I placed my hands over my eyes in an attempt to block the images but they were more vivid when I closed my eyes.
Damon began to laugh his head off. "Your mom is hot. I wish I had been there."
"Take that back," I shout at him, rolling on top of him and raising a balled fist.
Damon continued to laugh. "Okay. Man. Stop. That is just too funny."
I shake with fury before rolling off of him and laying back down. "I will never do that. Not after seeing them like that."
"What about with Caroline?" Damon asked me, making kissy faces at me.
"Never. Never with Caroline. She's too delicate. And girls are gross." I tell him, shaking my head. "We need to stick with our mates and stay away from the cootie filled ones. And if you're going to go on about Caroline then I can ask about Lena."
"Ugh. She's not even pretty. Have you seen her? She lost her front teeth. I told her to wear a bag over her head for the rest of her life," Damon informed me with a grin. "And you like Caroline."
"No I don't," I argued, feeling angry again.
"Yeah, you do because she's pretty and follows you around like a puppy," Damon told me.
"What do mean she's pretty?" I ask him.
Shrugging, Damon smiles. "She's pretty. But she's a baby. I like Rose and Andie and Jenna and Sage. Older girls are hot. Babies are not. You should go chase an older girl."
"Sage is Finn's. And Jenna is with Alaric. And you forgot Kat," I told him.
"So? People break up," Damon told me, shaking his head. "And Kat looks too much like Lena."
Sitting up, I shook my head. "Finn is going to marry Sage."
"How do you know?" Damon challenged, getting up.
Sighing, I tugged at some more grass. "Because they love each other."
"And?" Damon rolled his eyes. "Dude, people don't stay together."
"How would you know?" I snapped at him.
Frowning, Damon began to yank at the grass. "Cause Dad never seems to be able to find a woman he wants to stay with. I miss my mom… but it would be nice to have someone around… you know like more than a month at a time. I want my dad to find someone who makes him happy so he'll stop telling me that I did something wrong because I look like her…"
I frown too but then they're telling us to go back inside. When I'm walking in I see Caroline. She smiles widely and comes running over to me while Elena's standing off to the side, staring at the floor. "Nik," Caroline greets me happily.
"Caroline," I say coldly.
"What's wrong?" Caroline asks me, reaching for my hand and I pull it away. She bites her lower lip, looking at me, her eyes wide.
Feeling angry, I glare at her. "Go away, you silly girl. I don't like you. Go play with the other girls."
Caroline's jaw drops and she stares at me. "Nik, what did I do?"
"Go away," I snarl. All I can think about is my parents and how disgusted I feel. "Get away from me, Caroline. I don't want to look at your pasty little face anymore. Leave me alone." Giving her a little shove to nudge her along, I see the look of horror and pain on Caroline's face as I break her heart for the first time. Suddenly, I want to call the words back. To not have touched her like that. She'll never forgive me. Forcing the feelings down, I hiss at her. "You make me sick."
Caroline's eyes fill with angry tears as her face contorts and she balls her fists. 'She's going to hit. She should hit me,' I think as I suck in a deep breathe. Caroline turns and runs. I lower my head and stare at the floor. Then there is someone standing in front of me and I look down to see Elena glaring up at me. "What?" I snap at her. Elena's a little thing this year. Almost everyone in the group is taller than she is.
I barely uttered the word when the impact sent me sprawling to the hallway floor. My jaw drops as I place my hand to my eye. Elena bloody Gilbert just knocked me on my arse. This tiny little girl hits quite hard when she's angry and I had apparently made her very angry. "If you ever come near Caroline again I will do worse." Elena told me before shooting Damon a parting glare and then walking away.
I felt Damon grab me under the arm pits and jerk me to my feet. "That was not good, Nik, you were just taken down by a girl half your size. You have to put some weight on." I'll admit I was a bit thin for the boys my age but I was always running about.
When the day was over I left the school with Damon, Stefan, Matt, Tyler and Jeremy. Finn, Mason and Alaric were in Middle school now, Lijah was in high school and Kol had gone home early from kindergarten.
We got home and Kol was running about the house, up and down the stairs and the hall. "What are you doing?" I demanded.
"Mum's in the loo and she's got the bleeding flu," Kol sang as Bekah smacked him in the head.
"Don't curse," Bekah yelled as Kol tried to attack her, Damon intervened.
"Don't hit your sister," Damon ordered my brother. "And your Mom's pregnant."
"What?" I yelled.
Rolling his eyes, Damon stared at me. "Nik, your parents breed like rabbits. These two are evidence of that." Damon placed a hand on Kol's and Bekah's heads and began to shake them lightly, making them laugh. "So, your Mom is pregnant."
"What's that?" Bekah asked Damon, staring up at him with a frown.
"It's when Mommies get cranky and throw up a lot. Then they get real fat and bam, you've got siblings. I hope you get a good one, unlike me." Damon told her with a grin.
"I hate you," Stefan told his brother.
"Hate you more," Damon told him brightly.
"I wish I were adopted," Stefan moaned.
"I wish you were, too," Damon told him.
"I wish you'd shut up," Tyler told them. "And my Mom's pregnant, too."
"I thought your parents hate each other," Matt told him, raising his eyebrows.
Tyler nodded. "They do. But whatever Anna and Lexi did to my Dad, he's been super nice to me and Mom and now she's having a baby."
"Where do babies come from?" Bekah asked, staring at us.
That was when Katherine walked in the door with Elijah and she walked over to my sister. "Your parents like each other. That's where babies come from. You want to know more, you've got a few more years before you'll find out."
"Kat," Elijah protested.
"Are your parents at home?" Katherine asked me. I shook my head wondering why she wanted to know, when she grabbed Elijah's hand and ran upstairs.
"What are they doing?" Kol asked me.
"What your parents were doing," Damon told him, looking at me with a grin.
My jaw dropped. "No. Lijah wouldn't do that."
"Sure he would," Damon told me. "Want to go find out."
"No," I protested but Damon was already headed up the stairs to go spy on my brother and his girlfriend.
Rolling my eyes, I followed him up and told the others to stay downstairs. I finally had to dare them to stay. When I got up there, I found Damon on his knees peering through the key hole to Lijah's room. He waved me over. "What are they doing?" I whispered. Damon put up a hand to silence me.
After a moment Damon sat back with a look of wonder on his face; then he waved for me to take a look. I peered through the hole not really seeing anything at first but then I saw Kat. My mouth felt dry and I didn't know what to think. My mind was blank looking at the older girl who wasn't wearing a shirt and was laying on top of my brother. They were kissing intensely and his hand was on her chest.
Sitting back, I felt odd. "We should go," I whispered to Damon, who nodded wordlessly and we hurried away. I wondered if Caroline and I would ever be like that; then I forced the thought away. Caroline would never look like that. And she was my friend. You don't do that with friends.
"I dare everyone to go outside and hide," I shouted. I needed to do something familiar. I needed to get away from whatever all the older people were up to. I didn't want to grow up. I didn't want to be like Elijah and Kat. I didn't want to be like my parents. I didn't want another sibling. I didn't want change. I wanted Caroline back but things were changing and she was part of it and it scared me.
Looking for my friends, who were scattered about the lawn, was easier to deal with than all these adult concerns. But my mind kept going back to Caroline and that look of pain on her face. I couldn't stand that look in her eyes like I had killed her puppy. Maybe if I… No. I couldn't do anything. There was nothing to be done. I had to leave her be. She was a girl. I was a boy. We needed to be separate for a time.
Finding all my friends and running about until I couldn't stand up and everyone had to return home, I ended up in my room. Sitting down with my sketch pad, I kept sketching Caroline's face over and over again. I would rip the sketch up and then start another one. There she was over and over again.
Giving up, I went to sleep and dreamed of Caroline. I dreamed of her curly hair and her sweet smile. I dreamed of kissing her again. I dreamed of when we would be older and kissing her in a different way and touching her chest and then I woke up in a cold sweat.
Getting up, I went about my day like I didn't know why my Mum was throwing up and didn't see Caroline in the hallway. Every day it got a little bit easier. Except I still kept sketching her and having dreams about her.
I never told Damon about the dreams. He had concerns of his own. He was avidly pursuing Rose, who would laugh and call him her little man which pissed Damon off royally.
Finally, one day at the end of the school year I got up the courage to go to the Forbes' house to go to see Caroline. I had missed her terribly and had missed her birthday and she missed mine. There was so much that I wanted to tell her about turning ten and much more. When Mrs. Forbes answered the door she looked sad. "Hello, Klaus."
"Hi, Mrs. Forbes," I said in a rush, trying to peer around her for any signs of Caroline. "Is Caroline home?"
"No, she isn't," Mrs. Forbes told me sadly. "She's staying with her father for the summer."
I frowned, my brow wrinkling as I opened my mouth. "I… What?"
"She didn't tell you, sweetie?" Mrs. Forbes' eyes began to fill with tears and she brushed them away quickly.
"No, she didn't," I replied, not knowing what was going on.
Caroline's mother shook her head. "I forgot you two haven't been speaking. I'm sorry. Caroline's father and I divorced. Her father wanted her to come stay with him for the summer. They're not even in this state but I can give you the address. You can write to her."
I nodded weakly. How did I not know? Why didn't she come to me? Mrs. Forbes gave me the address and I walked away, feeling the rage build again. Shaking with anger, I balled the address up and threw it in a wastebasket along the way. If I wasn't important enough for her to tell me about this, then she could live without me for the summer.
Oh, sad for Klaroline. But you know they get past it because I already showed you bits of the future. Now, to answer reviews…
Whisperofdreams: I LOVE Damon so we will see his birthday for real soon than later and no that is not a Plecesque lie. I promise. Because these ten chapters are the summer of the boys.
Klarolinemymockinjay: Seriously! No messes with Nik but Bekah. ;) Why because that is what sisters are for. Hope you saw TO because Claire Holt rocked in that episode.
WeasleysGroupie: Because I love to mess with you all? Mwah ha ha… Oh, that hurts.
Karmen238: I'm being mean and withholding answers. Don't know why. I just am right now. But you will know sometime in the near future.
Clarity23: I didn't think about how fans would read the scenes you mentioned but you're right, they are flippant. And I'm glad you enjoyed that.
Klaroine-lovegames: Thank you for the ideas and I will do both.
Goodyduxs777: Yeah, I know there are a lot of fans who do not like Hayley. Honestly I didn't until I started watching TO and she's growing on me. Don't know why. Btw, I will NEVER be pro-Hayley and Klaus as a couple. I'm just trying to give her a chance and hoping she doesn't disappoint me.
Elijahlover: I will never go against Klaroline. Did you see the new pics in Klaroline magazine? OMG. Amazing! Can't wait the 100th episode of TVD! Whoa!
Klaroline4everlove: I'm withholding answers right now. Sorry. You'll have to tune in but all your answers will be revealed.
Quills and Inkwells: I'm glad you're enjoying the story because there is so much more to come.
KyKat: Halloween is so great. It should be celebrated like once a week or better yet twice for most of the year. Oh, wait. I forgot that's why we watch TVD and TO.
Thank you for reading, faving, following and reviewing: whisperofdreams, mylove4klaus, Anna the Vampire Princess, KlarolineMymockingjay, WeasleysGroupie, karmen238, Clarity23, Klaroline-lovegames, goofyduxs777, elijahlover, klaroline4everlove, ferrylis, Quills and Inkwells, guest andKyKat.