A knock sounded. I went to the front door.

"Oh. You're not Caroline."

"Gee, what gave me away," I replied with an eye roll. I leaned toward to the dark-haired guy and half-whispered, with my hand palm-out beside my mouth, "I'm not Liz either."

"Obviously." I could tell he was not impressed by my sarcasm. "You must be Riley."

"Must I?" I looked closer at his face. "Tyler?"

"Yeah."

"Oh good. Caroline has been telling me about her life and I've been looking at her yearbooks to put faces to the names. I'm glad I passed my first test."

"Ooo, what has she said about me?" he asked with a huge grin on his face.

Wow — huge ego.

"Let's see… Founding family member. Son of the mayor. High school athlete…"

"Varsity in three sports."

Yep, egotistical. I rolled my eyes.

"That's right; C did say you were a colossal ass." He looked like he wanted to respond, but I continued. "Then you triggered your wolf. Caroline helped you. Then you left. Then you came back. Then you left. Then you came back. I forget how many times she said you left and came back because it seemed to just keep happening, like some kind of continuous loop." The frown on his face somehow deepened. "And now you're a hybrid with sire issues."

Before Tyler could say anything, C's car pulled up to the curb in front of the house. Tyler turned and we both watched as she stepped out of her car.

"Caroline!" I said in a ridiculously overly-enthusiastic tone. "I'm so glad you're home." I'd had enough 'bonding' time with Tyler.

C gave me a strange look and cautiously said "It's nice to see you too, Ri."

I smiled sarcastically at both of them, then turned around and let the door close behind me as I went back to reading my book.

My first day at Mystic Falls High came five days after I moved in. Aunt Liz said I could take the week off and start school on Monday. Though I didn't like the idea of missing class, I didn't argue with her; I wasn't looking forward to being the new kid. The first day at a new school sounds dreadful.

C drove me to school and the first thing she showed me was the location of her locker — in case I ever needed anything, I would know where to find her. I met her two best friends, Elena Gilbert and Bonnie Bennett. They were both very nice and welcoming.

I went to the office to pick up my class schedule.

A male voice behind me asked, "Are you Riley?"

I turned around to see a tall, baby-faced guy with dark brown hair standing behind me.

"Yes…?"

"Hey, I'm Jeremy Gilbert. I'm supposed to show you around." He didn't look too eager or thrilled.

"Gilbert? I just met Elena…"

"My sister."

"Ah. I'm Caroline's cousin." I had to ask, "How did you get stuck with the showing-around-the-new-kid duty?"

"I slacked off a lot at the beginning of last year — so much so that I was basically failing everything by mid term and I had to ask for extra-credit stuff. But now, even though it's a different school year, if the English teacher ever needs 'volunteers' for something, I'm always at the top of her list." He rolled his eyes and muttered 'volunteer' again.

"Lucky you." By now, we were standing in the hallway. "But seriously, I'm sure I can find my way; I don't need a tour guide."

I was going to say thanks and walk away, but Jeremy grabbed by class schedule out of my hand.

"It's not a problem. We actually have a bunch of classes together." He smirked. "Come on, let's go to English."

At lunch, I was sitting in the cafeteria at a table by myself. Even though it was noisy, I was grateful for the peacefulness that comes with being alone, even in a crowded place.

I was enjoying said alone time until Jeremy walked up to the table.

"Hey. How's it going so far?" he asked, while setting his lunch tray on the table. I guess he's sitting here too.

I shrugged. "Mostly okay. The people are kind of weird though. Once they find out I'm Caroline's cousin, they either expect me to be just like her, or they want to use me to get in better with her. More than once I had a classmate come up to me, introduce herself, and ask if I could talk to Caroline about putting her on the cheerleading squad. As if I have any interest in cheerleading; and even if I did have that kind of pull with C, I certainly wouldn't use it to help someone become a cheerleader."

Jeremy laughed. "Yeah, I get that too. People have all these expectations of me when they learn that I'm Elena's little brother, but I quickly squash those."

"Is that a small town thing, that younger siblings cannot have their own lived and their own identities?"

"I don't know if it's a small town thing, but it is certainly a this town thing. Especially if you're talking about a founding family. See, Elena is seen as ideal, while I am…" he paused.

"Not?" I supplied.

"Exactly."