2.
When school started three days later, I picked up Caroline and Elena caught a ride with Bonnie. Somehow, ever since we were young that was the way our foursome paired off. Danny and Caroline. Elena and Bonnie. Truth be told, sometimes Caroline seemed more my sister than Elena.
During the drive, Caroline seemed to decide it was her sacred duty to bring me up to speed with all the gossip I'd missed out on, now we were alone, and she could spill all the juicy stuff she was meant to be keeping secret.
"...Well, Matt and Elena broke up and he's been pining over her all summer. Mary Baker's been fighting with Vicki Donovan – oh! Tyler's shacking up with Vicki. It's probably best you know before we get there because they're pretty in-your-face." She glanced at me sympathetically, "We can egg his house again, if you want?"
"I'm over it," I shrugged.
I had dated Tyler for six months the year before my parent's death. As far as relationships go, it was a pretty dysfunctional one. He'd only wanted a girl from a respectable family who he could parade around whenever he felt like it, and for a time I was a-okay with the parading. But after a few months I was done and wanted a relationship wherein I was a respected and valued participant. So, we broke up. Didn't speak for another three months. Didn't even make eye contact.
"Really? Because last spring when he took Kelly Beach to the 30's-decade dance, we egged his house. Also, wasn't it you who started the rumour she had crabs?"
"They were assholes the whole time, Care! They deserved it."
I turned sharply into the school parking lot and she hissed, "Watch it! Do you know how long it took me to do my hair?"
"Above an hour?"
"Alright, Miss "I roll out of bed and go to school in the same bun I slept in" - some of us put in effort!"
I grinned at her, threading my arm through hers, "Um, sometimes I spray some dry shampoo. That's enough effort for me."
Caroline gave a little groan of horror as we entered the school.
People were looking, I could tell. In a town as small as Mystic Falls news got around fast. Every single one of these people knew about the death of my parents and my subsequent abscondence. Every single one of them would notice my reappearance. It made my skin crawl and I clung to Caroline's arm, glaring back at anyone who dared to openly stare. By now I was an expert on the politics of high school and angry was always better than scared.
"Schedules, schedules." Caroline muttered, pulling me towards a large table manned by three teachers who were handing them out. She snatched up both of ours, tugging me to the side to compare them.
"We've got all our classes together and the same lunch period." She said, pleased, "I had my mom speak to the school board. Told 'em you needed the extra support after such a tragic event."
"Nice." I nodded.
"Mm. Anyway, this year – who is that?"
"Who?" I turned and immediately knew who she was talking about. At the end of the hall a guy was moving away from the attendance office. His face was hidden behind a pair of large sunglasses, but he had an angular jaw and his lips pressed together in focus. He was obviously new to Mystic Falls – in a town this small, a face that wasn't at least familiar was a rarity.
"He looks like an asshole." I decided, "Who wears sunglasses inside?"
"Ugh. Danielle Marie Gilbert, I did not raise you to be like this! Assholes are hot. Hey – he's heading towards the history department – we've got Tanner first. Think he does too?"
"For his sake, I hope not." I said wryly as we followed the stranger down the hall.
Caroline was practically jumping for joy as the stranger entered Tanner's room. I just felt kind of bad. Anyone who had Tanner for their first lesson at Mystic Falls High was going to get an unbelievably bad impression of the school.
"C'mon, let's get into position." She grinned, pulling towards the room with her.
"Care, we're nearly fifteen minutes early!" I complained.
"Hi!" She exclaimed, locking eyes with the stranger as we entered the room and completely ignoring me, "I'm Caroline Forbes, and this is Danny. We're on the Student Welcome Committee."
Ah, yes. The committee I had agreed to join only because we had a new student about once every ten years.
"I'm Stefan. Stefan Salvatore." He nodded at us.
"Salvatore?" Caroline said immediately "As in Zach?"
"Zach's my uncle. I'm staying with him up at the boarding house."
"So, you're a founding family. I don't think I've seen you before?" I questioned dutifully.
"I haven't lived in Mystic Falls since I was a baby. Military family. We moved around a lot."
"Right. Well, welcome to Mystic Falls High. If you need anything, we'd be more than happy to help." Caroline flashed a smile as Tanner entered the room and she dragged me to a pair of seats a few spaces behind the one Stefan had chosen. I knew Caroline well enough to know it was so she could stare without fear of being caught.
"Gilbert," Tanner said immediately, pulling out a thick stack of paper from his desk drawer, "The work you missed." He dumped it onto my desk with a loud thwack.
"What?" I asked stupidly, eyeing the pile. I had only missed a month of school before summer break started – how was there this much?
"All the work you missed," he repeated slowly, "plus the extra-credit you need to make up the grades you'll lose for late completion. You have two weeks – or I'm flunking you."
"Right." I grit my teeth and shoved the paper into my bag. I doubted any other teacher would make me do catch-up work. Tanner was on an unprecedented level of asshole-ry.
Gradually, the rest of the class – including Elena and Bonnie – filed in and Tanner began to drone in his dull voice. I allowed myself to zone out, toying with my locket. I had acquired it over the summer. It was perfectly round, the smooth gold engraved in a delicate fleur-de-lis and set on the end of a delicate gold chain. I had quickly grown attached to it – the only other jewellery I wore on a daily basis was a small gold ring that had once belonged to my Grandma. It had been passed down to me after she died and was decorated with tiny flowers and monogrammed with a curly 'G'.
"Miss Gilbert, attention!" Tanner snapped.
I jumped and tucked the locket back into my shirt, looking up at Tanner but not really seeing him.
After school, I went home with Caroline. We sat in her room, chewing on candy and watching crappy reality TV while I got started on my mountain of history work. If I leaned right out of Caroline's window, I could see my house at the end of the street. When we were kids, Care and I would sneak into each other's rooms all the time. I would climb the tree outside her window, and she would scale the drainpipe outside mine. We'd dash across the road, run down the dark street and sneak into each other's yards unseen by creeping through two fence panels, loosened by us for this purpose. Care had outgrown this method of travel in eighth grade, as had Elena and Bonnie. But I'd never caught up to their heights, remaining a scrawny five-foot-two, and I could still squeeze through if I tried.
"So, did you meet any hot guys?" Caroline asked, turning away from Teen Mom to wiggle her eyebrows at me.
"I don't know." I shrugged, "I don't think that was really my focus."
"Oh, c'mon!" Caroline groaned in frustration and threw a pillow at me, "You were alone for months and you're telling me there wasn't one hook-up?"
"I know." I grinned, "I'm sorry. Tell me about Stefan, I bet you've been stalking your way into his heart."
"Well," Caroline said smugly, "Aside from what he told us earlier – he's a Gemini, his favourite colour is blue, his parents are dead, and he has siblings he doesn't talk to."
"Gemini's are bad news, everybody knows it."
"Yeah, but he's hot so I'll take a little bad news. Hey, did you know Jeremy's been hooking up with Vicki Donovan?"
"What?" I sat bolt upright, "Little Jer-bear lost his V card? To an actual lady?"
"Well, to Vicki Donovan, so maybe not a lady. A female, at least. But yeah, apparently, they've been hooking up all summer, I heard them talking about it earlier."
"Isn't she with Tyler?"
Caroline gave a smug smile, "Yeah. That's the interesting part."
"And he has no idea?"
"None." She sang, "I love the first day at school, all of the dirty summer gossip comes out. Though I've got to say, Tyler had it coming. I mean, you have a much better ass. He's crazy."
"Right?" I agreed, flopping back onto her pillows, "I can't believe we're going to be witnessing a Tyler-Vicki-Jeremy love triangle."
"It's so messy." Caroline sighed happily, "I love it. That's wrong, by the way." she tapped a sheet of paper with a pixie stick, "George Washington was elected in seventeen eighty-nine."
"Oh." I frowned, pulling it towards me, "Shit. Thanks."
When I got home, Jeremy was sat in the kitchen, frowning over a sandwich. When he saw me, he immediately got up to leave the room.
"Jer, wait."
He stopped but didn't turn. I had no idea what to say. All I knew was that every time I saw him, my chest felt hollow. Achy. I couldn't remember the last time Jeremy had been mad at me.
"I-" I swallowed, "I'm sorry, okay? I don't know what else I can say. I'm so, so sorry."
He stood there for a moment in silence before wheeling about and speaking, "You know how hard it was after they died? You know how shitty we all felt? If you were here you would have made it better, but you decided to leave us alone instead." He broke off for a moment, breathing hard, "Elena was asking for you as soon as she woke up. We waited for hours, Danny, but you never came. You didn't answer any calls or texts – we had to report you missing. We thought you were dead, too. And there were some things, y'know that I just really needed an older sister for. And you weren't there."
"You had Elena." My words came out choked. I couldn't seem to such enough air into my lungs. I thought I had left him with the best person – Elena was a billion times better than me when it came to emotion.
"Elena's… Elena. She's my sister and I love her but she… she doesn't get it."
"I'm back now," I tried to soothe him, "And I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, I promise. And I'm here if you need to talk to someone."
"Right." he turned away, stomping to the doorway. But he paused at the threshold - "Goodnight."
"Night, Jeremy." I couldn't help my relieved smile.
