Stefan was never gonna listen to Tyler again.
He actually hadn't planned on going to his party, but dude kept calling and pestering him all night about it until he caved.
He decided he wasn't gonna go alone though, no. Not when he had a best friend he could drag along with him, and eventually get caught with.
He groaned then and stopped pacing as the frustration got to him, because they did get caught and they were now forced to stay away from each other. That being said, he couldn't go to Bonnie's house this morning to pick her up like he always did.
Instead all he could do was stand around by the school entrance and wait for her to get there, but she was cutting it pretty close even for her.
He looked up from his watch to scan the school grounds again, but there was no sign of her. He did spot someone else though.
Elena Gilbert.
He caught her staring while Caroline tried to talk to her. She waved and he sighed before waving back; praying to everything that is good and holy that she wouldn't go over there.
Because of course Bonnie was right. He didn't really like her. Not like he was supposed to anyway. That was made abundantly clear after flirting with her for half the night at that party after Tyler begged him to give her a chance because she liked him and it 'made sense'.
But Elena wasn't exactly his type of person. Sure she was pretty and smart and a genuinely good person, but she tried way too hard to keep untainted her reputation of being the 'perfect' person their peers looked up to, and he wasn't into it.
He liked getting a little messy sometimes.
"Hey Stefan" Elena greeted, suddenly standing right in front of him, and he blinked. He didn't even notice her walk over and he cursed himself for not escaping while he still had the chance.
"What are you doing standing here all by yourself?" She asked, unable to help but notice him checking his watch every few seconds.
"Just waiting for Bonnie" he responded. He could see the confusion in her eyes as she tried to remember who that was, so he gave her a second to get there on her own.
"Oh! Your friend we were talking about last night, the one that eventually left the party?" She clarified and he wondered if he was imagining the slight edge in her voice.
"Yeah".
"You know, you didn't have to leave the party just because she did".
He did actually. He absolutely did because not only did he listen to Tyler Lockwood, but he ditched Bonnie after dragging her to that stupid party in the middle of the night. That stupid party where he didn't even have a good time because he listened to Tyler Lockwood and made his best friend feel bad.
Elena's face fell for a second when he told her that, but she recovered quickly and smiled up at him anyway.
"Well, I had a really good time with you" she said, and he nodded. He couldn't bring himself to return the sentiment.
"Am I late?"
They both turned to see Bonnie hunched over next to them, a little out of breath. She looked a mess too, her curls were wilder than usual, her clothes were a little wrinkled and she wasn't wearing her glasses.
Did she run here?
"No, you're fine, but are you okay?" Elena asked while Stefan examined her.
"I'm fine. Just had a rough morning" Bonnie answered once she caught her breath. "How are you guys?"
"Good- are you wearing contacts?" He suddenly asked when she rubbed her eyes. She hated those things; said they were itchy and uncomfortable. Also, she hated the idea of sticking something in her eye.
"Last night Grams gave me an alarm clock. A WHOLE alarm clock! That thing is so big and loud it almost made me fall out of bed this morning from the fright it gave me and when I tried to turn it off I accidently knocked it off my night stand and it took my glasses down with it!" she ranted in frustration before rubbing her eyes again. "Anyway, Grams and I tried looking for my second pair, but apparently it grew legs and peaced-out, so I got stuck wearing these things". She rubbed. Again.
"Why didn't you just use your cell phone?" Elena asked and Bonnie looked at her like she was stupid.
Here's the thing, Bonnie Bennett wasn't a very nice person when her emotions were running high like this. Or when she was just feeling cranky, or annoyed, or angry...or just generally awake really...and judging by the murder in her eyes, Stefan could tell she was about to pop off on Elena.
"Don't you think-!"
"Actually, Bon you left your glasses in my locker remember?" he cut her off before she could completely lose it so she turned to him for a second and the light bulb went off in her head.
"Oh, right! I didn't have room in mine" she said smiling so big that it was contagious.
Important to note: Bonnie was also really forgetful. Stefan used to make it work in his favor to get her to do stuff she wouldn't usually do and later just claim that she forgot. She did not appreciate that when she found out. Not one bit.
"Well let's go get 'em. I gotta take these things out before I gauge my eyes out" she joked. At least he hoped that's what she was doing.
"See you later, Stefan!" Elena called out while they walked away, and he waved back quickly as he let Bonnie drag him inside.
SBSBSBSBSBSBSBS
They were almost out the door, already heading to the cafeteria for lunch when their English teacher, Mr. Davis, asked him to stay behind.
When Stefan turned back to Bonnie, she promised to save him a seat before walking out the door.
Once she was gone he turned around again to face his teacher, seriously hoping he wasn't in trouble because he didn't usually talk to teachers, and they didn't usually talk to him, which was fine, but now it left him feeling paranoid- like, what if he was in trouble? He didn't think he was, but still, these things happen.
Spoiler alert: he wasn't.
He realized this when Mr. Davis handed him an essay he wrote last semester which required them to write about life's hardships and how they shaped the kind of people they become. Which obviously made him remember that year when they were five years old. When he read Bonnie bedtime stories to help her sleep.
It started a few weeks after her parents left. She would wake up in the middle of the night screaming for them to come back and not leave her behind, but they never did.
Stefan hated that year, and he hated her parents even more for making her feel like she wasn't enough to make them stay when really, she was everything.
He never knew about her nightmares though, at least not until she had to stay with his family for a few days after her Grams was admitted to hospital due to her high blood pressure. When he caught her watching Boy Meets World in their living room in the middle of the night and she told him how much she related to Shawn Hunter.
"He has bad parents too" she eventually spoke into the darkness. Whether she was confessing that to him or to herself was unclear, and Stefan never asked, but one thing did change that night. For the first time in weeks, she didn't blame herself for them leaving like she always did. Because there was Shawn, and she knew it wasn't his fault either.
Unfortunately, there was only so much Boy Meets World to watch so instead he offered to read her a story so she could get some sleep. It was supposed to be a one time thing, but as her eyelids grew heavier she told him that his voice was home, "my idea of home sounds just like you, Stef."
He kept reading to her every day after that until suddenly a year had passed.
That wasn't his hardship though, it was hers. It's why he never wanted to write that essay, but she begged him to. Her Justification was that her parents leaving affected him just as much as it did her, which meant this was not only her story, but it was theirs. So, she didn't stop pestering him until he wrote about it.
Now, Mr. Davis was asking if he's ever considered doing it professionally, and no, no he hasn't. He wasn't going to consider it now either. There was a plan in place for his future that he wasn't about to mess with.
There would be no messing with the plan.
"I really think you could go far if you considered it. Especially if you kept writing like this" he said, and Stefan just looked confused.
"Like what?" He asked.
"Like it means something to you".
He walked to the cafeteria in a daze after that and almost didn't hear Tyler calling his name from down the hallway. He was still holding onto his paper and stopped to quickly slide it into his backpack when Tyler walked up to him, but he wasn't fast enough.
"Whoa, since when are you an A+ student, Salvatore?" he asked in his usual condescending tone and Stefan had to bite his tongue to get through this conversation.
"It's just a paper" he responded in a clipped tone before continuing his walk to the cafeteria. Tyler fell into step with him and Stefan groaned internally because he knew he wasn't going to let this go. Tyler never passed up an opportunity to rag on anybody, and Bonnie frequently called him an asshole for it. She said it behind his back, to his face, it really didn't matter, but in this instance, he was inclined to agree with her- even if he did have a higher tolerance for him since they were on the same team. Plus, he was also close friends with Matt so he was kind of hard to avoid.
"So how was the party?" Tyler asked, suddenly changing the subject. "Did you and Elena..." he lifted his eyebrows suggestively and Stefan rolled his eye.
"Nothing happened. I got grounded so it wasn't even worth it".
"But you're eighteen, you can't get grounded".
"I don't turn eighteen for a few more months, Ty…"
"That's just a technicality"
"...and even if I was it wouldn't change anything. Not in my house anyway".
Tyler then pointlessly kept bitching about how he should be his own man and not take this 'crap' from his parents the rest of the way to the Cafeteria and Stefan tuned him out for the most of it until they got to their table and he took his usual seat next to Bonnie, because it was a Monday and she was contractually bound to have lunch with them on Mondays and Tuesdays.
But he'll get to that later.
Matt was saying something about giving her a ride home if she'd like, and Stefan didn't think she was even listening until she looked up from her tray and said "ask me again in two weeks" before he caught her eye to express how baffled her was by the whole interaction. Sure, he only got there a second ago, but he was pretty sure it would be baffling either way.
What was happening?
"What took you so long, Stefan?" Elena asked from her seat across from him, snapping him out of it.
"Oh. Mr. Davis just wanted to talk about my paper".
"It's the first day of school why is he giving you a paper? Unless...wait am I missing something?!" Caroline started freaking out on Bonnie's left so she reached back and started rubbing the blonde girl's back to soothe her.
"Calm down. It was last semester's paper" she told her and Caroline relaxed a little bit. She looked at everyone around the table and assured them she was okay. Caroline was neurotic. It was her thing, so they understood.
"Why is he only giving it back to you now?" Caroline asked looking at him and he dropped his gaze to the floor like he always did before a lie.
"I guess he forgot about it" he said casually, so casually in fact that no one noticed that he was lying through his teeth. Well, almost no one; Bonnie was giving him her 'we're talking about this later' look. He hated that look. Things never ended well for him when she gave him that look.
"He got an A+ for it" Tyler pointed out, breaking the silence. Because why not right? and it's like Stefan said – he was NEVER gonna let him forget it.
"Really? Stefan that's great" Elena said enthusiastically.
"No, Elena. I said he got an A+".
"At least someone is" Bonnie mumbled then took a bite of her sandwich.
"What's that supposed to mean?" He snapped. Tyler was a loose cannon, and it didn't take much to piss him off. Unfortunately for Stefan, Bonnie didn't give a fuck, so it was his job to reign her in. This time he did it by digging his elbow into her ribcage, making her jump slightly.
They were already in trouble and didn't really need any more.
The fact that she got the message didn't stop her from glaring at him though before she turned back to Tyler and said, "Nothing".
"Look, I could get a good grade if I wanted".
"Good for you".
Tyler was about to respond when the bell went off and they had to go to class, effectively ending their argument before it escalated any further.
SBSBSBSBSBSBS
Stefan walked out of his last class of the day and found Bonnie leaning on the opposite wall in the hallway waiting for him.
"Hey" she said and pushed herself off the wall to walk in step with him as they headed for the exit.
"Hey".
They walked in silence for a little bit and made it out the door before they turned to face each other. She had her thinking face on, with her eyes squinted behind her glasses as she watched him.
"So...A+, huh?"
"Don't start-"
"I know I know. We don't mess with 'The Plan'" she said putting air quotes around 'The plan' like she always did because she didn't approve of it. "But Stefan do you really want to run your family's business?"
He didn't.
His father started the advertising agency when he was around his age. When it grew and expanded beyond what anyone couldn't imagined from an 18 year old Italian kid with no family at the time, Stefan knew that his dad wanted it to be their legacy. But working in ads was his father's passion. It's why he came to America in the first place, so he could turn that passion into profit. And he did, which is why Stefan admired him so much.
But it wasn't the same for him.
He also didn't know what he wanted to do with his life which is why he agreed to this plan and never looked back. Then somewhere along the line he figured if he convinced himself that this was what he wanted then it would eventually be true.
So he dropped his gaze before his lie, "I do".
"Wanna try that again?" She asked. "Look Stefan, you don't have to run your dad's company if you don't want to. Damon doesn't have to".
"That's because Damon knows what he wants to do with his life so someone has to do it" he said defending his decision again. If he had a dollar for every time they've had this argument then he'd have enough money to start his own company.
"You do too! You're just in denial because you don't want to let your dad down" she started, "Stefan you are a great writer, and that's because you put your heart and soul into it. I mean, I cry every time I read your journal and-"
"You read my journal?!" He practically squealed, a little taken aback by Bonnie's admission.
"You keep it at my house! What else am I supposed to do?!"
"Not read it?! Bonnie the whole reason I asked you to keep it was so Damon wouldn't read it".
"And he doesn't! Besides, there's nothing in there that I don't know anyway it's just written more eloquently in your journal" she tried to justify her deceit, but that wasn't the point. It was a matter of Privacy, and Principle. She broke both and he wasn't having it.
"I'm taking my journal back" he said walking to his car.
"This conversation isn't over, Stefan Salvatore!" He heard her yelling behind him as he got inside the driver's seat.
He waved as he pulled out of the parking lot and looked through the rear view mirror to see her still standing at the entrance of the school with an annoyed look on her face.