I was at the hospital. I was looking for some blood. I was glad that I only needed to get enough for myself, my mom and Harper now. It was how it was always supposed to be. When I got to the blood bank, I couldn't help but notice that the supply was extremely low. I was pretty sure that there were regulations that the hospital had to meet. I decided to talk to the guy in charge.

"What happened to all of the blood?" I asked.

"Who are you?" He replied. I sighed because it looked like I would have to do it the hard way.

"Was anyone here tonight?" I compelled him.

"Just a man around your age." He answered.

A man about my age? That didn't leave a lot of people. It could be one of the tomb vampires, but I was pretty sure that none of them were dumb enough to steal this much blood. It would come down to an addict. That left only one person. Elena did say that he was drinking human blood again.

The following day, I went to school. I wanted to tell Elena and I wanted to think of the best way to do it. I didn't want to make it seem like I was going after her ex. I was about to say something to her when Stefan pulled up. He was driving an old red car. I knew that I didn't want to call him out in front of her.

"Nice car." Elena told him.

"I figured that it was too nice to leave in the garage." Stefan replied. "So I woke up this morning feeling okay and I decided that I wanted to come back."

I had a feeling that he was okay because of the blood that he was drinking.

"Well we have to get to class." Elena replied before she dragged me away. Well, there went my plan to confront him about it. He would probably just deny it anyway. I needed to talk to someone else about it. Fortunately, there was someone that I could talk to about it.

I decided to skip last period and made a trip to the boarding house.

"You know we have a bell. You could use it." Damon quipped.

"If you're not going to bother to try to keep vampires out, then I'm just going to come in." I explained. "You know I'm sorry for what happened to Stefan. It was not my intention to hurt anyone."

"I just got through talking to John Gilbert about something your mother stole from Jonathan Sr.….Sr." He told me.

"I could ask her but you've made it pretty clear that you don't trust us." I stated.

"Well I trust him even less and I don't want him to have it." He stated. I sighed. It looked like I would not be able to talk about what I wanted to talk about with him because he was being a dick as usual.

I began to walk away.

"By the way, the next time you're going to steal from the blood bank, don't take so much." He stated.

"I was at the blood bank last night, but it was already picked over by the time that I got there." I declared. "Maybe before you go around spouting accusations, you should look under your own family tree first."

With that, I went home. My mom wasn't there. I didn't know where she was, but I wasn't too concerned about it. It gave me some time to relax and think to myself. That went all out the window when my phone rang. It was Elena. I smiled.

"Hey." I answered.

"Where are you? I didn't see you after school." She told me.

"I left early because I had some things that I needed to take care of." I explained. "So, what's up?"

"After school, Caroline told me that I was on the court for Miss Mystic Falls." She explained. "Do you know what that is?"

"Yes, I know what it is. They've been doing it since 1864. I was supposed to enter, but the pageant was cancelled because of the vampire stuff." I stated. "I think I would have won."

"Well do you think that you can talk your way onto the court?" She asked.

"I'd think the people behind it would be on vervain." I stated.

"Still, it wouldn't hurt to talk to them." She repeated.

I decided to give it a go and talked my way into being an alternate in case one of the other girls dropped out or was otherwise unable to be in the pageant. The easiest way to accomplish that would be to kill one of them, but I really didn't believe in murdering people to get what you want…or murdering people at all.

I did do a little research on the contestants. Other than Elena and Caroline, there were three other contestants. There was Blair Fell, who was in the pageant despite winning the last one, her cousin Tina Fell, who was arrested for DUI and the town's leaders probably thought being in the pageant would be good for rehabilitating her image. There was also Amber Bradley, who was not from a founding family and was probably only in the pageant so it wouldn't look like the girls had to be from Founding Families. I didn't see any reason to get rid of her. In fact, I went to the least deserving, which was Blair.

"Can I help you?" Blair asked me.

"Yes you can." I declared. "You're having second thoughts about being in the pageant. It's not fair for you to be in it."

"It's not fair for me to be in it." She repeated.

So later that evening, I found that Blair had dropped out of the pageant and I was now in. I didn't feel wrong about having her drop out because she shouldn't have been in it in the first place. She already had one sash. She didn't need another one.

The following day, I was in front of Mrs. Lockwood and two other women.

"This year's queen will have the special honor of representing the town at the 150th anniversary celebration." Mrs. Lockwood stated. "Before we crown our winner, we'd like to get to know a bit more about each of you."

"Well I may not have lived in this town for very long, but I have wanted to win a pageant ever since I was a little girl. I may not be charitable as some of the other girls, but I have big plans for the future." I remarked. I thought that the kind of stuff that they liked to hear. I actually had no idea how they determined the winner of the pageant. There wasn't any sort of talent competition involved.

After the interview, I was in the cafeteria with the other girls. We were learning this stupid dance. Because I had joined so late, I hadn't had time to find an escort. Yes, they were still using escorts like it was still 1864. On the plus side, I already knew the dance because it was popular in the 1860s for some reason.

One thing that I would have to do was find some generic guy to be my date. I wished that they could see the sexism of having to be escorted by a guy. Of course, I would still be in a pickle because my girlfriend was one of the other contestants. I just wished that there was some way I could go solo, but there was this dance and I would have to deal with it. I would probably be best if I picked some random guy out of the hallway and asked him…or maybe I could ask Jeremy to do it.

I then realized that there was a more pressing matter and it was that I didn't have a dress. I would have to go find a gown to wear and I had a feeling that they wouldn't like if I wore something too flashy. I still wanted to wear something that was me. I went to the dress store and found a full-length pleated black gown that started to turn red at the bottom. It was lovely and I knew that I wanted it. I probably wasn't going to win the pageant anyway since I wasn't from a Founding Family.

On the day of the pageant, I walked into the Lockwood mansion after being invited. I couldn't believe that they had so carelessly invited me in. I could tell that they were pretty bad at spotting vampires, even though we didn't exactly go around with signs over our heads. It still made me realize that the council seemed to be full of idiots.

"Why are you dressed so nicely?" Damon asked me. "Are you in the running for Miss Mystic Falls?"

"Yes, actually." I declared. He seemed surprise because I could tell that he was trying to make a joke. "I'm finally getting my chance to enter."

"Did you talk to your mom?" He responded.

"Yes, and she was looking for it." I explained. "She will let you know when she finds it."

I then went up to the green room to get ready. It wasn't really green, it was just where we did our hair and makeup. I decided that I would go with a bouffant do and keep my makeup the same.

After I was done, Elena and I went to put on our dresses. We found that Amber was already in the room.

"Hey Amber, are you okay?" Elena asked her.

"I hate being the center of attention." Amber stated. "I get panic attacks."

I thought about compelling her to calm down.

"Do you need us to leave?" Elena questioned.

"No, I just need some air." Amber stated before she walked out of the room. The two of us then put our dresses on and after we were done, Damon entered the room.

"You can't be in here." Elena told him.

"We need to talk. Has your girlfriend told me what she told you about Stefan yet?" He asked. Why did he always have to say things at the most inappropriate times?

"No." Elena said before she looked at me.

"Stefan's drinking human blood." I remarked. "I didn't want to tell you because I thought you'd just think that I was jealous."

At that point, the door opened again. Didn't people know that we could be changing? This time it was Stefan. I decided to just walk out and let the two of them talk about it. Damon left not long after I did.

A few minutes later, we were in some kind of lineup. We were supposed to slowly walk down the stairs.

"Has anyone seen Amber?" Mrs. Lockwood asked as she ran around.

"Do you see Stefan down there?" Elena questioned.

"Nope, just Jeremy and my fill-in escort." Caroline answered after looking over the railing.

"What happened to Matt?" I asked.

"He couldn't get off work." She replied. "What happened to Stefan?"

"I don't know. I should find him." Elena said.

"Elena, no. You're doing this for your mom." Caroline stated. I felt like I had missed something.

At that point, I realized it was my turn.

"Anna Li and her escort, Jeremy Gilbert." Mayor Lockwood stated. It wasn't my name, but I wanted something Chinese, even though my father was white.

We then went outside to dance and I noticed that Elena was dancing with Damon. I supposed it was better than her dancing with Stefan. They also seemed to have chosen a song off of my playlist for the dance.

In the end, Caroline ended up being the winner. She seemed to be shocked by the fact. I was happy for her because I could tell that she had really wanted it. I just wanted to be in the pageant, not win it. I just hoped that whatever was going on with Stefan would be over soon.

That night, my mother handed over the thing that she had stolen from Jonathan Gilbert. She thought that she had taken his vampire detection device, but she was wrong and we had no idea what the thing did, so there was no harm in giving it to Damon. We then went home.

So Anna entered the pageant, but she didn't win. Hopefully, she'll get a little bit of time to spend with Elena. Please don't forget to review.