Chapter 6 (Day 3)
When Elena wakes up the following morning, Damon is nowhere to be seen. Not that she wants him to be around, but it feels weird for her since she'd thought that they have made progress in getting to know each other after Damon helped her with her homework.
"Thanks for your help. Seriously, if Mr. Bell gives pop quiz tomorrow, pretty sure I'd get an A," Elena sighs happily, as she put her note in her backpack.
"Just call me your life saver, if you will," Damon says smugly.
"Ugh, stop being so smug about it, it's just math," she throws a throw pillow, which would hit him square in the face if he didn't snatched it in time. He has such a great reflex since he is a vampire.
"Just math? The subject had you begging for my help earlier."
"I did not beg, Mr. Salvatore, least to you of all people," she pouts and without her notice, Damon's smile gets bigger to see her so adorable.
"Anyway, got any more homework I need to slay?"
"'Slay?'" Elena laughs, a genuine one and makes Damon laughs along with her, though he had never let out a genuine laugh before in years. "Nope, not today. Want to watch a movie? I just got a collection of Star Wars movies form Jenna, bunch of chick flicks, oh and a – why are you looking at me like that?"
Damon grins big she thinks it would tear apart his cheeks, "You want to watch a movie with the big bad vampire?"
"I'm not scared of you."
"You did."
"Yes, yesterday. Because you moved too fast and with those fangs, who would not scream if one sees your pointy fangs?"
"So you're not scared of me? You're not scared if I bite you and drain you dry?" he wiggles his eyebrow, opening up his mouth.
"No," she challenges.
"Don't start something you can't finish, Elena."
Suddenly Damon lunges toward her, pin her against the bed and has her screaming while giggling as he roams her sides with his slender fingers.
"Stop," she pants, "I'm ticklish," she laughs loudly.
He stops, "Still want to watch a movie with me?" he flashes his fangs.
She sits up, punches his shoulder, "No, you ruin my mood. Let's just talk."
"I take it back. Let's just watch a movie, I don't want to talk," with his fangs gone, his lips turned downward.
"Hey, remember our rule," she points out, "I ask, you answer."
"Fine."
"When were you… turn? Is… the correct word 'turn'?"
"Yes, we use turn. It happened in 1864." He answers casually, putting his arms underneath his head, as he gets comfortable on her bed.
She scoots closer toward his side, "That makes you more than a hundred years old," she exclaims.
He snickers, "When you put it that way, I seem like a pedophile, in bed with a teenager."
She chooses to ignore his remark, "How old were you when you turn?"
"Twenty three."
"Who turned you?"
"Sore subject. Next question." He demands curtly.
Elena frowns a little, but she doesn't push him because she understands that he might need some space and privacy, "Okay, why did you die? Did you eat some garlic, choked to death?"
"Funny," he retorts, "I simply did not want to be in this world anymore, so I took off this baby," he shows off his ring on his middle finger.
She catches his hand, observing the ring, ignoring the chill he brings just by the touch of his finger. Is it what it feels like when you touch your soul mate?
"It's beautiful," she says in wonder, "and it's blue. Blue is my favorite color."
"You must love my eyes, then."
"You are so full of yourself," she abandons his hand, "What happens when you take off this ring?"
"I turn to dust. This ring is what makes me walking under the sun. It protects me."
Elena gets up, makes up her bed before she walks to her dresser to grab a white polka-dot shirt and dark blue jeans. She uses her time to get ready since it's only seven and she doesn't have to be in school in another hour. When she finishes and get dressed, she goes to her make-up collection to put on some concealer, powder, mascara, and a bit of NYX nude lipstick that Jenna had gotten her few weeks ago.
When she walks out of her bedroom, Damon has already claimed his place, lounging on her window seat.
"Where were you?" Elena asks as she goes to her vanity to dry her hair with her white blow drier.
"Nagging me already? Or did you miss me?" he casually asks he, looking intently at her daily dose of beautification.
"I have other questions that I would like for you to answer," she says, plugging the blow drier and starting to blow her hair. Thankfully, Jenna had bought her a quiet expensive drier so when she uses it, it doesn't make much noise and she can hears Damon clearly.
"It's my turn to answer, don't you think? It's a two way street, we have to be fair," he shoots her one of his one little smirks that makes Elena blushes so she hides it with her long, thick hair.
"Fine, three questions. Now."
"What's your full name?"
"I notice that you are so very much intrigued with my name since the first time we met," she quips.
"You are an observant one," he grins.
She rolls her eyes, "It's Elena Elizabeth Gilbert."
"Hmm… interesting."
"Why?"
"No reason," he says, "Do you have a boyfriend?"
"That important to you, how?" she turns off her drier, combs the hair with her finger and leaves it wavy, just as she always does.
Little does she know, Damon is in awe for her natural beauty that he grins wider and thank whoever pair him with her that he gets a beautiful soul mate.
"Very. I need to know if I have competition."
"Competition?" she turns around to face him, with a small frown on her forehead.
"You're my soul mate, therefore –"
"Stop with the soul mate thing, please," she says exasperated, "You can say whatever you want about this whole thing, but stop saying that we're soul mates. It's… weird. I don't like it."
"It is the truth, face it."
He doesn't know why he feels all defensive when she doesn't want to acknowledge him as her sole soul mate, but he does. And he is never one to be the type of person who cares about what other people think about him.
"Just answer it, you owe me," he pouts, wanting to let go of the topic suddenly.
"No, I don't have a boyfriend," she sighs softly.
"Good. Why are you sad all the time?"
"What?" his question catches her off guard.
"Your eyes, they seem hollow. Empty. I don't see any picture of your other family members here," his eyes travels all around her room.
"I don't want to talk about it," She stands up suddenly, keeps her poker face intact, and grabs her backpack from the corner of her room, "I have school. Bye."
"Hey, Bex," Elena greets with a smile as soon as she sees her friend walking towards her.
After Damon has successfully put her in a somber mood, she tries to have a good day and it is starting by being nice with everyone. Except, maybe Damon.
"Hi, 'Lena."
"It's near summer and you're wearing a scarf?" Elena notices that Rebekah is wearing a red silk scarf around her neck. That must be uncomfortable looking at the weather now that is starting to get warmer.
"I just feel like it," she shrugs as they walk to their AP Math class together, "So, how's the college applications going?"
"Well, not that I have hope too much, but I'm planning to get away from here as far as I can. So, I applied to Brown, UCLA, and Duke. Jenna insisted I apply to Duke. What about you?"
"Wow, Brown and UCLA? Those are pretty far, Gilbert. Mom wants me in Duke as well, Dad tries to convince me to move to England to live with my grandparents as I attend Oxford, but I really want to go to LA, you know there are beaches there and God knows how much sun I need right now," she whines, pointing to her pasty skin.
"Maybe we can get in to UCLA this fall."
"Yeah, and we can share a dorm together," Rebekah smiles softly.
They talk about the homework, that Damon has helped Elena the night before, when they pass a classroom, in which they can hear sobs coming from it. They stop as a response; Elena is looking to her right, right to Rebekah's eyes as she does the same. They look around to find no one else notice the sound, even though there are a handful of students walking in the hallway.
"Do you hear that?" Elena asks.
"That is one ugly sob. Yet no one hears it. Talk about over-individuality," the blonde teenager rolls her round eyes.
"Let's take a look."
They peek toward the little glass in the door where they see a girl, with brunette hair in perfect ponytail wearing a cheerleader uniform, who looks a lot like Nadia, one of Caroline's minions.
"Is that – "
"Come on," Elena tugs in Rebekah's hand, and then she turns the knob of the door, and go in in a second.
The girl in question let out a gasp softly before she turns around, right in time where Elena closes the door of the classroom quietly.
"What are you doing here?" Nadia asks, her eyes are red and puffy.
"Nadia… are you okay?" Elena lets go of her friend's hand and takes two steps forward the crying girl.
"Stop," she commands, then sniffles, "Just go. Please."
"Hey, it's okay," Elena smiles, trying to reach out to crying Nadia.
She gulps then sniffles some more, "I don't need your pity. Just go, Gilbert."
"'Lena, she does not want us here. Let's just go," Rebekah utters, clearly feds up of the cheerleader's behavior.
"Nadia," Elena ignores her remarks, "are you alright?"
"No, and I don't want you here."
"You know, if you have a problem, you can go to your friends. Share with them," Elena says as she leans against a table, three tables from Nadia.
"They won't listen," Nadia sobs, covering her face in her hands.
"Or you can talk to your parents. Or the school counselor, I'm sure they will listen."
"No one wants to hear a pity story when they have perfect life," she wipes her face making her eye-line and mascara smear her face.
"Nobody has a perfect life, and you know it. I don't. Rebekah doesn't."
"Yeah? Do you have a brother who just got into an accident, got into a coma for a week, when your parents going through a divorce? While you," she yell-whispers, taking a step forward to Elena, where she no longer leaning against the table, "are almost got dropped out because your friend put cheerleading first instead of school? Huh? Do you?!"
Elena tries her hardest not to yell as well, but when she is pressured, she can't help but raising her voice, "No, but did you forget the part where my parents are dead? And I moved here where I knew no one until Bex, and you and your friends try to make me bad about myself every single day? Did you, Nadia?"
Nadia's mouth gapes, her jaws go slack. It took her almost a minute to say, "I'm sorry."
Elena takes a deep breath, trying to compose herself, "It's fine. I'm okay. And you're okay, you just need someone who will listen to you. You can talk to me, or Bex."
"Speak for yourself," Rebekah quips from in front of the door where she stands.
"Bex," Elena hisses, turning her head toward the blonde-haired woman, and she lets out a defeated sigh.
"Yes, you can talk to me," Rebekah mumbles as she adjusted her scarf clumsily.
"Come on, let's get you cleaned up. Good thing I always bring my wet tissues."
Elena go to where Nadia is standing, taking each step tentatively. And when she gets to standing in front of her, face to face, she brings out her wet tissues from her backpack, taking one out of it then carefully wipe the mascara tracks from Nadia's face.
Nadia keeps quiet when the brunette girl in front of her gets her cleaned up. She has been friends with Caroline all her life, and she has never done something like this to Nadia. She's not a gentle person with a big heart, that Caroline.
"Bex, you bring concealer and mascara?" Elena asks as she keeps busy wiping Nadia's cheeks.
"You know I do."
Rebekah takes steps forward until she is standing next to Elena; take out her small make-up pouch where she stores her compact powder, concealer, mascara and strawberry eos. For a whole seven minutes, the girls re-do Nadia's make-up, putting concealer to hide her redness around her eyes, coating her lashes with Rebekah's mascara, powdering her face with the compact powder, then sealing her lips with strawberry-flavored lip balm.
"There," Elena says in triumph for her work, "Good as new."
Nadia shares her little smile, "Thanks, y'all."
They all grab their things, put it back into their respective bags then smile to each other. But before they go out of the room, Nadia stops in front of them.
"Elena, Rebekah, I would really appreciate it if you don't say anything to anyone about this."
Rebekah smiles, while Elena grins, "Sure."
"Yes, Maam… no, I called Mr. King already to… I know but I already let him know that the construction will begin next week… yes, Maam… sure, of course… okay, thank you, Maam."
Jenna puts her rectangular cell phone into her purse as she fumbling with the keys to her house. As soon as she finally let herself in, she closes the door and put it on the table on the foyer.
She is home early because there is nothing she has to do at work. She went to the mall earlier to pick up some cakes because she just feels like to eat red velvet that a certain store has. She puts her cake in the fridge before she heard a soft snore coming from upstairs. She frowns, could Elena be home already?
She closes the door of the fridge slowly, turns on her heels then up the stairs. Without knocking, she opens the door to Elena's bedroom and the sight catches her breath away as she lets out a small gasp.
"Damon?"
The man in question is currently sleep like the dead, pun intended, spread eagle in Elena's queen sized bed with his leather jacket's off. Jenna remembers precisely that he is still wearing the outfit from yesterday.
"Damon," she calls louder, stepping into Elena's bedroom.
The Salvatore man turns his forehead into a small frown then let out a soft whimper, "what?"
"What the hell are you doing in Elena's bedroom?!"
He opens his eyes as soon as he hears the word 'hell', sits up then in a flash stand up on the edge of the bed.
"Jenna. It's – "
"What the hell are you doing in my niece's room?!"
Well, hello there! I hope you all have a very good day/night.
With Ramadan and then Eid, I didn't have much time to write, plus there's this thing calls writer's block. I'm sure most of you have experienced it before. I have been living in a pretty secluded place for three weeks, not that I want to, but it is a part of mandatory subjects in my university to live in a pretty remote place to interact socially with the people and share my knowledge that I have gotten from learning in university. So, yeah, signal is hard to find, charger plugs are also not that much.
Anyway, I'm sorry for the late update and hope that this slightly longer chapter can make up for it. Don't forget to leave a review and let me know what you think!
Have a very good day/night!