She's forcing herself to keep her eyes focused on her professor, her body is relaxing against her own will as she tries hard to concentrate on a voice that seem to want to lull her into oblivion. Bonnie rests her cheek against the back of her hand, as she keeps her elbow shored up on the desk. It's a matter of seconds before she's dozing off. The sea animals on the wall move in her sight, the sound of an old rocking chair is unnaturally sinister. Looking down there are bloody fingers which the vampire cleans sucking one them one by one to prolong the sweet sensation of the innocent blood on his palate. He sighs in contentment and she can feel the echo how dear such a horrid memory is to him.
Bonnie is startled into a clear mind, breathless and cold, while her professor tells his students the subject of the next lesson as they take their things to leave. Bonnie looks about herself to make sure no one is staring at her, then down at her fingers. Her mind cruelly leads her to believe she can smell blood on herself and she stops breathing in defense, but when someone bumps against her accidentally her lungs open up and she can only smell the aftershave of the boy that apologizes with a mere sorry and leaves.
Bonnie brings her hand to her forehead, pushes a strand of hair behind her ear and takes a breath to fill her chest and stomach and prepare herself for the next blow, the way boxers do. It seems like lately she's doing nothing else but that. Now, if only she could have a break.
She thinks of Damon. She really doesn't want to, but she thinks of Damon. Of his chest, though she crushed against it like a car against a concrete wall; of his elbow inside her grasp, though her little fingers could only hold on the way a child would.
"I'm being ridiculous," she murmurs to herself as she leaves the empty class. But it is hard to keep at bay her inquietude, the anxiety to find a confirmation of Damon's ability to get her rid of those unwanted presences, the need to make sure he's actually not the only one who can do that.
She hugs her books to her chest as she walks away, and is so absorbed by her thoughts that she can't hear Caroline calling her name, "Earth calls Bonnie."
Bonnie blinks and stares at her, moving her eyes from Caroline to Elena and back.
"It seems like you have something on your mind," her friend says, "Or someone," she adds with a wink and a playful tone.
"Oh, if you only knew," she says, making sure to not sound serious. She can't die, but Caroline would still probably have a stroke.
"We all know," Elena corrects her, with a dramatic sigh, as they start walking together – Bonnie in the middle of the two young vampires, "You think you can keep a secret from us?" she asks.
Bonnie does her best to smile genuinely, but Elena's friendly attitude and her ignorance of what's going on in her life makes Bonnie feels so much more alone than she's ever felt.
"We're here to feed you so you'll have the necessary energy to fulfill your academic dreams, and Jeremy's wet dreams too-"
"Caroline!"
Jeremy has not called her back yet, but speaking of her own relationship in such light and joyful way gives her the illusion that not everything is lost yet.
"What? Your little brother grew up quite well, and quite not so little."
"And what would you know about that?" Bonnie asks mimicking a suspicious expression.
"I know everything," she answers, "Beware, you mortals," she jokes, linking her arm with Bonnie's, as Elena does the same on the other side of her.
"But you can give us details over lunch."
"Or not," Elena corrects her "He's still my little brother, and I really wanna stay in the dark about this."
"Okay, okay," Caroline admits defeat, "Then you can write me a five page essay with illustrations."
"Are you into porn now?" Bonnie asks, dumbstruck.
"I'm not," she protests, "Unless it involves Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Or me. Or both." She corrects herself.
The ring of Bonnie's cell phone interrupts her digression and she bends over her friend to peek at the screen. "Talk about the devil…" she says winking at the girl, before reaching out for Elena to drag her away "We'll leave you your privacy."
Bonnie smiles at her before looking down at her phone. What is she going to say to him? Well, she better figure it out fast. She walks to a bench and sits down, leaving her books by her.
"There's really no resemblance with the devil, at all. The other one, on the other hand…"
Bonnie turns her head to see the old woman with the white pupils sitting next to her, composed and contemplative. A shiver runs through her and she grips her phone in her hand by reflex.
"I'm sorry," she says, turning to her with an apologetic expression, "I suppose I can get in the way of your social reputation if I expect you to chat with me in public." She waves her hand in the air to motion for her to continue. "But please, go ahead and answer your call, dear. I will not get any older."
Bonnie looks away and puts her phone to her ear. "Hi." She puts all her effort in steadying her voice. She's sitting next to a ghost in a college full of people eager to find the new freak to point at and she's alone, even more so because there's silence on the other side, when she's desperate to have someone to hold on to in this mess she's sinking in.
"Do you still love me?" he asks, and she doesn't know why she feels the tears rising up through her throat.
It takes all the strength she got to not cry right there. She needs, so much, someone that will calm her mind and steady her heart, but all Jeremy offers are questions and doubts and claims of intimacy when she cannot bear to be touched again, cannot think of her body being used again.
"Jeremy..." her voice is breathy and she lowers her head to hide the sudden, unbearable crumbling of her façade.
"I'm sorry about what I said. I think I'm worried about losing you."
"You're not losing me," she tells him, her voice low and lifeless. "There's no one else. No one". No one that sees past her pretences, past her fake smiles, past her controlled attitude. No one that bothers to look hard enough to see the scars and the bruises she's covered in.
Jeremy is not losing her, she thinks; it's more likely that she's losing herself.
Still, it is a wonder that he doesn't detect the change in her voice.
"I know college is a big change and you're trying to do your best. I'm proud of you and I want you to know that it's okay. I don't want to pressure you. I love you."
"I love you, too," she says back, before hanging up.
"He's a sweet boy," she hears her ghost companion say with a sigh, "if a little clueless."
"Yes," Bonnie says, looking down at her hands resting on her lap.
"I think you need a little rest, my sweet, why don't you go to your room and take a nap? You will feel a lot better once you wake up."
Bonnie blinks, perplexed by her maternal mannerism, and looks at her with a questioning gaze but she finds nothing. She stands from the bench, looking around herself, but the ghost is nowhere to be seen.
#
The day starts off in the most common way considering where he decided to exercise his profession: a pregnancy scare.
The smell of disinfectant is faint, thanks to the open window. There's a pleasant strip of sun that cuts part of the room and he really would like to go out and lay down on the grass, under the sun, like he used to do when he was a student, but he can't.
"I just had sex with him once!" she protests, in the middle of her whining, as he leans against his desk and lends her the box of paper tissues, letting her take as many as she feels she needs.
"Well," Dr. Noah Rowe interrupts himself, waiting for her to stop blowing her nose before talking again "Once is, in fact, the minimum required."
"But I hate him!" she protests again, looking at him with big, reddened eyes.
"I realize it's not a strictly related question on my part, but…" he asks, confused, "why did you have sex with him if you hate him?"
"I…we were there alone, and…it seemed like a good idea," she answers.
"Right. I see, of course," he says, trying his best to not sound condescending. Sad to say, it is not even the most stupid answer he ever got to that question, and it's only his second year at Whitmore College.
"Well, you should calm yourself. I know that you're scared but if you're pregnant is not really the end of the world-"
"My parents are going to kill me!"
"They're not, Ronda," he tries to appease her, "Maybe they will have a hard time accepting it in the beginning, but they'll be happy about it eventually. Furthermore, you still have to run the blood test to be sure."
"But those home tests are 99% accurate, my friend Becky assured me of it. She has used them so often!" She's all righteous indignation for the false hope she believes he's trying to impose on her.
"I would never question your friend Becky's vast knowledge on the subject, but there are still possibilities-"
"What kind of possibilities?" she asks, frustrated and hopeful.
"Uhm, usually a false positive can be caused by molar pregnancy, evaporation lines, certain kind of tumors…"
"A tumor?" she asks, her voice reaching a disturbing high pitch. "So my choice is between dying by my dad's hands or by tumor?"
"That's not what I'm saying. I'm sure you're fine-"
"Nothing is fine, I'm about to become the size of a whale! I hate my life already! Last night I ate so much, and this morning I woke up because I had to vomit. I can't go on like this for months," she says, starting crying again, and taking another tissue from the box.
"I knew it, I knew it," she repeats between sobs, "I knew it would be positive, that's why I couldn't even look at that plastic stick for so long."
"So long? How long have you waited exactly?" he asks gently, massaging his right temple with the pressure of his thumb.
"I don't know," she says, looking at him with disappointment. Her life and waist size are forever ruined and he asks such stupid questions. He might be gorgeous, but he's totally insensitive.
"Please, just think about it. How long did you wait before looking at the result?"
"Probably around twenty minutes…" she says, stopping her crying to think about it, like she can't really handle doing two things at the same time.
"Then there's the serious possibility that you are not going to give any grandchildren to your parents, at least not now."
"What are you saying?" he tone is not grateful nor relived, but stress can do that.
"I'm saying that the test must be read in the recommended time. Which never go past five minutes, and any result shown later must be discarded. I really advise you to take a blood test before you start thinking of baby names."
The doubt seems to insinuate inside her brain.
"But-but I ate so much…"
"Do you not, usually?"
"And I vomited this morning."
"It happened to me too sometimes, and I never got pregnant," he says.
She's the embodiment of dismay, and she starts touching her face like she's suddenly worried about her melted make up. Still, a part of her is arguing about the truthfulness of her situation.
"But, look," she says, pulling a used pregnancy test from her bag to put it right under his eyes, "The lines…"
It's obvious she's hopeful now that she is in fact going to keep her size and her freedom. Noah takes the plastic stick and looks at the lines, and then he turns it around.
"Where did you buy this test?"
"My friend Becky gave it to me."
"I see she's provident," he comments faking a smile of approval. "Experience teaches, I'm sure, but it seems like it didn't teach her to check the expiration date," he says turning the test to show her the printed date on the back of it.
"How late are you exactly?" he asks, patiently.
"Two days…" she answers with a low voice.
"So maybe it's-" he cannot finish his sentence because she screams out of joy and wrap her arms around him, quite violently.
"Yes, yes, congratulations," he says taking her arms to pull them off him. "Now, if I can give you some advice, you should probably think about using the pill," he suggests, pushing her gently to sit down again.
Ronda, in all her newly acquired wisdom looks at him grimacing, "But I'll get fat."
#
"Oh, dear, the world is such a nice place," Bonnie spins around and presses a hand flat against her chest.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, but it feels kind of lonely to see all those new things by myself," the ghosts says wandering about the room, to stop and stare at Caroline's golden bottle of eau de toilette, "It must smell divine."
"For the price it costs, it must," Bonnie comments with a grin, realizing she's suddenly started to befriend ghosts. Fantastic. Yes, Bonnie, way to go.
The old woman, all creases and molasses smiles, turns to her after slowly straightening her back. She moves like she feels her age pressing on her muscles and bones and Bonnie is tempted to ask her if she really does, or if it's just habit or the remembrance of her body to make her move like that, but she doesn't.
"I suppose," she says instead, "That you're here to go on to the other side."
Bonnie braces herself, holding with her hands to the piece of furniture behind her. There's no need to make a fuss, especially because the old woman, for how creepy she might actually look, doesn't seem to want to hurt her.
"I'm in no hurry," she says, dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand. "I haven't seen the world since I was fifteen years old, my dear, and I really would like to give a good look at it before I leave it forever. It's not such an unreasonable demand, is it now?"
"I suppose not," she replies, without worrying about hiding the surprise and the doubt in her voice. The woman doesn't seem to mind, though, and goes on about telling her of her plan.
"I hope you don't mind if I follow you around for a bit, take it as the wish of an eccentric woman that is old enough to be your grandmother… Oh, if I had such a pretty granddaughter!" she says, straying for a moment, "When I was young I could only dream of deciding about my life the way you do. I'm so excited to see how it works now. Mind you, you girls should really cover your graces with some care, for it is not proper to concede so much to the sight of young men."
"How old are you?" Bonnie asks, humored by her scandalized tone, "If I may ask."
"You may," the other says, "I expect a man to keep to himself such an improper kind of question, but you dear, oh no. I was born during the last year of the first world's war. I could say I saw a great deal of the world, sadly I didn't actually see much, but this story I will tell you another time, because I fear I will make you late for your class."
Bonnie looks down at her watch and then up at her, "Right, I have to-" but once again, she's nowhere in sight.
#
"I need a car," Jeremy says, as Damon is using a moist cloth to clean up the side of the leather sofa where he had put his feet.
"And I should care, why?" he asks, not bothering to interrupt his task. Maybe he should use a cleansing cream.
"I wanna go to Whitmore College," the boy adds shortly.
"Then, study." He should still have a beeswax product somewhere. That should make it shine. If only he could find it.
"Funny," Jeremy says with a sigh, "Can I borrow your car?"
"One day you will be old enough, or I will be dead, and you will still not touch my car," he clarifies, turning around and offering him a derisive grin.
"I really need to see Bonnie."
"Something wrong?" he asks, almost hopeful he'll say yes. That would mean someone other than him noticed that something is off with the witch, but he's not so lucky.
"No, I just want to see her. Make sure everything's okay between us."
It's a start. Maybe when he sees her he will actually pay attention to her and will grasp something.
"Forget it; I'll give you a ride."
Maybe he can drop by a store and buy something to clean up the sofa.
#
He's sitting at a table when she arrives. A cup of caramel macchiato is already placed where she's supposed to sit. She does so, silently, and takes off the lid of the cup to smell the sweet fragrance of it, before closing it again to drink from the split.
"Tell me it's not your favorite," he says, while sipping on his coffee.
"Ginseng coffee is my favorite, actually."
"That's a better choice," Noah says, nodding, "It is typically made by infusing coffee beans with panax quinquefolius extract. Some people claim that ginseng products work as aphrodisiacs, though no studies have proven this, but it seems it provides regulation of blood pressure and mental stimulation."
He realizes only when his little speech is over the perplexed way Bonnie is looking at him.
"I got carried away, didn't I?" he asks.
"You were the first of your class," It is not really a question and he nods shortly and embarrassed.
"With no social life," he adds, knowing she will do the math very fast.
"I can't believe it," she says, hardly containing her distrust about his statement.
"I swear," he says, raising one hand, like he's ready to testify in court about the truthfulness of his statement "I was the most clumsy, shy boy you'll ever imagine."
"And then? What changed?"
"The way it always does, I grew up, I traveled a bit."
"Did you see much of the world?" she asks, sipping on her coffee. She was scared the coffee date would turn into a scary examination with more lies to pile up one on the other, but he's nice and she feels herself relaxing.
"I've lived in Italy for four years," he tells her.
"I suppose that explains your interest in coffee."
"Coffee is not an interest," he replies, almost looking offended. "It's a way of life, a religion," he adds dramatically, smiling soon after, "My mom went back living there after the divorce, and I've stayed with her on and off for four years. What about your parents?"
The smile on Bonnie's face does not falter, but her eyes become empty for a moment and he realizes he touched the wrong subject. Or maybe the right one.
"My mom left us when I was five, and my dad died a few months ago."
"I'm sorry," he says, feeling deeply the uselessness of his words, "That must be really hard for you. How did it happen?"
She avoids his blue eyes but cannot avoid recalling the moment when Silas slit her dad's throat.
"Someone with a God-complex decided to kill him," she explains briefly, hoping he'll just stop making questions.
"That's terrible," he says, finding a great beauty in the quiet attitude of the girl sitting in front of him. She's sensible and strong enough to have survived such pain with grace, but he's still wondering if there's anyone that's taking advantage of her state to keep her trapped into an abusive relationship. "There's anyone you can count on?"
"Of course. I have my friends, my boyfriend. They are like family to me," she says with a soft smile. There's no fear in her eyes while talking about them, then again, it doesn't mean a thing.
"I see."
#
Caroline's smile becomes a frown as soon as she sees his face, and Damon grins at that. He just made her day, mission accomplished.
"Hi Caroline, how are you?" Jeremy asks with the same savoir-faire any well mannered five years old.
"Fabulous," she says with a high pitch before looking at Damon, "Until thirty seconds ago."
Jeremy tries to speak again but she just raises her hand shutting him down, while still keeping her eyes on Damon.
"Cafeteria and library."
"What?"
"Where you'll find your girlfriends. Or ex-girlfriends," she adds with a smile of hardly concealed satisfaction. Damon doesn't even care to wait for the pleasantries to be over before he walks away and Jeremy is forced to rush after him, after saying goodbye to Caroline.
"I suppose you'll go find my sister," he says, without receiving any answer.
"Caroline didn't point out who's the one at the cafeteria and who's the one in the library. I should go and ask-"
"Did she need to? Bon-Bon is all duty and sacrifice, she would never dare to spare a second for her physiological needs," he says with an ironic tone, mocking her righteous attitude.
Jeremy has no reaction to that, but to agree, "Yeah, sometimes she should go easier on herself."
Damon raises one eyebrow sparing him a look. Well, what warm, passionate concern he shows for his girlfriend, he thinks.
"Well? Aren't you going?" he asks him "The library is in that building. Fourth floor."
Part of him is eager to go and find Elena, but he forces himself to stay still, in the sunlight, for another minute as he watches Jeremy walking away.
Damon wants her, that much is undeniable, but sometimes he stays still and can hear the voice of his reason – which he likes to leave unemployed and bored – point out the almost toxic emission of a relationship driven by lust and lies. It's like driving blindly, because he must close one eye when her world falters because of Stefan, and she must close them both whenever one of his sins gets uncovered, and this is why both of them are absolutely incapable of telling which way their relationship is going.
And even when it's Elena's mouth he's kissing, and even when it's Elena's body he's holding, the way she likes to deceive herself while failing to deceive all others on his account make him want to scream. He always considered expectations to be too heavy to bear, but her complete lack of them when it comes to him is strangely unsettling.
When they are together and everything is the way he had always wished, and she overlooks whatever mistake he makes, it doesn't make him feel loved, it doesn't make him feel like a better person. It only makes him feel like shit.
But he's weak, he knows, too weak to resist her.
#
She's walking down the stairs when she feels the shiver running through her. Her head snaps up, she turns around, then look up to see him looking down at her like she's an insect to crush.
"He's angry," the voice of the old woman with the white pupils does not make her heartbeat accelerate. It can't really go faster than that.
Where I Go
Where I Go
There'll be fire that goes blazing on the snow
"What-"
"If he passes now, he'll take it out on you. Run!"
She should not be listening to the advice of a supernatural stranger but she can't help herself. Her skin is cold when she rushes down. She hears her saying she'll slow him down. In what way, she has no idea, but she can't really think of that now. She only wants to run and hide. It's useless, she knows, because there's no place to hide, no way to escape her fate. She's the only anchor, she's the only passage. She's alone, but her instincts push her to do anything to survive, even try to stupidly run away from a supernatural being that can appear wherever he wants, any time he wants.
Where I Go
Where I Go
There'll be fire that goes blazing on the snow
She runs down the stairs, avoids the impact of a professor walking towards her only to bump shoulder against shoulder against a boy with acetate ray-ban eyeglasses.
"Sorry," she says, turning around to look at him in the face while she walks backwards. A light, cold wind pushes her hair back from her face and she feels fear rising up into her throat like bile. Bonnie turns again only to run in the direction she instinctively took. The chill in her flesh, in the marrow of her bones pushes her towards the sun-drenched part of the inner courtyard.
And I know, where I go, isn't somewhere that you can easily see
And I know, where I go, isn't somewhere that you'll ever be
You'll ever be, you'll ever be...
"Look where you're going!" a girl yells after her after she almost made the clothes hamper fall from her hands, but she doesn't stop to apologize or think of anything else but warm. Warm, to exorcize the cold that ghost has put inside her, the chill she feels whenever she has the time and the lucidity to realize how utterly alone she is.
And then she sees him, ten feet from her, with his pensive profile, lips almost pouting. He only frowns when he turns, his face first and then his body, to see her.
He clearly wants to ask her what's wrong, what's happening, why she feels like running the sprint, but she wants to be safe. And she wants it so much, so badly that she can never want anything else.
Tell me that story, of your life before me
And that's what she does. She hides, with her cheek against his hard chest, her eyelids shut tight and her arms around him, like a scared child. Is she anything else but that right now?
Despite his vampire reflexes and his policy to not get involved in anything that doesn't directly affect Elena, he can only stare at the scene unfolding. He looks down, watching the energy that fuels her to reach to him with a morbid fascination-the intentional pressing of her petite body against his own, the tension of her features leaving her face when she finds herself pressed against his chest, and the ludicrous, completely human, beautifully desperate strength she uses when her arms wrap around him.
When the sky starts turning and it goes back
The sun turns back and the ground cracks
At vanishing point on the broken glass floor
Through the mirror in your mind and the lock on the door
Goes nowhere, you can't go there, or know there, nothing grows there
'Cept your shadow grows smaller and in the blink of an eye
I can't see you anymore
He's immobile. His arms have lifted on their own for her to encircle him. It stuns him into silence, the situation he's suddenly in. Her.
#
Note: The song I used in the last scene is "Where I go" by Nick Gardner.