Thank you for the response to the first chapter. I'm glad you're liking it so far. As always let me know what you think about this installment.
"So did you like him?" Caroline probed when we walked to my car at the end of the day.
"Who?" I asked.
"Stefan? It would be so cool if we could both date football players." She said and I shook my head.
"I'm not into Stefan." I told her and she wilted.
"Why not? You have to date or else people are going to notice." She said and I shook my head again.
"Me dating is not something people are going to notice Care. Besides you know Stefan isn't my type." I told her.
"Is he?" Caroline asked pointing across the parking lot.
"Ew no. If he wasn't so vile he could be. His car is hot. He's hot but his personality really needs some work." I said and she laughed.
"So you've met him I take it?" She asked laughing.
"Yeah he's my seatmate in history. I think Mr. Saltzman has an evil side pairing us together. Apparently he's brilliant and I know I'm brilliant. It's not going to end well." I said as we saw Stefan walk up to Damon. Stefan said something and Damon shook his head as they both got into the electric blue Chevy.
"Lucky you. Maybe you'll get to tap that by the end of the semester." She said and I rolled my eyes.
"There will be no tapping that." I responded.
"Come on Lena, vampires have sex with humans. They just have to be more careful. Vampires are not meant to be celibate." She whined and I laughed.
"Let's just get home. I want to do my homework. Homework Caroline. That is normal." I said and she shrugged climbing into the passenger seat.
"So tell me, if hottie's personality was better, would you tap that?" She asked and I laughed and shook my head.
"Let's not talk about Damon." I said and she laughed.
"So hottie does have a name. Damon, it suits him." He said as we drove out of the parking lot behind Damon and his hot car.
"Changing the subject, what about you and the jock?" She asked.
"His name is Tyler and he's gorgeous. He invited us to a party his family is having Friday night. Apparently he's the mayor's kid and they have dinner parties almost every weekend." She told me. I groaned as we drove, I hated parties unless I could get smashed and have sex. Neither of those things were happening at this party unfortunately.
"I hate parties Care." I begged but I knew that she wouldn't let me out of it.
"You have to come to this one. People are expecting you to be there." She told me and I sighed.
"For the sake of fitting in, I'll be there. But I'm going to hate every second." I warned her and she giggled and leaned over to hug me as I drove. An accident wouldn't kill either of us but I still liked driving safe. The idea of a car accident still made me sick to my stomach. One just doesn't get over the thing that technically killed them.
We moved into a normal house with a front porch. It even had a swing on one side of the porch and it reminded me of a place I would have lived in with my family before everything went wrong. We chose it only because it blended. No one would question us living there as long as they kept believing that my dad lived here sometimes too.
"Are you really going to do homework?" She asked when we walked into the house.
"I am really going to do homework. I want to succeed." I told her and she sighed and flopped onto the couch dramatically. The house wasn't huge but it was huge to two teenage girls when it was just them. There were four bedrooms so it felt empty when there was no one else.
"Maybe I'll give Tyler a call, see if I can talk him into asking me out." Caroline said skipping out of the room.
"You do that. I'm not wasting my time on boys this time around." I muttered as I looked at the homework assigned to me. My calculus teacher was an asshole who assigned me three pages of work that I didn't understand the first time I took it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~DE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Later in the week Stefan invited me over to his house so I could help him with a writing project. I agreed only because Caroline forced me. She told me even if I couldn't like him romantically I should like him as a friend.
"Thanks for driving me home." Stefan said. He was a year younger than Caroline and I but he played on the team so that made him an honorary member of the group.
"No problem, I was coming with you anyway." I said with a shrug. He got out of my car and led me up the steps to the grand house. I've been very clear that I'm not looking for a boyfriend but I know Stefan likes me as more than friends. I just have to keep it strictly platonic and it's not hard. There are no butterflies and no sparks between us. Even Damon and I had more sparks and he's pretty much the vilest person I've ever met. He's still far from polite. It's an improvement when he decides it's a good day to ignore me completely. I'm sure there's a reason for his asshole-ness but as of now I don't know what it is.
"Come on in." He invited me in and I was relieved. As a vampire I couldn't enter the premises until I was invited. It made moving into my house difficult because the realtor had to invite us in before anything else could happen.
"Thanks." I said stepping across the threshold without being held back. I could hear shouting clear as day further into the house and Stefan paled.
"I'm sorry about that. At least they're keeping the volume down today." He said and I smiled at him reassuringly.
"It's not the first time I've ever heard fighting." I told him and he shook his head.
"They're not fighting. He's trying to deal with one of my mom's episodes." Stefan replied and I didn't ask what he meant. It was his business and I didn't want to impose.
"Let's get to work." I suggested as I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Footsteps wasn't the right word for it, it was more stomps. It honestly sounded like whoever it was, was going to go through the floor.
"Who the hell is this Stefan?" Who I assumed to be Stefan's dad demanded.
"My friend Elena, she's helping me with homework." Stefan answered.
"I told you, no one is ever to come over here. You know why. This girl could tell everyone what she hears and sees." He roared and I looked at him.
"I have nothing to say to anyone else about this home." I told him.
"You better not tell anyone anything girl. I can be a very formidable enemy." He threatened me but I wasn't afraid. "Where the fuck is Damon?"
"I'm here." Damon replied coming through the door. His gaze darkened when he saw me sitting there with Stefan so I opted not to say anything to him. Before his father started yelling at him, a woman with dishevelled hair and a dirty nightgown came downstairs, dancing through the room.
"Hello there, my name is Lily Salvatore, I am pleased to meet your acquaintance." She said holding out her hand like someone would a long time ago. She wanted me to kiss the back of her hand. She spoke like she was from a different era. She twirled holding the edge of new nightgown out and I could see that she thought she was wearing a beautiful ball gown. Damon had completely paled and Stefan was taking it well. I played along and kissed the back of her hand and greeted her.
"It's time for the young lady to leave, Stefan." His father said his voice tight. I nodded and stood up, this was a huge secret and I understood why they wanted no one to know. The woman was completely insane.
"I'll see you at school." I said walking to the door. When I got outside I could hear his father start yelling at Stefan about inviting someone over when he knew the rules.
"Don't tell anyone about what you saw in there." Damon told me stepping around from the side of the house. I didn't know when he had disappeared but I didn't blame him. I couldn't stand to be around my mother if she was like that either. I was lucky that my mom was as normal as you could get, well besides the fact that she abandoned me.
"I won't. So what's wrong with her?" I asked him and he sighed.
"Why should I tell you?" He asked and I shrugged.
"You don't have to Damon. I'm just curious, I've never seen that before. She thought she was somewhere else didn't she?" I asked.
"Why?" He asked.
"She was speaking from different era and she insisted I kiss the back of her hand. She was holding the hem of her nightgown like she would an elaborate ball gown." I told him.
"You're observant." He noted.
"I have my moments." I allowed, prompting him to continue.
"My mom has pretty intense and very real delusions. She sees whole worlds in place of the one she lives in. It's stressful because not all of them are as harmless as this one was. She's had visions where we're the enemy and she tries to kill us." He told me. I was impressed that he was talking to me. He always seemed to hate me, but if I were in his situation I wouldn't want friends like this either. Friends meant inviting people over.
"Isn't she on medication?" I asked.
"Yes but she doesn't like it. It makes her feel fuzzy so she doesn't take it unless we have to go out. We don't want anyone knowing there is anything wrong with our family so she gets doped up to go to the parties. Then it's back to normal." He told me. I could see he was uncomfortable talking about this so I put him out of his misery.
"I'm sorry about all of that, but I should go. You're not quite so vile when you're not glaring at me." I told him.
"You're less cheerleader than I thought initially. A cheerleader wouldn't have promised to keep quiet and actually want to know more." He agreed.
"That's the nicest thing you've said to me since we met." I laughed.
"I'm not nice to cheerleaders so don't get used to it. That's more Stefan's gig than mine." He said with a smile.
"I'm not nice to surly loners so don't get used to it." I responded before getting into my car.
When I got home Caroline was there looking through her closet for something to wear to the party tomorrow night.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I need the perfect dress. I intend on forcing Tyler to ask me out. How was working with Stefan?" She asked.
"It was fine. I actually talked to Damon for a while." I told her and she smiled.
"Are you planning on tapping that soon?" She asked with a grin.
"No I am not planning on sleeping with him. I hate that term Care." I reminded her and she laughed.
"Why do you think I use it?" She asked and I shrugged. She had a point. If we couldn't drive each other crazy, what else could we do?
"So what did you come up with to wear tomorrow night?" I asked her sitting down on her bed.
"Well I was debating between long maxi dress and short frilly pink dress." She said showing me both.
"The long maxi dress looks awfully familiar." I said about the dress I was relatively confident she picked out of my closet.
"Yes yes I may have borrowed it. I want to look hot for Tyler tomorrow night." She answered with a roll of her eyes.
"If you thought that dress would make you look hot maybe you should wear that one." I suggested to her.
"Of course you're right. You always are when it comes to my fashion dilemmas. So what are you wearing?" She asked me and I smiled.
"I'll decide tomorrow at the last minute." I said. It was how I got ready for all parties. I didn't like thinking about them too much.
"Our first game is Saturday so we can't stay out too late." She warned me and I rolled my eyes.
"We're vampires Caroline." I reminded her.
"I know but even so we still need our beauty sleep. Vampirism is not a fix all." She said with a roll of her eyes. We were both really bad for the habit but it was a reflex.
"Whatever you say Caroline. I'm going to do my homework since I didn't get to do it with Stefan." I said as I walked out of her room.
"Right, Stefan is your unofficial date for tomorrow night. You're both going stag so it makes sense." She called after me and I rolled my eyes yet again. I really wished she would stop setting me up with Stefan. Unfortunately for her it was never going to happen.