It felt as if the semester had just started, but the once green sprawling lawns of campus were now coated in a thick layer of snow. Some days, in early December, Harmon canceled classes altogether. On those days, Elena stayed in her dorm, curled up in a few blankets with a stack of books at her disposal.
The first weekend the snow let up, Elena immediately called for a carriage and went out to see Caroline. Of course, though Caroline knew her little secret, she continued the disguise anyways, just in case prying eyes looked on.
The pair hid in Caroline's room, with all of the notes Elena had received spread out on a table in front of them. Caroline's room, like the guest room she'd slept in, was huge. It had a similar four-poster bed, a small dining table, a writing desk, and a large closet with more dresses than she'd ever seen in her life.
Elena looked through the dresses in question while Caroline read over the threatening notes one at a time. By then, there were nearly fifteen. "It seems like they just want you to torment you. I doubt they'll actually do anything. Besides, If they wanted to tell on you, they would have done it by now," Caroline said.
"I suppose," Elena said as she held up a soft purple dress to her body in the mirror. "But why, then? It's been weeks."
"Not sure." Caroline picked up one of the pieces of paper and turned it over, sighed, then put it back down. "I bet that would fit you."
She placed the dress back on the rack in the closet.
"Not going to try it on? It would look so lovely!" Caroline said. She stood up and walked over to the closet, pulling the dress back out to admire it.
"I think people would probably figure me out if I showed up to class in a gown, Caroline."
"There are other places to wear dresses, Elena."
Odd, to hear someone say her real name. "Yes, well. I'm not sure there's anywhere I could wear a dress without raising suspicions."
"Elena, seriously. You are underestimating how little people care about you."
"Ouch?"
"No, I mean, I just don't think anyone is paying close enough attention. Especially if we went somewhere around here, where no one from Harmon would even see you."
"It still seems like a risk," Elena said, but as she spoke, she watched the sequins on the dress in the mirror. They reflected the soft light, creating an enchanting effect. It had been a long time since she'd donned a dress. Nearly four months since she'd left home, and even longer than that since she'd worn a dress of her own choosing. When she joined her father and his companions, her clothes had always been picked out beforehand.
Caroline raised a brow and pressed her lips together. "I know you want to try it on! Come on, just do it. You don't have to promise to accompany me anywhere. Though, there is a nice little saloon just down the road."
"Fine," Elena agreed if only to stop her incessant needling. Besides, after months of wearing Jeremy's tattered (and frankly, ugly) clothes, she deserved to put on something sparkly.
The girls had only spoken once before, but the bond between them appeared faster than either could have expected. Elena quickly changed out of Jeremy's old clothes and slipped into the dress.
It fell mid-thigh and featured a horizontal zig-zag pattern lined with sequins. It hugged her curves in a way no other dress had. From the background, Caroline said, "I told you…"
Elena ran her hands down the dress, admiring it in the mirror. She'd pulled her hair down too, letting it fall over her shoulders. As much as she loved attending school, it felt nice to be entirely and completely herself again, if only for a moment.
Before she had the chance to talk herself into a night on the town with the outgoing (and interesting) Caroline, a knock rattled the door. Caroline's room was set up in such a way that if the door were to be opened, the mystery visitor would be able to see the entire space. Caroline must have known this, as she quickly shooed Elena into the closet. While it could hold quite a few dresses, it barely had the space for an entire person.
Stuffed in the closet and only mildly questioning her life choices, she once again found herself with an ear pressed against a wall.
"What it is you need, Damon?" Caroline asked.
"Just curious what you think you're doing," said Damon, his voice low. He really was not good at whispering.
"That's certainly a loaded question, isn't it?" There was a sharpness to her tone that Elena had not yet experienced.
"You know to what I am referring," Damon said, his voice growing louder as he walked into the room and closer to Elena's hiding place. She could see him through the slits in the door. All talk and aggravating.
Caroline rolled her eyes. "To what I am referring, you are so pretentious."
He crossed his arms, looking at the blonde with a raised brow and a clearly irritated expression. Though Elena could hardly make it out through the slits in the door.
She attempted to follow Damon's eyes as he looked around the room and was immediately self-conscious of everything they'd left out. Her clothes, or rather, Jeremy's lay in a crumpled pile, and the threatening notes were still splayed out on the table. She watched as he spotted the pile of notes and casually picked one up.
"Know anything about that?" Caroline asked.
He put it into his pocket. Hey! That's evidence! "Can't say that I do." Cryptic.
"Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Salvatore," Caroline said sarcastically, looking at the much larger man with her arms crossed, somehow looking nearly as intimidating.
As Elena took a step backward deeper into the closet, Damon stepped closer to it. For a moment, it felt like he could see her despite the door between them. Then, he turned on his heel and walked away. She released a breath.
"I hope you know what you're doing," he said. The door closed behind him, and they both remained quiet, listening to the sound of his footsteps fade down the hall.
Caroline opened the closet door. A smile crossed her face quickly covering a look of disdain or perhaps even hatred that Elena only caught a glimpse of. "So sorry about that, him."
"He really needs to learn how to whisper." She quickly took the dress off, wanting desperately to get back into the comfort of her disguise. As she redressed, she continued, "Are we sure he's not the one sending threats?"
"Damon? No, I mean, clearly he doesn't like you, but I don't think he would outright threaten you."
"You didn't tell him, did you?" She didn't want to have to accuse her first new friend of betraying her, but why else would Damon act so cold and callous?
Caroline pressed her lips into a tight line and gave a slight shake of her head. "No, I didn't. I told you I wouldn't, so I haven't. You'll just have to trust me on that."
Growing up, it had only ever been her and Jeremy. She and Jeremy against everyone else, always on the same side. Though they had little arguments every once and a while, they never lasted more than a day or two. Since arriving at Harmon College several months ago, she had yet to achieve a bond even half as important to her. She didn't want to sour this one with distrust.
"Sorry, I will. I do." Elena paused for a moment. "Honestly, I really haven't been friends with another girl before. I don't know what I'm doing. Or, well, I suppose I've never really been friends with anyone aside from my brother."
Her new friend placed a hand on her shoulder. "Us sheltered girls have got to stick together. Besides, you're friends with that whole cohort. You're here all the time."
"Yeah, but that's different. They're… weird. I'm still not convinced they actually like me. I think John just likes having someone around to bully."
Caroline tilted her head back and forth as if she were mentally weighing the words in her head. "They do like you, they just have a weird way of showing it. You're the only other person they've ever brought here."
"And Damon, you think he likes me?"
"He has an extra strange way of showing it."
While there had been many instances of Damon speaking badly of her, often loudly to other people, while she was in the next room, her mind lingered on the small moments of kindness. What had he wanted to tell her during her first visit to the country house the previous month?
"At least he's handsome," Caroline said with a slight shrug.
Elena certainly had thought about Damon's looks before, not that she would admit it out loud to anyone. But it was difficult to be in the presence of someone like Salvatore and not think about how devastatingly handsome he was. In Elena's case, his looks were a mere annoyance. She refused to be distracted by his height, broad shoulders, and piercing blue eyes. They would only make it harder to crush him under her thumb as he deserved.
The last few weeks of classes continued on without an issue. Unlike the others, Elena had a singular focus on her classwork. One slip up, and she'd certainly lose to Salvatore, and she would not give him a single chance at the satisfaction of beating her.
During the second to last week of classes for the semester, a notice was posted on the door of Elena's room. Another threat, perhaps? But no, the notice turned out to be much worse. It informed her that Harmon College would be closed for the three-week winter break before the Spring semester started.
Clearly, the Harmon College administration figured that most of their students came from wealthy backgrounds and therefore had homes to return to in the winter. And while the Gilbert house technically stood empty, the idea of sleeping in that big house all by herself was something she hoped to avoid at all costs.
But what other option did she have? She'd clearly been spending too much time around Caroline, because her positive, bright voice popped into her head, suggesting she ask to stay at the Salvatore house. Honestly, she'd rather die in the cold than spend a whole month in the same building as the Salvatore.
She also could have asked the twins, but that would be asking for a month of psychological torture. Besides, their place barely fit the two of them, and she worried her disguise wouldn't hold up to their constant scrutiny.
Despite her desire to sit on the corner of the bed and ruminate over the issue for hours on end, she had another class to get to. And of course, as she stepped into the Ancient Greek classroom, the familiar (now more so) faces glanced her way. Their greetings ranged from pleasant (Marcus) to annoyed (John) and of course, indifferent (Damon). Though they'd spent so much time together over the past few months, it almost felt comforting to receive the same responses she'd received all semester. At least some things didn't change.
Dr. Bartlow, however, clearly faced similar issues as Elena, as his spirits were low as well. Or she'd guessed, as he spent most of the class reading a book at his desk while the five of them hunched over Greek to English to Latin and back translations that made Elena's hand cramp by the twenty-minute mark.
In a hushed voice, John started. "What's everyone doing for Winter vacation?"
Elena attempted to slink down in her chair, to make herself small in hopes that the question wouldn't find it's way to her. She continued to write, working through the Greek translations with ease as the others spoke about their plans.
"Salvatore and I will be going north—" Marcus began, only to get cut off by John.
"Annual hunting trip, right. Very exciting," he said. Clearly he didn't find it so. "Personally, I was more interested in our dear friend Jeremy Gilbert's plans."
Maybe if she ignored them, pretended not to hear, and kept working diligently, he wouldn't ask again. Unfortunately, she knew him well enough by that point to know he didn't have the decorum to know when someone didn't want to be interrupted. In fact, John seemed to know exactly when someone wanted to be left alone. And that was always the moment he chose to strike.
Placing her quill down next to the jar of ink and the, frankly, nicest translations she'd ever done, Elena said, "Uncertain—"
"So you don't have any?" John said.
"No." Quickly, Elena thought on her feet. Something she was notoriously good at, if you didn't ask the librarian. "It's just that there are so many options, and I haven't yet decided."
Damon, who hadn't been paying attention to the conversation, smirked. Unless his Greek translations were particularly salacious, it must have been at her expense. Damn him.
"Well, we'll be out of town too, so you'll have to find some way to entertain yourself without us," John said, his usual undertone of insincerity and snark.
She simply rolled her eyes, noted that the country house would be nearly abandoned save for one Caroline Wicklaw, and continued about her translations.
"You know," Damon started as soon as she sat down next to him in their second shared class of the day. "If you find yourself overwhelmed by the many options you have for winter break, you are welcome to stay at the country house."
She turned her head to look at him with a confused expression, eyebrows knit together. "What?"
"I don't mean anything by it, Gilbert. Just that you are welcome to stay there."
Could he read minds or was she really that transparent in her need? Perhaps it was the fact that she stayed in the dorms while the twins had a fancy apartment and Damon and Marcus shared a house near campus (that she'd never seen) and both frequented the country house on weekends. She couldn't imagine how much they spent on carriages alone. How could he possibly know that she had nowhere else to go? Did they all sit around and talk about how poor she was? What gave her away?
"Okay. Thank you," was all she could manage to say to his offer. "But that won't be necessary, because—"
"Of all your options, right. I'm familiar. The offer stands if you should need or want it."
Damn him, damn him, damn him. How could he be so nice and yet so awful all at the same time? How could he know, somehow, exactly what she needed, and make offering it sound like some sort of handout! Worst of all, she'd already decided to take him up on it. And that only made her hate him even more. For he had something she needed, a fact she was certain he wouldn't forget.
A/N: Thought I would go ahead and post another chapter since I went so long without updating! Hope you enjoy and I'll see you next time for winter break! 33