The Better Brother

Chapter 10. Work in Progress

After a while of talking me and Bonnie went our separate ways, as I approached more towards the school I seen Stefan talking to the football team. All of them wearing their jerseys for todays big game. I admire him from afar but he seemed to feel someone watching him cause he turned and saw me. He excused himself and headed my way.

"Look at you! You look cute in your jersey."

"What happened? No more cheerleader?" He said looking down at me.

"Eh, wasn't for me." I said shrugging my shoulders. "Are you mad at me?" I asked worried.

"Hey no of course not." He said grabbing my hand in his. "If you don't like it you don't have to do it." He reassured me.

"Okay good." He leaned down cupping my face with his big hands to kiss me. It was a sweet, gentle kiss, we pulled apart slowly and I looked up at him as he continued to speak.

"I hope you don't think this is too soon or anything. But I Ummm...wanted you to have this." He said grabbing a small, brown wooden box from his back pocket. He flipped it open and it reviled a round, silver necklace with a red stone at the top.

"Oh my god it's beautiful." I said taking it out of the box.

"It's something I've had forever and uhh...I never wanted to give it to anyone until now. I wondered if you would wear it for me. For good luck?" Be asked hopeful.

A floral aroma filled the air, I smell the jewelry and looked back up at Stefan. "Is that rose I smell?"

"No it's an herb actually. It's nice huh?"

"I love it." I said as he took it out of my hands. I turned around pulling my hair to the side for him to place the necklace around my neck.

"And I wanted to thank you for pushing me to try out for the team." His fingers lightly grazed the back of my neck as he clipped the necklace ack together.

"Of course. I knew it would be something you would love." I said turning on my heels after he was done. "Even though I won't be right there as your cheerleader I'll still be cheering you on." I told him.

"We're a work in progress."

"That we are." I said giving him another gentle kiss.

"I'll see you after the game yeah?" He said and I nodded. He walked on over to the rest of the team and couldn't help but smile. I turned to head inside to my first class but saw an angry Caroline, making me stop in my tracks. Oh shit I'm screwed!

"And your not in uniform why?" She said arms crossed over her chest giving me a death glare.

It was getting close to being dark out and everyone was partying around the bonfire that burned in the middle of the schools parking lot. The kids trying to sneak shots and beer from their cars into their cups without getting caught by any of the teachers will never not be funny. Something I normally would partake in but knew I shouldn't because it's Stefan's first game and I should be sober for this. The football team started to line up for coach Tanner to make his speech. It caught everyone's attention and they all began to huddle in front of them.

"Quite down! Quite down." Tanner shouted into the microphone. I pushed pass people in the crowd trying to make it to the front so I could see Stefan. "Let's be honest here, in the past we used to let other teams come into our town and roll all over us. But that is about to change! We got some great new talent starting tonight on offense and I'm gonna tell you right now it has been a long time since I've seen a kid like this with hands like theses." He said pointing to Stefan. More applause came from the crowd including me."These timberwolves are hungry!" Tanner shouted but eventually everyone started looking around. The crowd grew quiet and I could hear people fighting. I saw Stefan run pass me and I followed behind him. Tyler was punching the shit out of my little brother.

"Tyler stop it your hurting him!" Vicki yelled at him but he didn't stop, he kept going. Jeremy wasn't backing down.

"Hey he's down, enough!" Stefan yelled and grabbing Tyler's fist before he could get another punch in on Jeremy. Tyler quickly got up and faced Stefan angrily and punched Stefan in the gut, but it did nothing. There was no pain on his face which freaked me out and clearly freaked Tyler out too. I ran over to Jeremy trying to help him up but he just pushed me away. He grabbed ahold of a broken beer bottle and charged at Tyler.

"Jeremy no!" I yelled catching Tyler's attention m. He moved out of the way but Stefan grabbed Jeremy's hand that held the bottle stopping him from doing anything else. Blood coated Stefan's palm and be quickly balled his hand into a fist pushing Jeremy away.

"Tyler yo!" Matt called out grabbing ahold of him and pushing him out through the crowd.

"What the fuck Jeremy?" I yelled at him, his face all beaten and bloodied.

"I'm fine."

"Yeah sure you are." I said rolling my eyes and walked over to Stefan. "Your hand, are you okay?" I tried to reach for it, but he jerked his hand away from me.

"No, no it's fine."

"Stefan? How deep is it?" I asked finally grabbing ahold of it and forcefully opening his hand up. Only there was no cut like I though I saw just a little bit of blood. I looked up at him in complete shock.

"See I'm fine." He said drying his hand off on his pants and showing me there was nothing to worry about.

"But I saw it..."

"He missed." He butted in. "It's not my blood...just Jeremy's."

"But I saw it. The glass cut your hand!" I said adamantly. I know what I saw, his hand was cut on that beer bottle.

"Hey I'm okay." He said grabbing my face making me look at him. I let out a sigh in defeat nodding telling him I believed him.

"It's almost kickoff time. I'll see you after the game." He said giving me a kiss before he left. I needed to talk to Bonnie. So I walked over to where all the cheerleaders were.

"Hey where have you been?" Bonnie asked worried.

"Can I ask you a question and you give me a serious answer."

"Of course what is it?" She asked seeing how distraught I was.

"Remember when you touched Stefan and you saw something bad."

"You know what forget I said that. Your little dinner party plot totally won me over." She laughed playing with her pom poms.

"No Bonnie what did you see?" I asked.

"It wasn't clear like a picture. Like today I keep seeing those numbers that I told you about."

"Yeah."

"We'll when I touched Stefan it was a feeling and it vibrated through me and it was cold and..."

"And what?" I asked worried.

"It was death. It's what I imagined death to be like."