If only | Damon Salvatore

037. MAKE THEM BELIEVE YOU'RE ON THEIR SIDE

Chapter seven

"Make them believe you're on their side."

The next morning, Beatrix got ready for school, choosing a sleek black skirt and a matching turtleneck. She sat downstairs, eating breakfast with her mother and grandmother in an atmosphere of perfect, lighthearted happiness. When she finished her meal, she stood up, pressed an affectionate kiss onto both of their cheeks, grabbed her school bag, and headed out the door.

Arriving at school, Beatrix walked down the hallway with a bright smile on her face. As she stepped into her classroom, Stefan, Elena, and Bonnie all looked at her with furrowed brows, utterly bewildered by her sudden shift from utter doom and gloom to complete joy.

Ignoring their stares, Beatrix took her seat. A few minutes later, Alaric walked into the room.

"Hello, class," he said, clearing his throat awkwardly as he began flipping through a stack of papers. "What... are we learning today?"

Dana, sitting near the front, raised her hand. "With the Decade Dance tonight, we've been covering the sixties all week."

"Right. The sixties," Alaric repeated, nodding slowly.

While he turned toward his desk, Beatrix accidentally knocked her pen off the edge of her desk. She looked around to ensure nobody was paying close attention, then subtly lowered her hand and flicked her fingers upward, levitating the pen right back into her palm.

Stefan, however, caught the entire exchange. His eyes went wide with shock, knowing full well that Beatrix was never the type to carelessly flaunt her magic out in the open like that.

"The, uh..." Alaric muttered as he began writing on the chalkboard. "The sixties... wish there was something good I could say about the sixties, but..." He turned back around to face the classroom.

Beatrix furrowed her brows, staring intensely at the handwriting on the board. The stroke patterns and the flow were entirely different from how Alaric usually wrote.

"Uh, actually, they kind of sucked," Alaric continued, resting his hands on his hips. "Except for the Beatles, of course. They made it bearable. Uh, what else was there? The Cuban Missile thing... the, uh... we walked on the moon. There was Watergate."

"Watergate was actually in the seventies," Beatrix corrected him.

The entire room turned to look at her. Beatrix raised her brows and smirked at her classmates. "What? Did you forget I'm the smartest person in this class?"

Alaric blinked, looking at her intently. "Right. It, uh, kind of mushes all together up here—the sixties, the seventies. Thank you, Beatrix."

As he turned back to the chalkboard, Beatrix felt eyes lingering on her. She glanced over and saw Stefan smirking in her direction. Her expression instantly dropped into a cold glare before she snapped her attention away from him.

Later, standing in the cafeteria lunch line, Elena stepped up right behind her. "You seem happier today," she noted softly.

Beatrix shrugged, grabbing a green apple from the display. "Well, I can't be the sad girl forever. Besides, I don't have a bone to pick with Bonnie, or Caroline, or even you, really. It's just Stefan and Damon. They killed the one guy who actually liked me and wanted to be with me." She tossed the apple onto her tray.

Elena sighed heavily. "He was going to hurt me, Beatrix."

"No, he wasn't," Beatrix countered smoothly. "At least, not until Damon stabbed and killed him. Elijah warned him by driving a pencil into his neck, but I guess Damon just didn't get the message."