Legacy Diaries

Rafael's Diary Entry No. 3

Classroom
Rafael's Diary Entry

"Don't think about it," Lizzie said over her shoulder, as though we didn't have sex the last time she said that.

I knew better this time, even though my penis said otherwise right now, and I knew last night was a mistake. I didn't like Lizzie. She was the complete opposite of the kind of girls I liked, and I was still mourning Cassie...

"I know that you're sorry," I  suddenly remembered Cassie tell me, wiping away my tears. "And I forgive you. Do me a favor and forgive yourself, OK?"

But... But I didn't remember the moment, and I remembered every single moment we shared, so...

"You-you can't," I remembered myself reply, shaking my head. "You can't forgive me."

"I can forgive you because I love you," she responded, teary-eyed. "Now, forgive yourself."

"I can't, Cass," I cried, and tears left her beautiful warm brown eyes. "I can't. I don't want to."

"I want you to forgive yourself and only then will I find peace," she said, and my heart shattered to pieces. "You want me to find peace, don't you?"

I did, and yet, I knew I was being selfish, but I also didn't want her to find peace. I wanted her to stay with me. I wanted to stay with her. I couldn't let her go. I wouldn't let her go. But my problem with not letting go was what caused me to initiate a fight with her that ended with me ending her life and the beautiful bright light she brought into my life.

I already wronged her, and I couldn't do it again, I wouldn't do it again, so I closed my eyes tightly, and let every memory I had of her, of us, wash over me so that I could get the strength to let her go, and nodded with a heavy heart. Surprisingly, my heart felt a little lighter with my nod.

"Good," she sounded relieved, and I heard the smile in her voice. "Forgive yourself, then."

"I love you so much," I told her, because I did love her, more than words could ever describe.

"I know," she said, bringing a strange peace to my soul. Strange because I hadn't felt a moment's peace since she died, until Josie calmed me down in the Old Mill. "I love you too. Now, why don't you sleep?"

I was grateful that Cassie distracted me from thinking about Josie, but I didn't want to sleep.

"I want to stay here with you," I told her, but I realized that I didn't know where we were. "Wherever here is."

"You can't," she responded. "Not before you live your life to the fullest for the both of us, and you're going to do that when you wake up."

With her last words, I realized that I didn't remember the conversation because it happened after I collapsed, and then I woke up in Jed's room with blood in my mouth and Jed and a witch named Alyssa watching me from a distance. She forgave me. Cassie forgave me. Not that I was surprised. The only thing that she would have never forgiven me for was lying to her. There was nothing she hated more than lies. I didn't know how I was able to speak with her, but...

"She forgave me," I breathed, a heavy burden lifting from my shoulders and a tear falling down my cheek. "She forgave me."

I knew that I didn't deserve it, but I didn't deserve her either, and yet she loved me.

"Who forgave you?" someone asked. "Lizzie?"

My guard went up faster than my mind could process who the voice belonged to and I wiped away my tear, but I found out who it belonged to a moment later. It belonged to Hope Mikaelson, and she just appeared out of nowhere.

"How-wha...?" I tried to formulate a question.

"Did you think the 'thing' that Lizzie gave you was the only thing that could hide a person's presence?" She asked.

"You were eavesdropping on us," I realized, wondering how long she's been in the room and what more she heard, but it seemed she didn't have any idea about what Lizzie and I were talking about.

"This is me sneaking," she said. "I wasn't sneaking earlier, I was trying to reach out to you to talk about Landon."

"The same Landon you did everything in your power to separate from me?" I questioned, taking a step towards her, reminded of what she did.

"If you want a fight, I'll give it to you," Hope responded, but she had already given ground, making me realize that Doctor Saltzman was right about the negative impression I left on her with my aggressive response earlier.

"I'm sorry," I apologized, taking two steps back, and meant it, but a part of me was very pleased that she feared me. "I didn't know that it was you, and you literally came out of nowhere."

"You walked past me!" she said, but I didn't see her.

"I was reading a book, Hope!" I countered. "How was I supposed to see you when I wasn't looking at you? And how was I supposed to react when the only person I know and trust enough to let get close to me is nowhere near this school?"

"You're a werewolf, Rafael," Hope stated the obvious. "You have an enhanced sense of smell. After our long ride here, my scent should be familiar to you."

"Your scent?" I asked with raised eyebrows. "What am I, a dog sniffing everyone I meet?"

"You literally turn into a giant black wolf during a full moon!" She pointed out, and that gave me pause.

Less than two months ago, I was a normal… OK, I wasn't really normal, but I was just a teenage boy with real life problems, but I had the most amazing girlfriend in the world, a foster brother who had a troubled foster history like me, so I could relate, and two foster parents who were not really great, but they were better than my previous ones.

Cassie and I had plans, we had a clear picture of what our future was going to be like and life was simple, when I wasn't causing her headaches with my anger issues, of course. But as always, I just had to cause her one more headache with my jealousy and insecurities, and take that turn too fast just to piss her off, even though there was a storm, and everything changed.

I woke up to Landon telling me that we had a car crash and Cassie was gone and I survived. From there, everything was just a mess. The plans that I had with Cassie went to the grave with her and I was lost and angrier than ever. I threw a lawnmower through the patio doors when my foster parents kept nagging me and it all became too much to keep bottled up, and they were lucky I sent the lawnmower through the doors and not through them like I wanted to, to shut them up.

And now here I was, being told that I now turned into a dog during the full moon. A giant black wolf, to be specific. A bark of a chuckle suddenly ripped out of me, startling me and making Hope jump before she threw out her hands in my direction as I quickly cupped my mouth to stop the chuckle that was about to follow.

A sharp pain came out of nowhere and exploded from my knee, bringing me to my knees and ripping out screams of pain out of me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I came to the conclusion that Hope was the cause of the pain, and she used magic to inflict it. The very thought of how ridiculous that sounded turned my screams into weird giggles, and then chuckles that I couldn't hold back, and before I knew it, I was on the floor, laughing my lungs off. And I couldn't stop even as I felt abdominal pains building up.

I went from a relatively normal-ish life to losing the love of my life, burying a supernatural knife into the chest of a woman who turned out to be a real dragon and taking out the body of a student wrapped in giant spiderweb from the Old Mill. To top it all off, Landon, the one person I trusted to stick around, walked out on me and a part of me wondered if it was because he was jealous of me since out of the two of us, he was the one who wanted to be special, and the special one, the cursed one, turned out to be me.

"What's wrong with you?" I heard Hope ask.

I looked up at her through teary eyes, and the baffled look on her face, coupled with the chuckles she was holding in, in vain, and her question, made me laugh harder, increasing my abdominal pains and forcing me to bent in on myself with my arms around my abdomen.

What wasn't wrong with me was the real question. Everything was wrong. My birth parents abandoned me, my adopted parents made me think that I was their biological son, their 'little champion' until they died in a car accident and the lady from across the street told me the truth right before I was sent to my first foster home, and I changed foster homes every so often that it was hard to find someone who wouldn't abandon me.

In the end, I killed the one person who had never abandoned me, but almost did when I once lied to her, and Landon recently abandoned me. There had to be something wrong with me. There had to be a reason why I wasn't worth sticking around for.

"Why (chuckles) are you (chuckles) la-laughing?" Hope asked through her laughter, my hysteric laughter appearing to be contagious.

"I don't know!" I forced out through clenched and pained abdomen, my voice high pitched. "Ow! Makeee-ow-it stooowwwp!"

I never knew that laughing could feel like dying. It was torture, and Hope joining me didn't help, and neither did she do anything helpful because she was soon laughing uncontrollably just like me. After what felt like an hour, I heard mumbles I couldn't make sense of, and soon after, I couldn't open my mouth, so my laughter was muffled.

It took a few more minutes for Hope's laughter to quiet down. With her laughter stopping, mine started to die down, but my muscles kept spasming.

"Here," Hope offered me a water bottle without the lid, before chanting, and like magic, I could open my mouth again.

I looked at the water bottle cautiously.

"It's not poison," she said. "Someone left it in class, and I drank some to calm down."

Still, I sat up, back to a desk, and cautiously accepted the water bottle with shaky hands and took a sip to taste the water. It was water, and it was cool. Cool went well with calm, so I gulped it all down in one take. There wasn't much, but it was enough to cool me down some. With a deep inhale, and a slow exhale, I felt my muscles relax.

"Thanks," I voiced my gratitude, returning the water bottle back to Hope, embarrassed now that I was under control, but I felt light and free, unburdened.

"What was that?" she asked, sitting across from me and leaning against a desk too, smiling.

"I don't know," I replied honestly. "But it was torture."

But I couldn't help smiling as well.

"Then why are you smiling," she inquired, her smile growing.

"It felt great!" I responded, my own smile growing. It felt weirdly good, especially now that it was over. "Painful, but good. Like hitting the track after a prolonged hiatus."

Now that felt great, running after a hiatus, it felt like home.

"I'm really sorry for choking you," I apologized a second time, and added after a pause. "And scaring you."

"You didn't scare me," Hope denied, crossing her arms and avoiding my eyes, smile fading.

"We both know that I did," I said softly. "I told you, I have a long history of anger issues. I know that I scared you, and I'm sorry."

She shrugged.

"I'm sorry for separating you and Landon," she apologized too after a few moments of silence. "I didn't do it to make Landon 'as alone and as lonely as I am'."

Those last words sounded familiar, like I said... Oh, damn. Hope was in the classroom the entire time. I face-palmed, resigning myself to whatever was next.

"You've been here the entire time," I noted to get confirmation, heart racing.

She nodded.

"We'll get to you kissing Josie and having sex with Lizzie later," she said, and I hung my head. She knew everything. "I didn't just send Landon away, I sent him to a family friend to help him find his birth parents, or at least his mother."

"You did what?!" I raised my head in disbelief.