Beauty & The Beast

Two

As the days passed the weather still stayed the same, with the sunshine beaming down on the town, with the warm, soft breeze brushing up against the face of Elena who sat on the bench in the park, holding her book close to her as her eyes scanned across the page. Her earphones were plugged in with a soft, instrumental song playing so that the words didn't get muddled up as she read the words on the page. She flicked over the page with her eyes still scanning the perfectly written words of a romance novel.

A beautiful blonde stood across the road wearing large, white, thick framed sunglasses. She wore a pair of denim shorts and a long white, sleeveless t-shirt that had slits up both sides, finished off with a pair of white and cork wedges. She glanced to her side and noticed Elena sitting on the bench, by herself, reading a book. With a quick inhale of breath, the blonde crossed the street and stood in front of Elena whose mind was stuck in the book, the instrumental music blurring in her ears, she was oblivious to the blonde standing there. The blonde cleared her throat, but still Elena didn't hear her. She rolled her eyes and sat down next to her on the bench. The caught the attention of Elena who slowly lifted her eyes from the book and directed them towards the blonde who was smiling at her. Elena removed one of her earphones and allowed it to drop down onto her chest. "Yeah?" Elena acknowledged her.

"Hi," the blonde smiled and offered her her hand, "I'm Caroline." Elena reached for her hand slowly and shook it slowly, unsure about what was going on. "I saw you across the road and I've heard people speak about you all of the time, the famous Elena Bell who is always on her own."

"People speak about me?" Elena asked her.

"Oh yeah," Caroline smiled, "They speak about you all of the time, saying that you're beautiful yet you're a little bit odd as you're always on your own, and your nose is always stuck in a book."

"I like to read," she shrugged her shoulders, "Is there anything wrong with that?"

"Absolutely not," Caroline told her, "I think that it's great that you like to read, it shows that you're intelligent, dumb people don't like to read for pleasure."

"Right," Elena nodded her head slowly with confusion, "I'm sorry, but what's going on here? Do you want something?"

"Well, I saw that you were on your own," Caroline pointed out, "And I thought that I would introduce myself to you because I hate it when I see people on their own, especially when they have a lot in common with me."

"Oh god," she rolled her eyes, "You're not gonna say that the thing we have in common is that we're both beautiful because I've had that lame shit from Damon, I love myself, Gastone."

"Oh god no," Caroline puffed, "I know what you mean, Damon is a total ass and he thinks that looks are everything when they're absolutely not. It's what on the inside that counts, if you're beautiful on the inside that's more important than being beautiful on the outside because you could be really ugly on the inside, am I right?"

"Yeah," Elena smiled, "You're completely right."

"And you've gotta have the brains too," Caroline pointed out, "I mean, obviously that's why Damon and I don't get on because I have the brains and his brains are down there." She pointed down to her crotch and rolled her eyes, "Ew," she shuddered, "I seriously hate that guy. There are so many girls in this town that swoon at him every time he walks past, I swear to god," she pointed over her shoulder with her thumb, "When you turned him down the other day I heard one of them say that you must be crazy for turning him down because he's gorgeous."

"Yeah," Elena said turning to her as she closed her book over, "You see, he's attractive in an obvious way but that's just the looks, I want the whole package, I want him to be handsome, smart and kind."