"YOU ARE LOVELY" - THE VAMPIRE DIARIES [THE ALTERED STORY]

☽ Scene Two ☾

          After packing my black and white striped pencil pouch into my backpack, I pick my class worksheet off my assigned desk. I'm the last person out of the classroom as always. One: I have so many supplies that I bring that technically isn't required, such as the five pens I use to take notes. Three of them are black ink pens that vary in ball sizes, and the other two of them are different shades of blue for key points and important reminders.

          Two: While everyone else is so eager to leave class the moment they step into the room, I actually make an attempt to pay attention and grasp the concept even if I already know the subject by heart. I pass all my classes automatically from the amount of educational experience in the past years (that I remember). But holy shit, it's so fucking boring to sit in a class just to spend all that time anticipating the school dismissal bell. Also, I like to compare and contrast how different teachers lecture the same lesson... and how deep or above the water they get into it. One of the million weird things about losing the first 133 years of my life is that I don't know how what classes I may have retook because I lost the information. I actually don't even know if I took classes before my memory was wiped. I'm sure I had to though... Hmm. Anyways, I don't pack my stuff 10 minutes before the bell is my point. 

          Three: I hate the children in this high school. Correction: I hate being part of such an immature population. I hate the 'relatable!' act these teens play. Everyone is a carbon copy of each other, which says a lot because they rarely take the chance to simply enjoy being their true selves. There is no originality. There is no spark, no uniqueness in this building. Maybe the teachers shine hope in that department, which makes me happy, but the school staff only take up a small fraction compared to the amount of people in this school; and half of them sit in an office rather than a classroom. So the longer I stay behind and take my time to clean up, is a time well spent to heal myself from the toxicity. 

          At least Caroline has something. She might be seen as the paranoid control freak bitch queen, but at least she doesn't try to conform into the fucking infamous zombie pattern everyone else has adapted. Plus, I admire Caroline. I'm honored to have gotten to know her. I consider her one of the most courageous students in the Mystic Falls high school. She's also very sweet and caring, blah blah blah. Very cool, all that. I reach the new teacher's old desk.

          Even in my long lifetime - the last 36 years of what I remember - I consider the death of Mr. Tanner one of the top intense deaths I've ever experienced. Considering we weren't close and all; what I got from him was that he was an insensitive, asshole who probably had a ton of trust issues and hardships. But I have a piece of me that will miss him and will continue to miss him as I watch the new teacher, Mr. Saltzman, continue his class.

          Oh Mr. Saltzman. What a real fuckin' weirdo. I'm sure he's great; real fun loving guy who will lay back and crack one with his fun loving pals every Saturday. But he's off. I think he has an alternate reason for teaching at this school. When his eyes hit Elena's face, I could just tell he looked at her a couple seconds more than the rest of the students, along with his body posture having that slight edge while attempting to continue his normal teacher act. Then he saw me, and the alarms blared even louder in my mind. I know judging off of small, little, and possible coincidences looks badly, but I have a knack for this kind of stuff.

         I walk to the front of the class and let my paper fall out of my fingers onto his desk while he taps the previous pile of worksheets on the hard surface to better align them together. I'm not in the mood to exercise his possible motives in a white lie-ish manner, much less have the awfully awkward small teacher/student convo before heading out. So I say nothing as I stroll towards the hallway like a normal, avoidant student. I mentally prepare for my next class when I hear him speak up. God damn it.

          "Jaye Salvatore?" he asks to my back. I halt right under the metal door border of the entrance and take a quick glance at the floor below my sneakers. The line between the entrance cuts halfway through under my feet. I was so close to freedom. My head turns my body in the opposite direction, and I see Mr. Saltzman holding up and viewing my paper. Amazing. Every student's nightmare is when they are doing their work and their teacher judges it right in front of their face instead of avoiding the possible shame of getting a question wrongly answered or bad total grade. Still, I prepare myself for something more than a simple 'Explain your answer!' tip.

          "How strange," he continues. "And your brother's name is Stefan, right?" he asks suspiciously.

          "Yes?" I answer hesitantly. Did he do something?

          "You wouldn't happen to have another brother named Damon, would you?" Oh. Now I get where this is going.

          "Oh," I smile humbly. "Yeah, my ancestors used to be members of the Founder's Council. I guess our mom had a weird sense of humor with naming her children." I cross my arms across my chest. The left side of his mouth twitches a smile knowingly before looking back at the name written on my paper once more. Playing the my-mom-named-her-kids-after-a-tragic-sibling-sad-tale is going well so far..? He's giving off very cocky vibes, and that's keeping me on edge.

          "I guess the birth order of boy/boy/girl was just part of her luck?" he questions. Hey, it could happen. In a very, very tiny chance maybe. I scrunch my eyebrows and take a moment to think about my response, playing it off as my sudden realization of that coincidence.

          "Yeah, you're right. I guess she was a psychic in that way," I respond. I smile again to remind the conversation that it's supposed to be light. "She was really into the history around this town."

          "Likewise," Mr. Saltzman says, mirroring the same fake smile back at me. I don't like this. It's not anything I can't handle, but compared to how this conversation looks at face value, it actually really sucks. I'd much rather be pushing him against the corner of the room interrogating him of the god forsaken truth, but again, I'm just trying to get the hell out of here. "In fact, I had another student of mine do a research paper about a historical event in Mystic Falls."

          "Oh, Jeremy! Elena's brother. He told me about it in the library. Actually, while he was doing the research," I comment, glad this is taking a somewhat innocent turn.

          "I'm glad he's taking this so seriously. But it has gotten a little strange." I see the gears starting to turn in his head. "He's come to me about vampires." Suddenly this chat isn't so innocent anymore, and I only got to enjoy it for three seconds before he ruined it. "Now, I know there are old, fictional stories about them, but I think it's so weird how that's the topic he's drawn to."

          "Huh," is the only thing I can muster out of my mouth. Well, this is not the way I expected this to go. "I don't know, he didn't get that far into telling me about the paper. All I knew was that it was extra credit to pull his grade together." Mr. Saltzman shrugs his shoulders and looks down at his chair before talking again.

          "I don't know either. Just something weird I've been thinking about." The school bell rings, making me feel safer with this beautiful chance to leave, finally. This is the only time where I actually start to worry about what a normal high school student worries about; getting to class on time. "Oh, I didn't mean to keep you. Wow I didn't even realize five minutes went by," Mr. Saltzman says in shock, walking behind himself to his right top desk drawer. He pulls it open and reaches inside. 

          "Let me write you a pass," he politely states, taking a pen out of his pencil cup near the edge of the right corner of his desk and pulls out the pad of pass slips from the drawer.

          "Thank you." That's all I want to say. He caught me at a wrong time in the wrong circumstance. If he's going to talk elephant in the room with a vampire-weird creature-thing twist, and I am a supposed oblivious human (with the addition of not even wanting to have a passive throw down in the first place), then it's better to say as less as possible at this point. I will give myself away if I partake in this challenge, if I haven't already. I'm not risking it. He fills out the little lines on the blue slip, the pen slickly dancing across the small page. Yeah, that's right you asshole. Write me my slip so that I can go to my next class, teacher. 

[SEASON ONE]