Look Closer

Chapter 6

My wonderful dream about being a movie star was broken by a very unwelcome ringing sound. Beside me, Caroline pushed Elena off the bed right on top of Bonnie, who yelled out a sleepy, "Hey!" As I slowly began to wake up I was reminded of where I was. Trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes, I remembered Stefan calling me, then Uncle Brian dropping me off at Caroline's. Upon Caroline's protest, Elena took her phone call outside. Looking at the time on my mobile screen, I decided a little snoozing wouldn't hurt. But however much I may try, I wasn't able to sleep with the sliver of sunlight coming through the curtains of the window. Since I couldn't bring myself to get out of the comfy bed just to close the curtains all the way, I just lay there, gazing around Caroline's room. There were pictures of her from when she was in kindergarten, another of her on a bicycle, taken from the back. A few of her pictures from school, dressed as a cheerleader, one from her Miss Mystic Falls competition... fragments of her over-achiever life. I admired how she managed to stay on top of so many things at once and not once complain. Always friendly and cheerful, always ready to take responsibility and execute her duties with nothing less than perfection. Sure, that perfectionism could be annoying to others sometimes, but she did whatever she did so well that there was no cause for complaint afterwards.

Elena came back inside to gather her things and say goodbye. She was going out with Stefan for the entire day. As she walked away I thought back to last night. We had talked a lot over pizza and some beer Caroline had sneaked in since her mom was on duty. Elena was quite mild mannered, compared to the ever-enthusiastic Caroline, but she was surprisingly easy to talk to. I got to know all about how Elena had lost her parents almost a year back in a car accident, she being the only survivor of which. I could tell she somehow felt guilty about that, as if she should've been the one to die. The way she talked about them, it was clear that she was the apple of their eye, and they were her best friends. Now she lived with her aunt Jenna and younger brother Jeremy. According to Caroline, Elena had changed a lot in the past few months. I couldn't blame her, considering what she had she had been through. 

Bonnie was... a different story. While quite a lot of the wariness had left her after she actually got to know me, she still seemed like a private person. She told me how she was practically raised by her grandmother since her mom left town when she was a baby, but didn't go into too much detail. When Caroline told me Bonnie was actually psychic, I noticed a look of irritation flash over her face, as if it was a secret Caroline shouldn't have revealed. Since I didn't want to pry, I just expressed surprise and left it at that, but Caroline being Caroline, urged her to show me some of her special skills. Though she specifically told us that it doesn't work on demand, she did manage to predict something significant happening around 12 the next day, meaning, today.

The one thing that I found strange was that there was no talk about Elena's twin. The one time I asked about her, they just glanced at each other and acted surprised, wondering where I had seen her and telling me that no, Elena was the only daughter of her parents. But I clearly remembered what I had seen, and I could tell that they were hiding something from me.

I also got to know quite a lot of gossip about our friends at school - all the relationship dramas and who-likes-whom situations. Elena was going out with Stefan, who happened to be a transfer student just like me, although he was born here. He had an elder brother named Damon, who used to date Caroline but it didn't work out and she expressly persuaded me to stay away from him, if we ever came into contact. Judging by the look on her face, Bonnie wasn't a huge fan of this Damon's either. Elena was probably just too polite to bad-mouth him, but she did agree with Care. Matt, as Caroline sadly pointed out, just wouldn't talk to her, still believing that something was going on with her and Tyler. I think Elena had some idea about what Caroline is helping Tyler with, but Bonnie, like me, believed that it was just his uncle's demise. For a small town, Mystic Falls has seen a lot of deaths in a short span of time - Stefan's uncle, Elena's parents, Matt's sister, Tyler's dad, his uncle, Bonnie's Grams...