You & Me? We're The Same

The Things We Carry With Us

His name was Jared.

Stiles mentioned that he was on some list of supernaturals being killed, but Bonnie couldn’t think about that right now, not when she could see him standing next to his body, looking down at it in confusion. She could tell he wasn’t sure what happened, one minute he’s playing lacrosse and the next he’s looking down at himself with no one around him seeming to take notice of him standing there.

No one except for her anyway.

She took a step closer to him so he’d finally look at her and when he finally noticed her she told him what happened. “You died, Jared, you didn’t deserve it and I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you”.

“I can’t be dead. I promised my parents I’d be back after the game” he whispered with tears brimming his eyes and her breath caught in her throat. She’s been doing this for years now and she still didn’t know how she was supposed to react in this situation and all she could think was this could’ve easily been Liam standing in front of her after being killed. She couldn’t let that happen, she wouldn’t let this be him.

Anyway, this particular ability she inherited from the crazy bitch herself when she was fourteen years old.

She was at a slumber party with a bunch of girls she barely even knew, a slumber party her mother guilted her into going to after her work friend invited her when she found out their daughters went to the same school and, as her mother obsessively pointed out, ‘You need to make friends, Bonnie', which never made sense to her because they’d just move again so what was the point, but she reluctantly went anyway just to get her mom off her back.

Everyone was asleep when it happened.

She’d gotten up to use the bathroom since she had to go because of her tiny bladder and she honestly wouldn’t have noticed her standing in the corner of the dark bedroom when she came back if the woman hadn’t said anything. Bonnie would’ve just gone back to sleep and that would've been that, but she did say something.

“I’m not ready”.

The woman was in front of her before she could even blink and grabbed onto her arms, which was when Bonnie felt all of it, her life as a vampire, her death after being staked in the heart, and the pain she felt because of it like it was her own as she clutched her own heart and cried out in pain. The agony was too much for her to handle which resulted in her being hunched over on the floor after dropping down on her hands and knees while the small group of girls was suddenly awake and alert, asking her if she was okay.

She wasn’t, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever be okay again.

Thinking back on it now, she kinda understood why Qetsiyah was such a crazy bitch and would still hold her head up high after an episode like that, not letting it break her. Anyone who’d go through that kind of pain for as long as Qetsiyah had got her respect because she would not wish this on her worst enemy.

“It’s going to be okay, Jared” she told the kid in front of her and hoped he believed it. When he nodded she gave him a teary smile before reaching out her hand for him to take, but he hesitated for a moment. "Could you tell my parents what I was? Not the bad stuff or anything like that, but, I want them to know the real me, you know?" He asked, the tears falling freely now and it was her turn to nod because she did know and she hoped to someday have the courage to do the same.

“Is it going to hurt?”

“No” she reassured him. She would feel his pain so he wouldn’t have to and when he finally placed his hand in hers as he passed through her she could only keep from screaming for a moment before the memories of his life flashed through her eyes as well as the pain of his eventual death at such a tender age.