When

"It's just-" She doesn't know why she's talking to him about this. Or telling him, of all people. This is the kind of shit that Elena and Bonnie are created for. The best friends.  Not the... almost something  that resides half a world away and hasn't seen her in over a year. He's silent though, to an extent that she wonders if maybe he hung up on her. But she can hear him breathing, and somehow she knows that he does it just for her. Breathes. So she knows he's there, silently waiting to hear whatever teenage drama she's about to vent out to him. "I'm tired of being second choice."

There. She says it. Rips it off like a band aid and lays it all out there on the table for him to see and boom. Done. She can't take it back now. But she sucks in a breath anyway, curls her fingers into the fabric of her bedspread, curls further into her bed, closes her eyes tightly. She waits for the sigh, the sigh that always follows that simple sound of 'oh Caroline'. Then he'll give her The Speech, The Speech Elena and Bonnie have practiced so much for so many years that it doesn't mean anything anymore. The one that she could recite front and back at this point. Ironic, isn't it? She lives an entirely new life now. She's a vampire. An orphan. Graduated from high school, no longer living in Mystic Falls. (Just outside of it but, she considers that a slight victory.) And nothing has changed. She's still every bit the insecure little girl she was all those years ago. 

Still though, he's silent. Maybe he's asleep but no, no she can hear him moving. Shuffling papers, boots hitting the floor with a dull thud, the smallest of sighs coming from him. He's waiting for her to continue and... no one waits for her to continue. "I'm... I'm Elena's Bonnie backup. And Bonnie's Elena backup. Stefan only wanted me because Elena was taken, Bonnie's best friend is Damon now. Which, seriously? I mean, Elena falling for him was bad enough but now Bonnie's gone and made him her BFF because they survived one life-or-death stint in the prison world - don't ask - but doesn't that break girl code? Enzo was my friend, I guess, but then he found his creepy lost love,  also Stefan and Damon's mum, it's a long story and it's gross and I don't want to talk about it. I lost Tyler, like, eons ago,  and he chose revenge over me anyway. Matt has been brainwashed by some psycho vampire-hating douche bag and I just... I'm second choice. Second rate. You know?"

Does he know? It's only when she asks it that she realizes that he must. Because everything he said to her, everything they've shared - they're so freaking similar it makes her head spin. The dad issues, the unending loneliness. She'd rolled her eyes at him when he'd given her the whole 'we're the same, Caroline' line. But now she's starting to see the truth in it. "You're not." She's so deep in her own thoughts that almost jumps at the sound of his voice, momentarily forgetting that her thoughts aren't just going into the void. That the void is actually the world's most apex predator, who can and will (and has) kill someone for much less than wasting his time. 

"I'm not?" He's a man of so few words. Pity, really, because she's a woman of many. Far, far too many. And most of them don't even really mean anything. Not really. She talks to fill space,  to be noticed, because maybe talking will make people look her way. Women aren't meant to be silent, her mum taught her that. Women are meant to raise hell and tame it only when need be. Women are meant to lead and direct and be stronger than men - not meek. Not silent. So she never was. Only, most of the time she fills silence with things that don't matter. Ramblings. Confessions. Admissions. She hears what might be a hint of a smile on the other end and yeah, yeah she can hear it in the differences of his breathing. That's how much they do this little...phone chat thing now.

She doesn't even remember how it started. He'd just called one night, much too late,  and  she;d been up studying and picked up he phone without even glancing and then they'd just...talked. About nothing, really. She'd bitched about microbiology. And then she hadn't had the energy to explain the whole 'Elena's dad might have been involved with a creepy vampire experimentation cult, but honesty who's surprised anymore' thing. By the end of it, she wasn't anywhere near ready for her test. But she'd felt better. Strangely.