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WE'LL HAVE SO MUCH FUN ──────
HER ROOM LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME. She's glad to have something so familiar, even if it's a bit dated. Though she can't say her tastes have changed much since she was 15, because she hasn't had any sort of cultural experience since then. As far as she's concerned, she's still obsessed with the same things she was back then.
It only takes them a few weeks to get back to Mystic Falls, in the end. Her parents get the house in California on the market, and Ronnie hardly sleeps in the room they gave her because it's too bare– too much like a cell for her comfort. She doesn't sleep much these days anyways, so it's no skin off her back.
She feels inexplicably happy when they fly by the sign welcoming them to Mystic Falls. When they pull into their driveway for the first time in three years, and Ronnie gets to step into the house that's actually home.
She hardly waits for her dad to unlock the door before she's bursting up the stairs, slamming her bedroom door open with an excited gasp. Her walls are still pink, covered in pictures and posters and poorly drawn pictures. Her vanity's still got makeup spread out everywhere, a compact of blush left open from the last time she'd sat down and done her makeup.
When she opens her closet it smells stale, but her clothes are still there and it makes her feel nice.
She throws herself down on her bed, messily unmade and ruffled in her haste to leave the morning everything happened.
In the brief silence she finds herself in, the shadows in her vision suddenly stretch, and she lets out a strained breath as the weight on her chest grows. Her eyes flutter shut, and a smile grows on her face when she feels a cold hand cup her cheek. She leans into the touch, sighing beneath the heaviness on her ribs.
"Ronnie, honey," Her father pokes his head in her room and she turns her head against her mattress to look at him, her position earning a fondly amused smile from him. "What do you want to do tonight?"
A thought pops in her mind, sudden and not entirely hers. "The carnival is tonight. At the high school. They have it every year,"
Her father nods, faintly recalling the event. "You're welcome to go. Your mother and I will probably stay here and start unpacking some of the stuff we brought back."
Ronnie looks up at her ceiling, sees the old glow in the dark stars still stuck there. She wonders if they still lit up at night, in the dark, even when nobody was home. Life went on while she was gone, but she hopes her stars stayed bright for her.
"I think I will go. Just to see everybody before I start school again,"
"Well, have fun and be safe, baby. Be back before midnight, okay?"
