Broken Home | 1

one

"W— No!" The brunette runs over and grabs his hand, pulling him to a stop. "No, not—" She sighs as he looks down at her, his fingers curling around hers.

"What's the matter, Jay?"

"Look, we can— We can get my stuff, but please don't make me stay at the house." She says, and his eyebrows furrow as he looks back over at Matt. The blond boy shrugs, not knowing what's going on with her. "I promise, I'll study. Just not there."

Tyler nods as he then looks back at her, squeezing her hand to try and offer some form of comfort so that she'll relax. "Okay."

"Elena and Caroline are setting things up at the Boarding House for tonight. Let's go there." She suggests, and he just nods.

A couple hours later, Jay and Tyler are sitting on the floor in the living room of the Salvatore house, talking about human reproduction while Elena and Caroline are decorating for the older girl's birthday party, which is taking place tonight.

Tyler's been trying to bring up Jay's mood ever since what happened at the grill, so he's getting her to laugh by joking around as they study. The brunette laughs as she looks up at the older boy, calling him an idiot as she nudges his shoulder. He chuckles as he sits up straight again, still smiling as he looks down at her.

The blonde on the other side of the room suddenly stops and looks over at the two of them, seeing the way that they are together. "That isn't awkward for you two?" Caroline asks, gaining their attention.

"What?" Tyler asks as he looks over at her; Jay's writing down an answer on the worksheet that she was assigned in class on Friday.

"What you're talking about."

"We're talking about the reproductive process that takes place inside a woman's body — also known as pregnancy, Caroline. No one was thinking about sex until you said something just now." Jay says as she then starts flipping to the next chapter in the book that's sitting on the coffee table in front of Tyler.

"And why is Tyler helping you?" Elena asks as she then turns her attention to the two of them.

"You're looking for Stefan, Bonnie's with her dad's family, Jeremy's working with Matt while he pretends that he didn't die for a few hours a month and a half ago, and Caroline's been avoiding me because of her guilty conscience." The little brunette says. "Tyler's guilty conscience, however, has made me his charity case."

"My helping you is not charity." Tyler argues as he looks back at Jay, who never looked up from her work as she answered her sister's question.

"Yeah, whatever. Can you guys just go back to talking about Stefan?"

Elena clears her throat as she looks back at Caroline. "I feel like I have to fight Damon every single time we get a lead on Stefan." The brunette tells her best friend.

"Maybe he doesn't want to find him." Tyler says as he points out the practice quiz at the end of the last chapter that he thinks Jay should do, and she punches him in the side.

"The hell's the matter with you?" The youngest questions as she turns her head to look at him.

"What? He's into her." He looks over at Elena then. "Isn't he?"

"The only reason Stefan left with Klaus was so that he could save Damon's life." Elena argues as she looks over at him and her younger sister. "Trust me, Damon wants to find him."

"But you kissed him — probably screwed with his head." He says, and Jay grabs his arm and starts digging her nails into his skin. "Ow." He pries her fingers off of him as she looks up at her older sister.