CHAPTER ONE
Elena walks over to the window in hers and her younger sister's bedroom and throws open the curtains, immediately earning a groan from the little brunette as she then pulls the long pillow over her head. "No. Sunlight — bad. Very, very bad." She complains, and Elena looks over at her.
"Sunlight's good for you. It'd do you well to get more of it." She argues, and Jay lets out a low, throaty sound — something like a growl.
Half an hour later, the youngest in the house is making her way down the stairs, and she catches the tail-end of her sister's conversation with their sole guardian. "Easy to be certain when the alternative is that he's dead." Elena's saying.
"Love the morbidity so early in the morning." Jay mutters sarcastically as she grabs a to-go cup for her coffee. "Where's Jeremy?"
"Getting ready for work if he knows what's good for him." Ric says from where he's folding his blanket in the living room that's connected to the kitchen.
"Are you sure you're still okay on the couch?" Elena asks him.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good." He nods.
"Because you spent half the Summer on it. If you need your own bedroom..." She motions upstairs as she makes her way over to him.
"And sleep in your dead parents' room or my dead girlfriend's room..." He trails off, shaking his head.
"And on that morbid note..." Jay seals her cup and then starts for the door. "Oh, wait..." She quickly turns back and looks at her older sister. "Happy birthday, Lena."
The older girl offers her a small smile. "Thanks." She says, and the little brunette nods before leaving their house.
Jay gets to the grill a little while later, and Matt walks over to her. "Here to meet Tyler again?" He asks, and she takes a deep breath as she nods.
"He's been tutoring me. I think he feels guilty." The younger girl says as she looks up at the blond boy. "Or maybe it's just pity."
"Pitying you would be a waste of time." Tyler says as he walks up behind them. "Where's your backpack?" He asks, seeing that the little brunette doesn't have anything with her besides her half-empty coffee cup, and she smiles as she looks up at him.
"Oops. I must've forgotten it." She shrugs. "I guess we'll just have to catch a movie instead."
"No." He shakes his head. "You're failing Health, and I promised to help you pass."
"So, I'll take it during the normal year. It's not like I'm behind or anything. I'm a Freshman."
"You are not failing it. We'll just study at your house." He turns and starts for his car.
"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.
Elena's ponytail swings as she tilts her head to the side questioningly, her eyebrows furrowed, and the younger girl sighs. "He makes me do homework, and I talk about other things to try to distract him so that I don't have to take these stupid practice tests." Jay digs her elbow into his side, and he grunts before nudging her. "It just came out. I honestly didn't think he was actually even listening to me when I told him about that."
"I— Don't worry about it." She shakes her head. "Look, yes, I kissed him, but it was a— It was a goodbye kiss. I thought he was going to die."
"I wanted him to die." She mutters.
"Jay!"
"What?" She says defensively. "He calls me runt and ragrat, and he called me a rodent once. Not to mention, I watched him snap Jeremy's neck after he forced himself on you in our room!"
Tyler then wraps his arm around her head as he covers her mouth, leaning his head toward her in the process. "Stop yelling, and do the test so that we can go over the answers when you're done." He tells her as Elena excuses herself so that she can call Bonnie back.
Caroline continues with what she's doing, but she looks over at Tyler and Jay periodically. The two of them are laughing while she does her practice test. She found a drawing done by the book's previous owner when she flipped the page. And considering what they're going over in the Health book, the drawing's obviously a bit crude.
"Is that accurate?" Jay asks as she looks at Tyler out of the corner of her eye. "Drawn to scale?"
"I am not answering that." He's biting back his own laughter as she cracks up.
The two of them finally finish with the test as well as going over what she got wrong, and Tyler then gets to his feet. "I've gotta run if I'm gonna change and pick up Sophie in time." He tells her, and he doesn't notice when her smile falters, but Caroline does.
"Slutty Sophie?" The brunette quirks an eyebrow as she looks up at him. "Fabulous date choice, my friend."
"How do you know what people call her?" He questions as he offers her his hand so that he can help her stand as well.
"It's a small town, remember?" She says, and he nods.
"Right. Well, anyway, it's been kinda slow in that department." He tells her, and she nods slowly, knowing that there's more to it than that. "And... I'm not telling you the rest."
"Right, right." She chuckles. "Ty, I'm with you all the time. I know your other reason." She says as she stuffs her textbook and notebooks into her backpack.
"Come again?" He raises his eyebrows as she looks back at him.
"Oh, come on, Tyler. I know why you want to study at the grill — checking out the other girls around." She shakes her head. "You are a lot of things, but subtle isn't one of them."
"Mhm. I gotta get going. Do you want a ride home?"
"Oh, I'll take her." Caroline chimes in. "I wanna talk to Jay anyway — about that comment from earlier. I think we're overdue."
"Uh, yeah. That's fine." Jay agrees, and Tyler nods before he heads for the door.
"First off, I'm not avoiding you." The blonde says as she walks over to her. "But I do feel guilty, and I... I don't know what to say to you anymore — to you or Bonnie."
"It's not your fault, Caroline. We made a choice, and we definitely should've thought out the execution of it better, but... I know her, and I know that she wouldn't change it. We saved you and Tyler, and she saved me. That's who she was, and she died fighting."
"You were both tough as nails." She says, and Jay nods.
"And now I'm tough for the both of us."
"There's one other thing that I wanted to talk to you about." Caroline says, and she nods. "You know that Tyler's a little old for you? And maybe not the best choice...for you."
"Tyler's my friend, Caroline." The brunette says, and she nods.
"And I think that's great. Really, I do." She says. "I just think that you two should stay...just friends."
"Mhm." She nods. "Weren't you listening? He has a date tonight."
"Yeah, and I saw that you looked a little disappointed to hear that."
"Yeah, uh... He's kinda my only...consistent friend." Jay shakes her head. "I don't wanna be by myself at the party, and now I don't wanna bug him while we're here later since he has a date that he pretty clearly wants to take home after the party."
"I'm just trying to look out for you, Jay." She says, and the younger girl nods.
"I'm gonna go. I'll see you tonight." The brunette tells her and then heads out.
—
Jay walks into the main room at the Salvatore Boarding House and her eyes widen as she looks around at the size of the party. There are teenagers dancing in the living room to the loud music that's playing from somewhere, and everyone is drinking.
"What are you wearing?" Caroline questions when she sees Jay's dress.
"Um..." The brunette looks down at the black and white dress that she's got on. "A parka?"
"That'd be better. It's too short."
"My dress is the same length as yours." She argues.
"Yes, but I am seventeen. You're—"
"Not a child." The younger girl argues. "If finding out about vampires wasn't enough to make me grow up, then watching my mom die definitely was."
"Jay!" Caroline sighs when she walks away from her, headed for the stairs.
The little brunette leaves her light blue jacket in Damon's bedroom and then heads back down to the party. She gets to the living room and her feet halt in their steps when she sees Tyler dancing with Sophie. She's tall, thin, pretty, lanky, blonde — in other words, everything that Jay is not. And now she feels stupid, because everything that Caroline said before was right.
Sophie's back is against Tyler's chest, and his hands are on her hips as they dance pressed against each other. Tyler looks up and he notices Jay watching them. The brunette offers him a small smile, and then she turns and disappears into the crowd of teenagers.
They eventually do cake for Elena, and Jay's drinking beer out of a red solo cup. Once she feels buzzed enough to actually enjoy the music, the brunette starts dancing with everyone else in the large crowd. She soon attracts the attention of a boy who's a couple years older than she is, and she starts dancing with him.
The two of them continue drinking, both getting more drunk as the night goes on. It's the first time in almost two months that she's completely forgotten about everything that's been bothering her. And she plans to fully embrace it, wanting to feel this way for as long as possible.
Jay turns her back to the boy so that they can dance like Tyler and Sophie had been. His hands are on her hips, and she closes her eyes for a moment as she leans into him, keeping her hips in sync with his as they move together.
She looks up and sees Tyler walking over to them, and she's not the only one who notices the broad-shouldered older boy. The guy she's dancing with stops moving at the same time that she does, his body turning rigid at the seemingly angry expression on the Lockwood boy's face.
"Hands off, buddy." Tyler practically orders, and the guy immediately lets go of Jay's waist and backs away from the little brunette. "Now get lost."
"That wasn't very nice." Jay stumbles since she no longer has the other boy to lean on.
Tyler quickly reaches out and hooks his arm around her waist, pulling her into his side. "How drunk are you?" He asks as he keeps her standing.
"Sober enough to know that I'm gonna regret this in the morning, drunk enough not to care at the moment." She says, and he nods.
"Okay, let's get you home."
"No." Her fingers curl around his jacket. "I don't wanna be at home."
"Why not?" He asks as he looks down at her.
"I don't wanna look at the pictures...or my mom's closed door." She tells him. "Please..."
"How about I take you back to my house? You can sleep this off there." He tells her, and she nods.
Once in his car, it doesn't take long at all for Jay to pass out in the passenger seat. Tyler gets her back to the Lockwood mansion, and he has to carry her inside because she's too out of it to walk on her own — especially up a flight of stairs. One of his arms is hooked around her back and the other's under her knees as he kicks the front door shut behind them. Jay's arms are wrapped around his neck and her forehead's resting against his temple as he carries her through his house.
"Please don't leave me all by myself." She mumbles as he makes his way up the stairs. "I hate the nightmares...and I don't wanna be alone." She tells him, so he takes her to his room to lay her down so that she can sleep. She finally settles once he promises that he'll stay with her.