“What kind of plans?”
“Surely you can fit in Mr. Cute-Dark-and-Mysterious.”
Without replying, Elena led them through the front door of the school. A long corridor stretched before them, and Stefan’s lean figure was disappearing through the office doorway just ahead. Some of the other girls were already drifting toward the office window, eagerly craning their necks. “
Nice rear view,” someone said, giggling. Caroline was with them, but she wasn’t looking through the window at Stefan. Instead, she was watching Elena speculatively.
Deliberately, Elena avoided her gaze. “Do you have my schedule?” she asked Meredith.
“Sure,” Meredith said after a pause, handing it to her. Elena remembered that her friend had picked it up for her when Elena had skipped orientation. “We’ve got trig on the second floor in five minutes.”
A few of the girls who had been watching Stefan had turned away from the windows now, discouraged by Elena’s lack of interest. Good, Elena thought. She couldn’t have him, she knew, but somehow she didn’t want anyone else going after him.
“Let’s go,” she said to Meredith.
Meredith and Bonnie exchanged a look, and Meredith followed Elena upstairs. Just as they reached the classroom, Meredith laid a cool hand on Elena’s arm, stopping her.
“Did something happen in France?” she asked quietly.
Elena frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” Meredith said slowly, her calm gray eyes scanning over Elena. “You just seem different, that’s all. Distracted.”
A semi-hysterical giggle rose up in Elena’s chest—Well, you see, Meredith, I’ve been sent back from the future to stop one of the vampires I’m in love with from killing someone, or I’ll die—and she choked it back and smiled at Meredith instead. “I’m fine.”
All through trig, Elena shut out the teacher’s droning voice, taking the textbook that was handed to her without glancing at it. She knew for a fact that she was never again going to use trigonometry. Tapping her fingers idly against her desk, she tried to plan instead.
She needed to meet Damon. But how? The first time they’d met, it had been partly because she looked like Katherine, but mostly because she was with Stefan, and the Damon she’d met then would be damned if he let his baby brother have her. But she couldn’t wrap herself around Stefan and wait for Damon to come.
If Damon accepted that he was the one she wanted, if she could get him to love her now the way he would in the future, she could keep him from killing anyone. He wouldn’t be so angry. He wouldn’t be ready to strike out.
“Can anyone tell me what the sine function is?” the teacher asked, breaking in on Elena’s thoughts. Mrs. Halpern’s eyes swept over the class, and Elena instinctively hunched a little, avoiding the teacher’s gaze.
Meredith began to answer the question. She was so beautiful, Elena thought, with her olive skin and heavy black lashes. More than that, Meredith looked happy. And human.
She’d had troubles in her life at this point already, Elena knew. A vampire had attacked her grandfather, stolen her brother. But this confident high school Meredith was barely aware of the horrors in her family’s past. She was already moving on.
Here, in this classroom, Elena could see exactly how miserable Meredith was in the future Elena had come from. Elena had known, of course, that Meredith hated being a vampire. But Elena hadn’t seen this contentment in years.
Elena sighed and thoughtfully curled a long, silky strand of hair around her finger. Could she fix Meredith, too, if she could keep Damon from killing Mr. Tanner? The road that had led to Meredith’s transformation was a long and twisting one, but it had started here. If Meredith was kept clear of the supernatural, if she never suspected the dangers beginning to descend on Fell’s Church, maybe she would leave. Go to an Ivy League college as she’d planned, have a successful, human life.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur. Stefan was in none of her early classes, thank God, although she knew she’d see him in history that afternoon. She couldn’t stop herself from looking for him in the halls. She didn’t see him, but she had a constant, exultant awareness that he was here—and alive.
She tried to make plans, but she was constantly distracted. Everyone wanted Elena’s attention: Boys flirted with her; girls curried her favor with scraps of gossip. She had forgotten what it was like to be the queen of school. Matt was in one of her morning classes, and she met his smile with quiet panic. She didn’t know what to do with Matt yet. Her friend was going to have to get his heart broken … again.
By lunchtime, she was sick of acting like she cared about the popularity, and she slipped down toward the cafeteria alone. Caroline was outside, posed casually against a wall in a model’s slouch. The two boys she was talking to nudged each other as Elena came toward them.
Elena wanted to just walk on by. She remembered this, too, and all the awful things Caroline had done later. She had plotted to destroy Elena, for no reason, out of jealousy and pure spite.
But Caroline’s chin was tilted up, and her eyes staring deliberately past Elena, as if the other girl was beneath her notice. Every line of her body broadcast pure hostility. Her hatred would only increase. If Elena didn’t deal with her now, it was bound to be worse later.
“Hi,” Elena said briefly to the boys. To Caroline she asked, “Want to get lunch?”
Caroline barely glanced at Elena as she pushed her glossy auburn hair back. “What, at the royal table?” she asked scathingly.
Elena suppressed an urge to roll her eyes and instead forced a smile. “Please come,” she said gently. “I want to hear about your summer. I missed you.” It was true, sort of. She’d known Caroline since kindergarten; they’d been good friends until this moment. Maybe she could change things here, too. Maybe this was a chance to fix everything she regretted.
Elena kept going into the cafeteria, not giving Caroline a chance to snap back an answer. Caroline followed but, a few steps in, her fingers fastened hard on Elena’s arm. “A lot of things changed while you were gone this summer, Elena,” she hissed warningly. “And just maybe your time on the throne is running out.”