you've got history

ATHENA WAKES UP WITH A DETERMINATION IN HER BONES THAT SHE QUESTIONS. The sun seemed to shine on her as she walked into school, adjusting the puffy sleeves of her dress. The pink dress was a favorite of hers, and she felt a pang of heartache when she heard Caroline's voice in her head complimenting the red roses scattering the dress.

As if summoned, the blonde bounced up beside her locker, and Athena raised a thick brow at her, silently questioning her intentions after her encounter with Elena yesterday.

"Hey, Athena, I just wanted to see if you were going to be at cheer tryouts today. I totally get it if you're not, but the girls miss you–"

"I'm sure they do," Athena said, a passive-aggressive smile on her face as she turned to face Caroline. She was going to stop going to her locker in the mornings if it meant people thought they could just strike up a conversation whenever. "I don't have time, Caroline. But good luck as captain, you deserve it."

She meant it, as forced as it came off. With the awkward tension between her and Caroline now, any sort of compliment was bound to come off as fake. She resented the fact that even after Caroline had hurt her, Athena still wanted her to be happy. Sighing tiredly, Athena walked off and left Caroline standing beside her locker with a shocked face.

It's not like she liked being mean to Caroline, but after everything that happened in May, she was bitter, and it'd been nearly five months and there had been no attempts at apologies from her. She wasn't even sure if she'd accept one, to begin with. The fact that she and Elena seemed to be taking this odd path of 'nothing ever happened' just turned that bitter fire inside of her up to a burning blaze.

Athena clutched her book to her chest and stalked through the emptying hallways, turning a sharp corner and stopping abruptly when she nearly ran into someone. She glared up at the taller man, her thick eyebrows furrowing when she saw the familiar forest green eyes staring down at her– that same shade of infuriating amusement in them as yesterday in history.

"Oh, it's you again," She rolled her eyes.

"Rough morning?" He questioned, making her scoff and look up at him.

"Rough year. Do you need something? Here to file a personal grievance for something I said that hurt your feelings? I suggest the guidance counselor, she's got a file started."

He huffed an amused laugh and examined the girl he saw yesterday in class as she so confidently talked their teacher down. "You did call me a speed bump yesterday, and I can't say that it didn't hurt my feelings."

Athena's eyes widened, remembering the person she'd run into yesterday on her way to history in her hurry to escape Elena. She stepped back from him, eyeing the broad shoulders that were barely concealed beneath his jacket. For some reason, he intrigued her. "Well, considering you almost ran into me again, I'd say it was a fitting description. And it's not like I know your name."

"Stefan–"

"I wasn't asking, either."

"Salvatore." He finished, still looking at her with humor in his eyes. She glared up at him, but that odd feeling she'd felt talking to that guy at the cafe yesterday tugged at her brain and she let herself pull at that thread, furthering the conversation instead of walking away entirely.

"So, you're Italian?" She observed, though her tone remained that disinterested deadpan. "Does that mean you're like, totally snooty about how people make pasta and say cheese names weird?"

"Uh, no," Stefan stuttered, seemingly perturbed by her odd question.

Athena hummed in disappointment and side-stepped him, resigning herself to the fact that small talk was not her forte anymore. She let out an annoyed sigh when she looked over her shoulder and saw Stefan following behind her as she walked to class. "It's disappointing that you aren't at least sort of stuck up. People would probably be more impressed with you if that were the case."

"Would it impress you?"

She stopped abruptly and turned to look at him, her face pulling into a tight grimace, serving as a reminder of the scar marring her face. "Probably not." She needed to get away from this man and his probing questions, odd feeling be damned.

Stefan could see the obvious change in her demeanor, and he frowned, following his urge to continue the conversation, even though she was ultimately offending him with every word she said. "What would impress you?"

Athena looked up at him, narrowing her eyes. "You could kill someone for me. That'd be kinda hot,"

Stefan's face dropped slightly, and she smirked, dropping her facade of seriousness. He immediately glared at her taunting, making her smirk pull into a half smile. "Why do you want to know what I like so bad, huh? Pretty sure you've already got a small fan club gathered in your honor. I can see it in the yearbook now– President Caroline Forbes and Vice President Elena Gilbert." She had heard all about the practical hostage situation that Caroline had forced Stefan into, and just how much Elena had taken a liking to the new guy. Josh was nothing if not nosey, and he'd filled her in that morning when she stopped at the cafe.

Stefan faltered, scratching the back of his neck. "She's, uh, she seems like she has a lot of–"

"Baggage?" She interrupted, her voice going sharp. "All of us do, Mr. Salvatore, it's a wonderful thing."

Stefan frowned at her sarcasm, not missing the bitterness shining in her dark eyes. He nods at her words, though, as he can't disagree in the slightest. "I barely know her. And, she's got an ex that's still caught up– no point in pursuing something that seems doomed from the start."

"Smart choice. Matt's kind of a baby, though." She thought of the blond boy's longing stares from across the hallway and scoffed. "Good luck with that, Stefan. Elena's a huge bitch."

Stefan didn't say anything, and she turned on her heel and walked towards the chemistry lab. "You know, I didn't get your name!"

"I didn't give it to you!" She called back without looking back, walking into the classroom and leaving Stefan to laugh to himself. He ran a hand through his hair and thought about her words, about how she had baggage, too. For whatever reason, he had an itching desire to get to know her. It burned more than his need to know the girl that looked like Katherine reincarnated, and Stefan wasn't sure what that meant for him.

──────

"The Battle of Willow Creek."

Athena was once again slumped down in her seat, Tanner's voice droning on in her ears like some sort of daily torture device made to break her psyche. This time, she was joined by Stefan Salvatore, who had taken the empty seat next to her when he walked into class, much to her dismay. She found she didn't much mind his company because he was relatively quiet and nice to look at, but she wasn't happy about the fact that Elena had been burning holes into her profile all hour.

"It took place right at the end of the war in our very own Mystic Falls. How many casualties resulted in this battle? Ms. Bennett?"

Bonnie startled out of her distracted stupor. "Uh... a lot? I'm not sure. Like a whole lot."

"Cute becomes dumb in an instant, Ms. Bennett." Tanner scolded his student and Athena huffed a quiet laugh, her smile only widening at the feeling of Bonnie's glare on her. "Mr. Donovan. Would you like to take this opportunity to overcome your embedded jock stereotype?"

Matt squinted towards the front of the classroom and shrugged, a smug smile on his face. "It's okay, Mr. Tanner, I'm cool with it."

Tanner smiled sarcastically, ignoring the laughter that quietly followed from other students. "Elena? Surely you can enlighten us about one of the town's most significant historical events?"

Elena stuttered, wide-eyed at being called out. "I'm sorry– I don't know."

"I was willing to be lenient last year for obvious reasons, Elena, but the personal excuses ended with summer break."

"There were 346 casualties unless you're counting local civilians."

Eyes darted to Stefan as he spoke and Athena looked at him, somewhat surprised. "That's correct," Tanner said, somewhat hesitantly. "Mister...?"

"Salvatore. He's Italian." Athena informed the teacher, her tone falsely enthusiastic. Stefan glanced at her with a look of amusement and disdain, but she just smirked when Tanner's attention darted to her with a scolding look.

"Salvatore. Any relation to the original settlers here at Mystic Falls?"

Stefan blinked, hesitating, and Athena eyed the action oddly. "Distant."

"Well, very good." The teacher continued. "Except, of course, there were no civilian casualties in this battle."

"Actually, there were 27, sir," Athena informed him, feeling Stefan's gaze on her. "The information is available in the town's original archives, I'm sure a visit to City Hall would refresh your memory. We did that in sixth grade, though, so," She trailed off, shrugging with a saccharine smile that visibly grated on the man's nerves.

"Ms. Hunt–"

"It's true, Mr. Tanner. Confederate soldiers fired on the church, believing it to be housing weapons. They were wrong. It was a night of great loss."

Athena looked back to Stefan as Tanner fell quiet, humbled by two of his students. She narrowed her eyes at him quietly, ignoring the urge she got to smile at him the second he offered her a small one.

Elena Gilbert watched her old friend seemingly charm the boy she'd taken a quick liking to, and felt a dark, nasty resentment crawl up her throat. It seemed that the distance put between them over the summer hadn't changed the way Elena truly felt about Athena Hunt.

──────

Athena was not going to that stupid party. No matter what her dad said to try to convince her to 'be a teenager', she wasn't going to return to the very sight that had been the catalyst for her downfall.

Instead of attending said party, she was sitting in her bedroom at her vanity, staring at her hollow reflection, wondering why she was still so hung up on the people who had dumped her at her lowest. She hated the fact that she'd go back to them if she could if the bridges weren't still smoldering from where they'd burned.

A few months ago, she would've been thinking about what outfit she was going to wear to this party, calling Caroline so they could coordinate. Carefully dragging lipstick over her lips and smiling into the mirror, she wondered if she should bring the tube with her so she could reapply later on in the night. Now the thought of even going made her stomach turn with a nausea that only the horrid memories from that night could bring on. The lightbulbs that circled her mirror lit up her face, making her dark room look shadowy behind her. She looked like the miserable star of her one-woman show.

Her fingers traced the scar on her face, curving from the corner of her lips up the curve of her cheekbone. A perfect half-moon, so much like the one that had shone on the murky water as it filled her lungs beneath Wickery Bridge.

The drag of her filed nail left a red welt on her olive skin and she let out a shaky sigh at the numbness on the left side of her face. She looked at the piles of makeup beside her arms, dropping her hand to trace the bottles of foundation she hadn't touched in months. Unable to risk the infection from trying to cover up the remnants of an accident nobody even remembered her being a part of.

She missed being able to paint on that mask and go to school every day with a smile on her face that made her utterly untouchable. She'd laugh with her friends at the expense of others, oblivious to whatever twisted karma waited for her in the near future.

Everything about who she used to be was gone, drowned in that goddamn river beneath Wickery Bridge. She knew it, no matter how much she wanted to deny it. She could wear all the dresses she wanted, and smile her new, twisted smile, but it didn't change the fact that Athena had died beneath that bridge and a part of her never came back.

She'd burn the bridge down if she could. Burn it and stand amidst the flames as they overtook her body, and turned her to ash right along with it. She doesn't even think she'd scream. She would just tilt her head back and look up at the sky, and relish in the relief that death might bring.

Athena's eyes watered with tears as she traced the scar mindlessly. Her hands fell to the desk with a dull thud and a tear skittered down her cheek at the abrupt action.

She stared at herself, stripped bare of everything that once made her her, and blinked another tear out. There was nothing to hide the shell she had become. No one could stop her downward spiral as it happened, and she realized that she was too far gone to ever be the girl she once was.

She took her finger and pulled at the corner of her mouth where her scar started, pulling her lip upward in a twisted, joker-esque smile. When she pulled her finger back, her lips fell back into a frown and she bit at them to stop the quiver.

Athena looked down at the desktop, sniffling as a few tears fell onto it. She squeezed her shaking hands and looked up at her reflection through her lashes, her dark brown eyes looking utterly soulless. She barely recognized who stared back at her.

No longer was she a simple teenage girl with a passion for cheerleading and loving her friends and family. Now she was something darker, something colder. She was once vulnerable and had put herself out there and gotten hurt one too many times to allow it to happen again. That part of her that never came out of the river had been replaced with something unrecognizable. Something that buzzed just beneath her skin, waiting to burst out the second she gave it a name.

It paced inside of her brain, unruly and angry, ready to unleash hell on the person who pushed her too far.

She thought that maybe, losing her girlfriend had been the catalyst for her doomsday. But still, that part of her teetered on the edge, and she knew that something bigger awaited her. Something worse than what she'd already gone through. As if she could handle anything else at this point.

The thought alone made her shiver in fear.

Athena let out a hoarse sob, unable to stop herself as she collapsed on top of her desk in defeat. Her hands trembled around nothing and she felt her lungs heave with forced air.

Athena cried, hard enough to not notice her door opening and her father rushing in with a worried look on his face. She let him scoop her up from her chair and pull her into his lap, squeezing her tight as she cried into the fabric of her father's shirt.

She held onto him tight, allowing a moment of comfort before she had to go back out to meet Damon in town to report back on everything Stefan had said about Elena.

And tomorrow morning when she woke for school, she'd have to face this new version of herself and hope that she wouldn't be meeting her breaking point in the halls of that miserable school.

──────

Caroline squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her head into her hands.

"Are you sober yet?"

She looked up at Bonnie, her eyes narrowing as the world spun around her. "No."

"Keep drinking, I gotta get you home. I gotta get me home." Bonnie looked at her friend with a mixture of amusement and concern, not fully understanding her brash decisions. Caroline had never been a lightweight, so the thought of her drinking enough to get this drunk was worrying.

Caroline shot up suddenly, ignoring Bonnie's words. "Why didn't he go for me? You know, how come the guys that I want never want me?"

"I'm not touching that."

"I'm inappropriate," Caroline muttered pitifully. "I always say the wrong thing. And, Elena always says the right thing."

Bonnie let out a heaving sigh at the mention of their friend. Caroline was drunk and talking mindlessly– she'd be fine in the morning, Bonnie knew.

"She doesn't even try! And he just picks her. And she's always the one that everyone picks, for everything." Caroline's voice cracked with emotion and Bonnie eyed her warily. "I picked her over my girlfriend! And– and now, Athena won't even look at me! I try so hard, and I'm... never the one."

Bonnie sighed at her drunken ramblings, hiding her eye roll at the mention of said ex-girlfriend. "It's not a competition, Caroline."

Caroline looked at the floor, her drunken mind shoving all of her guilt to the forefront of her mind. She bit the inside of her cheek and looked back to Bonnie. "Yeah, it is. And I lost everything."

Bonnie just sighed, not understanding where her friend's sudden self-hatred was coming from. She grabbed the check off the table and walked off to pay it, leaving Caroline to her ministrations.

The blonde's eyes darted upward and she felt her eyes uncontrollably water at the sight of Athena sitting there with a man she didn't recognize, her face pulled into a slight smile.

The man took his fork and poked at the food on her plate and Athena batted it away, a small laugh coming from both of them. Caroline sniffed, the sound drawing Athena's attention and making her smile drop immediately.

In her drunken haze, she mistook the look on Athena's face for longing and sadness. But Caroline knew better than that. After all, how can someone forgive you for something you haven't even forgiven yourself for?

────── 

author's note; editing this book is quite literally the best thing I could do like

originally published: 10.18.20.

edited: 11.20.23.

- liz