╔═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗
CHAPTER SIX
odd one out
╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

( you're undead to me )

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Monday, September 28, 2009

Harper's POV.

*Mystic Falls High School*

It's been four days since the Founders' Party, and things seem to have calmed down since then. In fact, things have pretty much gone back to normal, mainly because the Salvatore brothers haven't shown their faces since the party.

Which is both a good and bad thing: a bad thing because Elena has been missing Stefan, and his absence and lack of communication has made things even more complicated between them . . . and quite frankly, I miss him too. But why a good thing you ask? Well, apparently, Elena was right about Damon. Stefan had confirmed it to her the night of the party. It turns out that Damon has issues and strange tendencies. He's toxic and needs severe help.

Oh, I knew it was too good to be true, for an actual nice guy to want to spend time with me. He probably only wanted to dance with me to taunt Caroline. He clearly didn't care about her, which is evident because of all the bruises and bite marks he left on her body. I never expected something so messed up to happen to one of my best friends.

Good riddance to that Damon Salvatore.

As Elena, Bonnie, and I stand by our lockers, we stop mid-conversation when we hear Caroline's pleased voice travel down the hallway. She and some other student council members are handing out flyers for the Sexy Suds Car Wash.

"The Sexy Suds Car Wash is tomorrow," Caroline tells her fellow student council members. "The football team and the band have committed. Well, not all the band, just the ones who can pull off a bikini. I want in-your-face sexy. I mean, it's a fund raiser, for God's sake."

I roll my eyes, cross my arms over my chest, and lift a leg up to hold me against the lockers. Caroline, Caroline, Caroline . . .

"Un-believable." Elena shakes her head. "It's like nothing happened."

"She's in denial," Bonnie says.

"Well, at least she's not letting what happened with Damon bring her down," I point out.

"Hey," says a soft voice. I turn my head to find that Stefan has approached us.

He's back. To say that I'm surprised is an understatement. I expected him to be gone for a few more days.

"Hey, uh, you know," Bonnie pipes up. "I gotta go, uh, be somewhere right now." Bonnie turns and walks away, making her escape.

I quickly follow suit. "Yeah, me too," I say hastily before speed-walking after her.

*Later That Night In Harper's Bedroom*

With all my homework finished, I have about thirty minutes left to read chapter seven of New Moon before I go to bed. I lay back on my bed, preparing to take out the bookmark. When suddenly, my phone starts to ring.

I answer it and put it up to my ear. "Hello?" I ask.

"Harper," says the voice of a very stressed-out Caroline Forbes. "I need a headcount for tomorrow. Are you coming to the car wash?"

"No," I say immediately. "I wouldn't be caught dead there."

"But why not? " she whines.

"You know my dad. He would never let me set foot there. I don't even own a bikini!"

"Ugh," I can practically see Caroline rolling her eyes on the other side of the phone. "I wish your mom could make the decision. I bet she would let you go."

"She probably would," I agree. "But my dad's in charge of that stuff. She has to go along with what he says."

"Oh, fine," Caroline huffs in defeat. "I guess I'll just see you tomorrow at school then. Bye." She hangs up before I even have a chance to say "bye" back.

One thing to know about Caroline is that she is a busy girl. It feels kind of special that I'm one of the only people she feels comfortable having her walls down with, because I highly doubt she would allow herself to act stressed in front of any of her other friends or student council members. Our friendship has always had this sort of dynamic. I'm the awkward, quiet one with the brains while she is the more outgoing one with the status, but, at the same time, she always has my back and understands my introverted nature.

No other higher-status girl at our school is as nice to me as Caroline is. I mean, sure, they respect me (probably only because I'm a founding family member and in the running for valedictorian), but none of them are quite as friendly to me as Caroline is.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

*Harper's House*

"All proceeds are going to the school's athletic department still healing from the tragic death of their football coach, William Tanner," explains news reporter Logan Fell on the TV. "The citizens of Mystic Falls coming together in support of one of their own."

I have to say, it's kind of weird knowing that the news reporter you watch on the TV everyday is going out with your cousin's legal guardian. I found out recently that Jenna used to date Logan Fell when she was younger. And now, she's going out with him again.

It's a small world out there. I swear.

I hear footsteps behind me and look back to see that it's my mother. I mean, who else was it gonna be? I'm an only child, and my dad is always working.

"Dear, why aren't you working on your homework?" my mother asks.

I put my arm over the back of the couch and look at my mother over my shoulder. "The teachers weren't allowed to give us homework tonight cause of the Sexy Suds Car Wash," I explain. "You know, the one I wasn't allowed to go too." I say the last part with a biting edge.

In truth, I'm actually glad I didn't have to go to the car wash. I've never worn a bikini before and wouldn't know how to act. The whole experience would have been super weird and uncomfortable. The only reason I'm acting like I wish I could have gone is because I don't want my mother to know that I'm secretly happy about not going.

She's always getting on to me about stepping outside of my comfort zone. It's so annoying.

"Well, I'm sorry about that, dear. I tried to convince your father, but he was firm in his decision," she explains.

"It's okay," I assure her. "I can still watch it on TV. They're having a live broadcast of the whole thing, well, almost the whole thing," I correct myself.

"Oh good, at least you don't have to completely miss out." My mother smiles. She looks down and checks the time on her designer watch before looking back up at me. "I have to go run some errands. I'll be back."

As I turn back around on the couch, I hear my mother leave into the garage. That means she's gone; that is, unless she forgot something. Then, she'll come back and annoy me some more, which actually happens a lot.

But today, she doesn't forget anything, and I listen with satisfaction as the garage door opens and closes.

It looks like I'll have the whole house to myself for a few hours. Sweet.

On instinct, I go into the kitchen and grab a snack. When my parents are home, I'm never able to eat a snack because then they'll get mad at me for eating junk between meals. So, I always like to sneak a snack in when I'm home alone.

With a small bowl of pistachios and peanut butter-chocolate balls in hand, I make my way back to the living room and settle myself back on the couch. After biting into a peanut butter-chocolate ball, I bring my attention back to the TV.

It takes a moment for my mind to comprehend the news headline at the bottom of the screen: "Car Catches Fire at Mystic Falls High School Fundraiser."

My first coherent thought is "what???"

My hand immediately travels over to my phone on the couch armrest. I start texting Caroline to find out what happened, but when she doesn't answer fast enough, I try texting Bonnie. She takes too long too though, so then I try texting Elena.

Some time passes, and I still . . . get . . . no . . . responses!

Finally, I text Matt to see if he will answer. And he does, thank God.

HARPER LACY: I heard there was a fire at the school, what happened?

MATT DONOVAN: Yeah there was, some car caught on fire

HARPER LACY: How did that happen?

MATT DONOVAN: No idea, it just came out of no where then the fire went out by itself

HARPER LACY: That's weird

MATT DONOVAN: I know

MATT DONOVAN: Hey I gotta go, see u tomorrow

HARPER LACY: Bye

Why does all the cool stuff happen at school when I'm not there?

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

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a/n:

Harper's parents are so strict on her, I swear. So yeah, she wasn't allowed to go to the Sexy Suds Car Wash, and she also didn't find out that Stefan was a vampire in this chapter either. I know a lot of other TVD fanfics have their OCs find out about vampires at this point in the story, but I wasn't going to do that. That would be just replacing Elena with an OC. Besides, there's no way Harper could have found out at this point. She wasn't there to witness Stefan's hand getting cut; she wasn't there to see Stefan's face change, and she also wasn't there when the old man thought he recognized Stefan.

But don't worry, guys, Harper will be figuring things out very soon in her own time.

By the way, the reasons why Caroline, Bonnie, and Elena weren't answering Harper's text messages were because: A. Bonnie went to see her Grams about her witch powers, B. Caroline went to free Damon, and C. Elena was too busy finding out that Stefan was a vampire.

So yeah, this was more of a filler chapter.

-- roxy

( word count: 1.7k )