For What You Are

As Kara woke up in the morning, she found herself wishing that she hadn’t. A splitting headache met her with an astonishing tiredness that even a cold shower didn’t shake.

“Ally,” she said to her friend that she lived with. “Have you got any ibuprofen?”

“Top cupboard on the left,” Ally replied, not looking up from the newspaper at the kitchen table. “I told you that you shouldn’t have been up watching TV that late.”

“You can’t tell me that you didn’t when you were in high school,” Kara replied as she got a biscuit from the cupboard along with her water and drugs. “You and your partying lifestyle-”

“-did not begin until after high school,” Ally finished. “Study now, party later. That’s my motto. By the way, your sleep in means you’re most probably going to be late for school.”

Kara looked up at the clock and almost choked on the tablets. Swallowing her food quickly, she ran out the door stuffing books into her back as she went.

“Kill, high school,” she muttered incoherently as she went. “Die, now.”

“Again with the angst.”

Once again, she almost jumped out of her skin as the same guy who had picked up her books yesterday leaned against the driver’s door of her car.

“Stop doing that!” Kara said, embellishing it with a hard knock to the man’s arm with her hard cover copy of the Lord of the Rings. Except it didn’t even reach his arm. He caught it before it did.

“Lord of the Rings?” he said. “Maybe you should be hanging out with Kale after all.”

“Who the hell are you?” she asked in frustration, attempting to move him off her door. “And why are you talking to me when I am quite obviously trying to get to school in,” she looked at her watch, “the next thirty seconds.”

He shrugged, slipping the book back into her satchel bag. “You’re not going to make it, so what’s the point in going.”

Kara opened her mouth to respond before realising that his response was actually quite reasonable. Of course, she wasn’t letting him see that she thought so. Considering the fact that she still had no idea who he was.

“Damon Salvatore,” he replied. “I believe you’ve met my brother?”

“That guy I walked past in the corridor?” Kara asked sarcastically before actually remembering somebody who looked vaguely like him. “Yeah, I guess I know his face. But that still doesn’t explain why you’re talking to me.”

She gave one last ditch attempt to get him off her door before giving up and leaning her back against the car as he spoke again.

“You seem fascinating,” Damon replied. “British, no family –”

“Thanks,” she answered drily.

“Didn’t mean it in a bad way,” he responded. “It just adds to your mystery.”

“I suppose I should be thankful that you don’t know my name. You seem on the verge of becoming a stalker.”

Of course, his smug look told Kara that he did indeed know her name; he just hadn’t said it aloud.

“Well,” she said suddenly. “You have most probably made me miss homeroom, so I now have to come up with a believable excuse or face my teacher’s wrath. So please get off my car door.”

He moved.

“You know,” Kara said in obvious annoyance. “If you’d done that in the first place, I might have been in a lot less trouble.”

“If you’d asked in the first place, I wouldn’t still be standing here.”

She gave him a death stare as she began to drive out onto the road. He waved with a mocking smile on his face as she drove off. But Kara couldn’t help but feel slightly glad that they’d had that conversation. At least she had a name now.

Damon Salvatore.