Heavy in Your Arms

Hayden sighed loudly. This is fucking ridiculous, she thought. I shouldn't be here.

First night back in this god-forsaken town and she was put in the slammer. Hayden was born in Mystic Falls, but when she was nine she moved away with her mother to New Zealand where she started up a Casino. Her father hadn't done anything in his power to try and keep in touch with her, it was hard for him when he too had moved away from Mystic Falls and to Europe with his new girlfriend.

The Romanov family manor just sat at Eagle Crest Peak, no family members even in the country, let alone in Virginia state. But as her mother sold all her businesses, and raked up all her millions, she wanted to move back to her home town; Mystic Falls. Not that she would even spend any time there, Hayden had to catch the plane and remove all cloths covering the furniture herself. Ruth Romanov was currently sunning herself in Australia.

Ruth Romanov, Hayden seethed the name. She was only daughter and second child to the American born woman. After her father left her mother she had to watch her whore around with the rich and famous in New Zealand and wherever her mother took her. Young and old, gorgeous and the rich, and then, eventually the undead. Hayden wondered how a woman with so much grace and propriety could degrade herself in such a manner. A vampire, her mother had explained, had drunk her blood, replaced it with his and then killed her. She woke up, hungry, scared and deathly afraid from the sunlight; Hayden didn't know what to expect. The vampire who had turned her mother didn't know she had children, and it was one of the reasons why her mother spent so much time away from her daughter; so she wouldn't be succumbed to the hunger that ripped through her body.

"Hey, baby," A tattered and worn looking prostitute sat next to Hayden. Her hair was dishevelled, make-up smudged, in excess of age and had no two front teeth. "I'll go down on you for ten dollars."

Hayden just looked on, watching the policemen walking around the cells, shuffling paperwork and drinking coffee to keep the early hours of the morning taking a toll on their tired bodies and minds. She had grown up in this town for the first nine years of her life and she had never seen a prostitute before, what kind of town had this place turned into? "Yeah? I'll beat the shit out of you free."

The prostitute left, offering her body to some other women in the cell, and even some men in the cell next door. Hayden blew lightly on her knuckles on her left hand, trying to soothe the searing pain of the split flesh. She wasn't particularly proud of the fight, but she sure as hell didn't regret it. Jessica Beauford wasn't just some stuck-up-druggie-whore-who-happened-to-be-the-most-popular-girl-at-Mystic-Falls-high, no; she was all hysteria, delusions and mania. Jessica had heard, like everyone else seemed to have heard in the town that the Romanovs were coming back, and made it her job to talk shit about her and her past.

Jessica may not have hit her first; Hayden certainly ended the fight though.

"Romanov, you're outta here!" A policeman yelled, walking to the cell and opened the door.

She got up from the bench and weaved her way through her fellow low life's and made her way to cell door. Ushered through police cubicles and towards the front of the police station, she was given back all of two of her possessions; her wallet and cell phone and was thrust out of the front door.

Hayden could vaguely remember where she was, in the centre of town, she knew that the Mystic Grill and Bar was close, but she hardly wanted to go there, she just wanted to get to her car and go home. But then again, she had a pounding headache, and bloodied and bruised knuckles, maybe a drink would be the best thing.

She walked through the semi-busy streets, couples having romantic walks and looking for places to eat. Hayden received weird looks from most people, but she just brushed it off, she got weird looks every where she went, she was used to it.

Hayden was asked to protrude some form of Identification for her request for an alcoholic beverage, and was happy to see that the police hadn't taken it. She ordered two bourbon and cokes and sculled one in a large gulp and told the bartender that she wanted a new drink whenever she finished hers and handed him a hundred dollar note and walked over to the Mortal Kombat gaming machine in the corner by the pool tables.

Grabbing some quarters from her pocket, she popped one in the machine and balanced her drink on the top before pushing buttons profusely, trying to beat the computer at it's own game. Scorpion's fighting noises could be heard and in no time Hayden had numerous empty glasses on top of the machine. She had taken off her leather jacket and her Rolex watch because it was 'slowing her down'. So she was completely surprised when a group of people came up behind her and screamed her name.

"Hayden?" She had remembered a voice similar to it, shriek-like and excited. She paused the game and turned around to find Caroline, blonde hair, blue eyes and all grown up. Bonnie and Elena were standing behind her, confused looks on their faces.

"Caroline?" She had certainly… filled out, Hayden thought. She had grown about five feet and had a pair of knockers on her that almost made Hayden jealous. Caroline jumped into Hayden's arms, screaming and jumping up and down.

"Oh my god! I heard you were coming back in town but I didn't know for sure, I thought it was just gossip!"

"Wait a second," Elena spoke from behind them, "Hayden Romanov?"

In an instant Bonnie and Elena had jumped onto their childhood best friend, and soon they were all squealing, Hayden caught in the middle, trying to block the screeching from her ears.

"When did you get in?" Bonnie pulled her over to an empty booth and sat down next to her, Caroline and Elena opposite.

"Uh, this morning, yeah."

"From New Zealand right?"

"Yup."

The three of them asked everything and almost anything about her life; where she had been all these years, what she had been doing, who she had been doing. Hayden replied with the truth; all she had been doing these past few years was surf, smoke, and get drunk. She had an endless supply of money, she lived alone. Hayden was a teenager without a care in the world, without a cause except to have a good time. She didn't care about grades and finding a good job, going to college or settling down; she was all about living in the now.

"You have an accent, it's so weird!" Caroline laughed, her blonde locks bouncing up and down around her shoulders. Hayden only smiled and sipped at her drink, all thanks to her fake I.D – which the girls had been amazed in. If they were amazed in a simple forged piece of plastic, she didn't even want to mention her whereabouts earlier that night.

"You know what's even weirder," Elena looked at her friends, then back at Hayden, "How pretty you are! What's your secret?"

Hayden had to scoff, compared to Elena, she felt completely inferior – albeit only in the looks department.

"I need to get home, get ready for school tomorrow; I got a heap of homework." Bonnie stood up and said goodbye to the girls, and hugging Hayden good-bye. Caroline was next to go, same hug although she insisted on her phone number and home address, along with a picture so she could store it in her underneath her number.

"And then there were two," Elena smiled and sipped at her coke. Hayden smiled and leaned back in the booth, finally free of the excitement of the other two girls she could really get a good look at her childhood best friend. The girl who she shared a bed with whenever they had a sleep-over, the girl who too cried at the Lion King, the only other girl in school who saw The Swan Princess and could sing all the words along with Hayden. She was her childhood platonic sweetheart.

"How are you, Lena? What's the haps?"

She gave a killer watt smile, and Hayden instantly sighed. "Alright, who's the guy?"

"His name is Stefan." It was the start of an hour long conversation about her high-school sweetheart. Elena's heart poured out to Hayden, and she couldn't stop the words falling from her lips, everything just happened. She kept out key-words such as 'vampire', 'council' and 'murder'HaydHh. Little to Elena's knowledge that Hayden had been living with one for years, she knew they existed and that witches existed too.

"Do you need a ride home?" Elena asked as they walked out to the parking lot. Hayden felt she was asking out of politeness, fully expecting to hear a no so she could just go home, but Hayden was in no state to walk to her car.

"I actually need a ride to my car, if that's okay?"

"Yeah, sure. Why didn't you drive here?" She asked as the two of them hopped in her car.

"Uh," Hayden scratched the back of her head, "I kinda got arrested tonight. They left my car at the park."

Elena's eyes widened and she made a weird noise, which was conducive to the surprise on her face. "Arrested? For what?"

Hayden showed the open flesh wound on her fist, the left hand she had kept underneath the table the whole time they were in the Mystic Grill and Bar. "Oh my god! Are you okay?"

"Yeah! I'm fine, it's only a few scratches, will heal in a couple of days. Just got in a little fight."

Hayden was quick to change the conversation and found out that Elena's parents had just recently passed. She felt a little sad for her friend, something she didn't feel for a lot of people and offered some semblance of comfort, trying to compare her parent's constant distance something like they had too passed from this life, but she knew it wasn't helping, and wasn't at all the same.

"Here it is," Hayden sighed as Elena pulled over to the side of the road, behind her silver 2009 Nissan Skyline GT-R. Her sixteenth birthday present from her father. "Hey, ring me anytime, okay? Seriously, if you just want to take your mind off shit, I promise I can provide a good time." Hayden gave her number to Elena and left after thanking her for the ride.

She hopped into her car and revved the engine before peeling from the curb and off towards her house at Eagle Crest, a private reserve on the Romanov Manor property. The house lights were on, and could be seen from all the way at the end of the drive which must have meant Julian, her mother's butler, had finally arrived. She drove around the large water fountain at the centre of the drive-way and parked as close as she could the front door. Leaving her keys in the ignition, something she would never do back in Auckland, she entered the house.

"Julian! I'm home!" Hayden was still getting used to the house she had spent most of her childhood in, and walked into the kitchen where some dinner was waiting for her in the warm oven. She pulled the plate of food from the oven, and a beer from the fridge before she headed into the living room where she had set up her xbox 360. It was a Wednesday after all, and she didn't start at Mystic High until the following Monday, which meant she had days to catch up on some video games she had missed on the plane ride.