Chapter 19 : Starlight Confession
The Lockwood Estate blazed with light.
Strings of bulbs crisscrossed the back lawn, illuminating dozens of Mystic Falls' finest in their red-white-and-blue finery. A band played patriotic standards from the gazebo. Children ran between legs, waving sparklers. The smell of grilled meat and expensive perfume mixed in the warm evening air.
I stood near the drink table, nursing a soda I didn't want, and watched the town perform its rituals.
A week had passed since my overextension collapse. I'd been careful since then—training daily but respecting limits, rebuilding my blood supply one donation at a time. Two bags now sat in the cooler under my bed. Not enough for a real fight, but enough to matter.
The Fourth of July party was a command performance for anyone connected to the Founding Families. Tyler had invited me as a friend; my position at the Grill had made me useful enough to tolerate. I'd accepted because intelligence came from proximity, and the Lockwood Estate was proximity central.
Mayor Lockwood held court near the bar, drink in hand, laughing too loud at his own jokes. His face was flushed—he'd been drinking since noon. The werewolf gene expressed itself in his aggression, his impulse control issues, the way anger flickered behind his eyes when someone disagreed with him.
Sheriff Forbes circulated through the crowd with professional alertness. Even at a party, she was working. Her eyes tracked every newcomer, every sudden movement, every potential threat.
She knows things. She's on the Council. She's been preparing for vampires longer than I've been alive in this body.
The overheard fragments from the library research echoed in my mind. The Forbes family had been part of the Founders Council since the beginning. If I needed allies against what was coming, Elizabeth Forbes was a potential asset.
But that was a problem for another night.
Tonight, I was looking for Caroline.
She'd been everywhere when I arrived—directing caterers, adjusting decorations, making sure the band had water. Classic Caroline, organizing an event she hadn't officially been put in charge of simply because no one else would do it right.
I'd lost track of her twenty minutes ago.
A flash of blonde hair caught my attention. Behind the gazebo, away from the main crowd, someone sat on a stone bench. I grabbed two bottles of water from the drink table and headed that direction.
Caroline looked up as I approached. Her dress was blue with white stars—on-theme, perfectly coordinated—but her expression was tired in a way the careful makeup couldn't quite hide.
"Hiding from your own event?" I asked.
She laughed, the sound rough around the edges. "It's not my event. The Historical Society runs it. I just... help."
"You reorganized the entire catering schedule when I walked in."
"The original schedule was a disaster."
I sat beside her on the bench, leaving a careful few inches of distance. The noise from the party was muted here, filtered through the gazebo's lattice walls.
"Sometimes I organize so much I forget to enjoy things." Caroline's voice was quiet. "I spend all my time making sure everyone else has fun, and then I look around and realize I'm exhausted."
"Then stop organizing."
"I can't." She pulled at a loose thread on her dress. "If I stop, things fall apart. People forget what they're supposed to do, and then it's chaos, and then everyone blames—"
The first firework exploded overhead.
We both looked up instinctively. Red and gold burst across the sky, reflecting in Caroline's eyes, casting shadows across her face.
"Pretty," she murmured.
More fireworks followed. Blue. White. Green that faded into purple. The Lockwoods had spared no expense, as always.
I watched Caroline watch the sky. The exhaustion in her expression was fading, replaced by something softer. Wonder, maybe. The reminder that some things existed purely to be beautiful.
"I like how you look at me."
Her voice was so quiet I almost missed it under the boom of the fireworks.
"What?"
She didn't turn her head. Just kept staring up, like she was speaking to the sky instead of me.
"You look at me like I'm... real. Not just decoration. Not just the pretty blonde who plans parties." A firework burst, blue-white, illuminating her profile. "Everyone else sees what I show them. You see something else."
I thought about the first time I'd really noticed her—on the football field, during Tyler's training session. The way she'd led cheerleading practice with the same intensity she brought to everything else. The vulnerability hidden under layers of confidence and control.
"Because you are real," I said. "The realest person here."
She finally turned to look at me.
The fireworks continued overhead, red and gold and silver, but I stopped seeing them. Caroline's eyes were bright in the colored light, searching my face for something—sincerity, maybe, or the catch that always came with compliments.
She didn't find it.
"Matt..."
A stray firework fizzled out twenty feet away, the sound sharp and unexpected. We both jumped, the moment fracturing, and then we were laughing—the startled, giddy laughter of two people caught in something neither quite expected.
The tension didn't disappear. It shifted. Became warmer. More comfortable.
"This is weird," Caroline said, still half-laughing.
"Good weird or bad weird?"
She considered. "Good weird. Definitely good weird."
The finale started—rapid bursts of color filling the sky, thundering explosions that drowned out conversation. We watched in silence, shoulders almost touching, and I let myself feel something I'd been suppressing since I arrived in this body.
Hope.
Not the desperate, strategic hope of saving Vicki or preparing for vampires. Something simpler. The hope that came from connection, from being seen, from building something real in the middle of chaos.
The last firework faded. Applause rose from the lawn. The band started playing again—something slow, almost romantic.
Caroline stood, brushing off her dress. "I should probably go make sure no one set the lawn on fire."
"Probably."
She hesitated. Then, quickly, like she might lose her nerve: "Walk me to my mom's car? She's probably ready to leave."
We walked through the dispersing crowd together. Tyler saw us and raised an eyebrow. Elena smiled knowingly. Bonnie looked surprised but pleased.
Sheriff Forbes waited by her patrol car, out of uniform but still projecting authority. Her eyes tracked our approach with parental suspicion.
"Matt Donovan," she said. "Keeping my daughter company?"
"Yes, ma'am."
The Sheriff studied me for a long moment. Whatever she was looking for, she apparently found it, because her expression softened slightly.
"Get in the car, Caroline. It's late."
Caroline turned to me. "Thanks for the company."
"Anytime."
She squeezed my hand—quick, warm, deliberate—then climbed into the passenger seat. The door closed. The engine started.
I watched them drive away, Caroline's hand visible through the window, waving once before the car disappeared around the bend.
Sixty-one days until Stefan arrives.
But for the first time, the countdown felt less like a threat and more like a timeline. I had things to protect now. People to care about.
The walk back to my truck was quiet. The party was winding down, guests drifting toward their cars, the Lockwood staff already starting cleanup.
Something real was building with Caroline. Something that had started as strategy but had become genuine somewhere along the way.
I climbed into the truck and sat for a moment, processing.
Protect her. Not because she's a target, not because of what Damon does in canon. Because she matters. Because she's real.
The engine turned over on the second try. I headed home through the dark streets of Mystic Falls, firework smoke still hanging in the air.
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