Amy's hand was hurting where she had held the cast iron knob of the dresser tightly for support, as she had collapsed. Flabbergasted by the sheer number of excruciatingly disturbing falls she had suffered through that night, Amy wanted to shout. But the deafening silence that had followed the lightning strike prevented her from doing so. Caleb involuntarily grinned, and neatly stepped over her knee, throwing himself on Amy's side of the bed.

"Any object coming right at me, come hell or high water, deviates and never lands a direct hit. It can be anything really, the rain, a football, a car, reckless girls..." he trailed off in a self-satisfied voice.

"I guess that is one of the many perks of your current state," Amy said, scathingly. That ought to shut him up nicely. She impatiently waited for her eyes to adjust to the absence of light. Slowly, she could distinguish familiar shapes in the blackness.

Amy shuffled to the corner of the bed and tried to sit –

"Not here, I am here!" Caleb whispered.

"Alright, you don't need to be such a baby," she muttered under her breath. Amy's rage still bubbled in her gut. Her recently hurt palm and butt were screaming for Caleb's head.

"Amy?" a sleepy drawl issued from the front of the door. "Are you talking to your friend again?"

"Hey Leigh, why aren't you in bed?" Amy asked. She shushed Caleb in the dark.

"The big explosion woke me up and then I couldn't switch the light on so I thought I might be in a bad dream. Then I heard your voice," Leigh yawned, drawing out the last bit of her late-night mumblings.

"You are pretty loud," Caleb mused.

"Leigh, meet Caleb. Caleb this is Leighton," Amy waved around, resigned. She wanted to distract her sister from her bad dreams. The availability of a basket case, make-believe circus freak seemed like her best shot.

"You didn't tell me he was invisible," Leigh squealed excitedly, falling for the bait. "Is he good-looking?"

"Devilishly," Caleb smirked haughtily. "I like your sister, can I trade you for her?"

"No Leigh, he has a massive head and a tiny body," Amy remarked, rolling her eyes, exasperated by the pointless exchange. "But he says he likes you."

"He doesn't even glow in the dark," Leigh complained. 

And just like that, the last bit of hot air wheezed out of Amy's anger balloon. "I am sure that wouldn't have helped," she laughed.

Her parents had appeared carrying candles, and looking oddly creepy like they belonged to a very old movie or something. Her father said, "This thunderstorm just keeps surprising me. I think it is done being extraordinarily destructive and bam, it proves me wrong." He stepped over a treacherous fold in the carpet beside a set of paints that Amy did not remember buying, and placed a candle on her bedside table, illuminating half of Caleb's smooth face.

"You guys know that we have flashlights in our phones, right?" Amy brandished hers in the air. It was high time that the ancients embraced modern technology.

"Ames-James, you know it's more flippin' this way," her father said, sheepishly. At least he was pretending to be brushed up on the awkward lingo that nobody ever used. Props to you Pops, she cringed internally.

"Are you guys ready to get back into bed?" Anne asked. She pointed at Amy, "And you, whoever you were yelling at over the phone can wait till tomorrow."

"C'mon, it's a school night. You need to sleep," Amy felt around for Leigh, who thought this was a golden opportunity for a fun nightly family session. She protested all the way until she was tucked under her blankets. Luckily, there would be no candlelit games of monopoly tonight.

"I think I like your new friend. Do you?" Leigh whispered, only for Amy's ears.

"I haven't made up my mind yet," she said, truthfully. Amy tapped her baby sister between her eyebrows, watching her eyes cross as she did. "Now eyes closed, start dreaming."

Caleb looked weary when she returned.

Amy hadn't missed the flicker of curiosity that had passed his face, during the sobering family interlude. She pulled the sheets from under him, and they glided across to her as if Caleb hadn't been weighing them down. Amy used her phone's flashlight and shined it in his face. "You were saying?"

Caleb shielded his eyes from the glare, the dark blue in his irises reclaiming the space his pupils had left. "Look, I tried for the longest time not to give Broad the dope. It escalated to a point where he threatened to hurt someone if he didn't get it. The night of the carnival would have been the second time I dealt XP."

It wasn't completely unbelievable that Wesley Broad would resort to something like that. Amy knew she shouldn't trust Caleb; or be gullible enough to believe every word he said, the minute his lips formed them. But her options were as limited as the people who could see him. She frowned and asked, "Who was it? The person Wesley wanted to hurt?"

Caleb sighed and looked away. The gentle slope of his nose looked incredibly appealing from where Amy was lost gazing at it.

"You know, this will never work if you keep disappearing or withholding information from me, Caleb," she coaxed him.

Caleb's lips were pressed into a cautious line; his eyes incandescent. The ocean's smooth surface was marred by choppy waves. He closed them briefly and Amy could focus again. 

He continued, "Wesley was going to hurt my sister. It was the perfect plan, he would expose me and destroy what's left of my family in one stroke."

Amy was at a loss for words. She was beginning to believe people weren't as easy to read as they appeared to be.

The faint rumbles of a faraway thunderstorm and feeble pattering of scattered raindrops filled the silence between them. Caleb smiled ruefully and said, "Who am I kidding, you of all people cannot understand. You will never face the shit I have had to."

"What do you mean?" she asked, in a low voice.

"You're just so precious, aren't you? With your perfect life and your perfect family."

"You don't know me," Amy said, appalled that he would be so cavalier. It was as though Caleb had slapped her, but strangely, the dominant emotion that swelled in Amy's chest after his callous assumption was sympathy. She pitied the boy who was trying to hurt her, after judging her in a heartbeat. Maybe he needed lessons in reading people.

Caleb scoffed in response. 

Pompous fuckass, Amy thought venomously but exhaustion was quickly overpowering her desire to converse with him. "That is neither here nor there," she said, shaking her head. "You can't just go off on your own like that again. Whether you like it or not, you and I are in this together now."

"Whatever bro," he said, turning away from her. "I won't leave without telling you. The sooner we figure out a way out of this mess, the better," Caleb muttered darkly.

She closed her eyes; the fight draining out of her with each comfortable breath she took. Amy was about to drift into a world without ghost boys and hallucinogenic drugs when she suddenly remembered.

"Caleb?" she said, tentatively.

"Hmm?" He shifted, facing her again. Caleb regarded her through long lashes that framed his haunting, cobalt eyes. Amy saw the glimmer of an emotion in them which was so different from the pain, anger and longing that she was used to. It made him more... human.

"I can't let you sleep in my bed."

Caleb guffawed. He truly was beautiful in these quiet, timeless moments. "Is that what you really want?"

Amy felt around for his pillow and tossed it to the floor. He sighed and leaned closer, till they were nose to nose. The tip of hers burned, the foreign sensation was a potent combination of exciting and soothing. 

"Some other night then," Caleb said, softly.

Amy sneezed.

✧

The next morning, Amy was burning up. Her mother declared sick day as an unofficial school holiday. Amy spent much of the morning walking around like an extremely tired, poorly reanimated corpse, with her reign of terror stretching from the fridge to the couch. The only thing that spoiled a perfectly languid morning had been the local news flashing 'Sirencester's star quarterback missing' on her Dad's iPad.

Anne left her daughter with her favorite chicken noodle soup, fever medications, and a mountain of chocolates. Caleb left soon after, wishing to watch the team practice before the big game instead of babysitting 'grouchy-pants' running a temperature. They were acting civil, anxious not to step on each other's emotional landmines. Amy understood that this brief period of respite from their bickering was something they sorely needed.

"It's nightmarish when they lock you in rooms with swing doors. It was hell waiting in that girl's bathroom after you left so dramatically the day before yesterday," Caleb said and chuckled good-naturedly.

"Oh don't pretend like you didn't enjoy that," Amy grinned back. This seems so very phony. Or is it just me? She was glad he wasn't concentrating too much on the news. If anything, Amy felt positive. With the cops, the search would broaden considerably and they would find his body in no time. Caleb and Amy had already voted against going to anyone without any concrete information or plausible explanations.

Amy had no desire to be institutionalized.

Around three, someone knocked on the door. She ambled down the stairs in her night clothes and a rather fuzzy brown sweater to open the door. Amy furiously turned a rather unflattering shade of magenta when she realized who it was.

Ashton observed her politely. "Hey," he smiled, and a shy dimple flashed briefly. It had always been her weakness. "How are you?"

After her haphazard and frankly inappropriate thoughts snapped back in line, Amy managed to formulate a proper response. Which technically meant that she had opened and closed her mouth like a dumb goldfish half-a-dozen times.

"I'm fine, thank you. What are you doing here?" she breathed. Amy wanted to rearrange her stupid expression. Then, she became embarrassingly aware of the state of her clothes and tangled hair. Her breath probably smelled of chicken soup.

"I heard that well, yesterday you were driving and um... you got hammered and danced in the rain on Route 36?" Ashton said, also turning red around his ears. "And you didn't come to school today, so I thought I might check up on you."

"What?" Amy asked, mortified.

"Guess that did not happen, then," he laughed. Both of them were all too familiar with the channel that processed news in Sirencester. It was a really tired, drawn-out version of Chinese whispers played by a bunch of selectively deaf gossip mongers.

Amy bit her lip and smiled awkwardly, shaking her head. "Yeah, the brakes malfunctioned and as a result, the car spun around a couple of times," she lied smoothly. "That is all. No one was hammered and I am sure" – she looked directly into his eyes – "there was no dancing."

"Noted," Ashton said, tilting his head. "Listen I have to get going, I am missing the pep rally actually." He sounded like a kid who had successfully stolen a cookie from the jar and was hiding from his mother. "I doubt anyone has really noticed my absence."

"Are you blushing because you are secretly proud of yourself?" Amy asked, coquettishly.

"I am not! Besides being invisible does pay off sometimes."

"You are hardly invisible anymore."

The ghost of a smile played on his lips but he did not comment further. Instead, Ashton added, "Everyone on the team is kind of upset that Dawson has gone AWOL. Except for the second-string quarterback, of course."

"Oh, yeah. I heard about that in the news," she said weakly. Amy assumed her face was peaky enough for him to realize that she was unwell. 

"Hey, it's alright. Come here," Ashton said and took her in his arms. Amy welcomed his warmth, finding comfort in the steady beating of his heart. He frowned before saying, "Are you sure you're okay Amy? You're burning up."

She spoke against his chest, "It's just a fever."

They were holding on, wishing for each passing moment to last just a little longer. But if Amy had learned anything in her seventeen years and change, it was that time was a love that was preordained to be everyone's and no one's.

After what felt like centuries, Amy detangled herself from Ashton, promising that she would come to the game if the fever subsided, and wished him luck. 

He lingered for a heartbeat, his fingers brushing against her waist, and looked into her eyes. "Bye, Amy," Ashton finally said, kissing her hair and striding swiftly out of the door. 

He did not look back.

Amy closed the door, careful not to make a sound, feeling like there was something heavy weighing them down. But in typical fashion, she couldn't say anything to Ashton about it.

Her thoughts kept flitting back to their previous conversation. How different was it from the ones she thought they had been inured to? There was a time when she could feel what Ashton was thinking, just by observing the most modest of details. The ones that everyone else in the world missed about him. How weird it was that the same two people with possibly the same emotions, were finding it impossible to behave the same way as before?

Amy wanted to punch him in his stupid, handsome face and make him understand the million things she thought about saying to him.

She groaned and started washing – or rather, punishing – her soup mug. Why is it always so hard?

Thinking back to the time they had dated, Amy realized that both of them had never been adroit at saying what they truly felt inside. The first time she had met Ashton, he had been a scared, snuffling new boy in her elementary school. He had been the kind of fresh meat that was just programmed for bullying. Although Amy wasn't proud of admitting it, she had also taken a couple of swings at the pathetic crybaby back in her 'anger-issues' days. She had those quite early on in her life.

Ashton simply did not want to talk to anyone. He was so exceptionally introverted that coming to school and being within five feet of other human beings had been an accomplishment for him. But because he was presumed to be a mute dummy, no one cared enough to know that about him in the first place.

In seventh grade, however, by some miracle, he had agreed to be a part of the school's musical production. Ashton Malarkey, standing in front of roughly five hundred people with the bright lights on him? It was unheard of. Amy was playing one of the particularly violent fairies in the school's rendition of A Midsummer Night's Dream. She had seen how hard Ashton tried to be friends with everyone in the cast. But the kids had conjured up reasons to be mean to him out of their asses. That was when Amy had gone up to him. It took several weeks of small talk and a lot of fart jokes for Ashton to really unwind in her presence.

On the day of the event though, the minute Ashton had paddled onto the stage – his eyes had rolled back in his head and he had fainted spectacularly in front of the entire auditorium. He had to be rushed into the hospital.

Ashton was playing a tree.

Consequently, the seventh graders teased him even more brutally than before. In direct retaliation, the cases of terrible black eyes and broken teeth increased in the school. The Taekwondo lessons helped. Amy actually began prowling the school grounds to find children to beat up. That year she nearly got expelled.

Amy remembered thinking if only people could understand how beautiful Ashton was from within. All they had to do was see, not just look, but see him and his amber-brown eyes. The luminous eyes of a wounded wolf, running away from merciless hunters. He was so sweet and kind. After a year of knowing him, Amy had slowly fallen in love with him. Or whichever form of love a fourteen-year-old girl could experience.

But after just a year of their relationship, Ashton had to move away because of his parents' divorce and she started high school without him. That had been the lowest point in Amy's life. Letting him go had been the hardest thing she had ever done. He was the first person who had accepted her weirdness and loved her for it.

There had been a chance that he would never return.

And in open rebellion against fate itself, Amy had spent months wishing upon sun downs, fallen stars and lucky smokes; just to have Ashton back in her life.

It took Amy longer to move on after their breakup than it took for her to fall in love with Ashton. Gradually the parties lessened, Amy quit the cheerleading squad, and she was no longer considered the 'cool kid'. For someone whose idea of the ultimate nightmare had been a comfortable, predictable life, even the parties and socializing had become boring. Before she knew it, 'fun' had become 'normal' – and Amy had moved on.

In a twist of fate, when her junior year began, Ashton moved back to Sirencester. He had changed. The scrawny kid who frantically wanted to learn camouflage just so that he could avoid social interaction had long since been replaced. In his place was a tall, athletic hunk with his sandy-brown hair cut extremely short. His face had been cute before but now, it had become refined. Straight nose, strong jaw, and permanent puppy-dog amber eyes. Those 'make love to me, I am damaged' eyes. 

Damn him.

Granted, he had grown into his good looks.

Amy learned later that Ashton had taken up football as a form of therapy, trying to connect with his peers without actually having to converse with them. He was still as introverted as he had always been and Amy was grateful that the old Ashton she knew and loved was still there. The whole school had buzzed with the news of his return and no one could believe 'Ash-twat' had become hot. Rumors started floating around that Amy was going to start dating Ashton again. But for some reason, none had asked the other.

They were still the same shy, sloppy seventh graders inside. But if she wanted things to change, Amy knew she would have to take charge.

With a lazy smirk tugging at her lips, Amy set the mug aside and grabbed her phone.

✧

A/N: So, what do we think? Still loyal to team Caleb? With three thousand views and a love triangle on the horizon, I am blessed to have you guys🎐😇

And yes, I love TVD.