"ALL RIGHT, SHOW US," Bonnie told Caroline. She and Charlie were helping the blonde girl figure out what the Miss Mystic Falls float was going to be for Founder's day.

"Let's reference last year's Miss Mystic float." The Forbes girl typed something into the search bar of her laptop before turning it around so that her friends could see it. "This is what they did last year, and it's exactly what we don't want to do."

Bonnie grimaced as the Lockwood girl muttered, "Ew." She wasn't sure what exactly was so ugly about the float, but something was off, making it and the people on it look terrible.

"Okay, so, what are doing?" the Bennett girl questioned curiously.

Caroline plastered a proud smile on her face as she announced the theme for this year's float that she was in charge of making. Charlie knew that if anything went wrong with this, the blonde girl might actually have a heart attack. "Southern classic elegance."

"'Gone With the Wind?'" Bonnie asked her because both her and the brunette girl knew that Caroline was a little obsessed with it sometimes.

The Forbes nodded excitedly but furrowed her eyebrows in question. "How did you know?"

"You channel Scarlett daily," the Lockwood informed her, knowing that that would make her happy.

"So true," Care breathed out before scanning the cafeteria like she was looking for someone or something. "Ugh. Where's Elena. She's supposed to be helping me with this."

Bonnie shrugged, and Charlie could tell that she wanted to get off the subject of the Gilbert girl as soon as she could. She assumed it had something to do with why she didn't call her during the time she took off school. "I don't know."

"Okay, what's the deal?" the blonde girl quizzed, also sensing that something was wrong between the two best friends.

The Bennett girl raised her eyebrows like she had no clue what her friend was talking about when they all knew that she knew exactly what she was referring to. "What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb. You and Elena are fighting. Spill," the Forbes girl ordered, gesturing for Bonnie to start talking.

"It's nothing," she answered, shaking her head, and the brunette girl next to her could tell almost immediately that it had something to do with the supernatural. That was why she couldn't tell the blonde.

"It's not nothing," Caroline informed her. She groaned, "You know this whole float is supposed to be about friends creating something together and everyone is fighting. Matt and Tyler hate each other, you and Elena are on the outs, and I just...I don't like it! And I can't fix it if I don't know what's wrong."

Bonnie just shot her a small, comforting smile before insisting, "I can't talk about it, Caroline. I'm sorry." 

"Well, can you guys at least hang out today after school? I feel like I haven't seen you, Char, since you moved out," the Forbes girl asked them. It was true. Ever since Charlie moved out of the Forbes house, she felt like she had lost a lot of Caroline time.

"I can't. I'm sorry," she replied with an apologetic look, and, careful not to talk about Elena, she explained, "I have to go over to Jeremy's. Jenna's helping with this paper I have to write for business."

Caroline sighed, "Why do you guys have, like, lives?"

☾❄☽

"WHY DID YOU PICK ME FOR THIS AGAIN?" Jenna asked the Lockwood girl as they sat next to each other at the dining room table in the Gilbert residence after school that afternoon.

Charlie just shrugged, not totally sure why she picked the woman. "I mean, you're definitely one of the more fun adults to talk to, and I figured you probably took this class not too long ago."

"Oh, Charlie," the Sommers woman breathed out with a grateful smile. "You flatter me so."

"Hey, Anna, uh, where are you? What's up? Uh...Give me a call when you get this," Jeremy said into the phone as he walked past them and into the kitchen. He hung up, and Jenna and Charlie gave each other a look. 

His aunt smirked at him, and when she spoke, he turned around to face them. He seemed surprised to see the other girl there, and she assumed that he must've not seen her when he walked in. "How is Anna? I like that girl. She has fire."

"He's whipped," the brunette girl sang with a smug smile as she wrote something down in her notebook.

"I am not whipped," he insisted with a sigh, glaring at her and her giddy smile before looking back up at his aunt. " And I don't know. She won't return any of my calls."

John Gilbert walked into the kitchen, and Charlie furrowed her eyebrows because she hadn't known that he was saying with them until now. He asked, "Girl trouble?"

"No, no trouble. Anna just owes me a call. That's it," Jeremy assured him.

"Is it it girl that I saw you with at the Founder's pageant?" the man questioning after staring at the ground like he was contemplating something for a moment. When Jeremy nodded to confirm reluctantly, he continued, "You two are getting hot and heavy. When was the last time you saw her?"

The younger Gilbert male glanced at Jenna in confusion before quizzing, "Uh, why?"

"I was just making conversation. No one else in this house likes me. At least I can talk to you especially if you need someone to talk to about girls," his uncle informed him, taking another step into the kitchen.

"Oh, please. We're eating," the woman told them, gesturing to the snacks that were laid out on the table. She grabbed some of them and pulled Charlie into the living room with her, not wanting to be apart of the conversation. "Let's go, Char."

They began talking about the paper again, but the Lockwood was using her werewolf hearing to listen in on the conversation in the other room. It was really hard to talk and do that at the same time. Once she heard John go into the bathroom, she stood up. "Hey, I'm gonna go to the bathroom."

"Okay," Jenna responded, her gaze shifting to the TV that was on.

She made her way to the kitchen where the Gilbert boy was sitting at the table that she just was a moment ago. She tried to make it seem like she wasn't prying when she questioned curiously, "Hey, what was that all about?" 

"Oh, he just wanted to know how well I knew Anna," he informed her with a shrug. "It was really weird."

"That is weird. Um, can I ask you a question?" she quizzed, and then she knew there was no turning back even though she wasn't sure what was going to happen when she asked it.

He nodded. "Shoot."

"Has Anna, um..." she trailed off, staring at the ground nervously before composing herself and forcing herself to look at him. "Has Anna been acting weird at all lately."

"I don't know. She hasn't answered any of my calls, remember?" he reminded her.

She sighed in relief, glad that he didn't get mad at her or anything for asking about his personal business. "Oh, yeah. Of course."

"Why do you ask?" he questioned with raised eyebrows.

"Oh, no reason," she replied, waving him off and trying to play it cool. She was failing miserably though. Luckily, he didn't seem too suspicious. "Just curious." She was so happy when Jenna called to her from the living room.

"Charlie, where'd you go?"

☾❄☽

"YOU READY TO GET ON A GIANT FLOAT in front of everyone?" Charlie asked her girlfriend when they met up outside Mystic Falls high where a bunch of teenagers and teachers were building things for the Founder's Day parade.

"Of course not," JJ responded, shaking her head before looking back up at the brunette. "Are you?"

The Lockwood girl raised her eyebrows in confusion as she leaned in a little bit, hoping that she had just heard the girl wrong or that she was messing with her. "Say what now?"

"You have to go up there with me, you know? You're my escort. You're the mayor's daughter and a native of this town. I thought you would know that," the blonde told her.

Charlie groaned, putting a hand to her head in frustration. "Oh, my God. I forgot about that."

"Hey," Jeremy called as he jogged lightly up to the couple. He glanced between them, and his face held both a questioning and a concerned look. "Have either of you seen Anna?"

"No. Is everything okay?" the brunette girl asked him as JJ just shook her head.

He ran a hand through his hair frustratedly. "It's nothing. She still hasn't returned any of my phone calls, and I'm starting to get worried. What if she need help or something?"

"You want some help looking for her?" the Martin girl offered, and Charlie was surprised that she offered. She usually didn't get along very well with Jeremy. Well, they got along, but she didn't usually voluntarily offer to help him.

"It's okay," he answered, shaking his head. "I'm just gonna call her again."

As he walked away, JJ glanced at her girlfriend with a confused expression. The brunette girl explained bitterly, "He's basically, like, in love with this Anna chick, and she's ghosting him."

"Didn't you tell me she was a vampire?" the blonde asked, leaning in and whispering the last part so that no one heard her.

Charlie nodded before breathing out, "Yep." Their conversation was interrupted by a crash and a yell. They whipped their heads around to see Matt under one of the trailers, and the Lockwood girl gathered that it must have fell on him.

"Get this trailer! Come on guys help me!" Tyler ordered, gesturing for people to come help him. Charlie quickly rushed to his aid, and she arrived the same time as Stefan. With their strengths combined, they were able to lift the trailer off the boy for long enough for him to roll out for under it.

Stefan looked to the Forbes girl who was standing beside them in shock. "Caroline, call an ambulance!"

As the blonde girl followed the orders, Charlie looked up when she hear Elena yelling Jeremy's name over and over again. She stood up after making sure that Matt was going to be okay and walked over to the Gilbert girl.

"Elena, what happened?" she quizzed with a worried voice. She glanced around and realized that the younger Gilbert sibling was nowhere to be found. "Where's Jeremy?"

"She took him!" the older brunette informed her as she spun around in panic.

Charlie furrowed her eyebrows as she grabbed the girl by the shoulders and forced her to look her in the eye and calm down a little bit so that she would make sense. "Who took him?"

"Isobel," Elena informed her as if that meant anything to the Lockwood girl who had no clue who the woman was.

"Who the hell is Isobel?"

The Gilbert girl sighed as she ran a hand through her hair in concern, breaking away from the grip of the werewolf girl. "She's, uh...She's my birth mother."

"Your what?" Charlie exclaimed, her eyes widening.

"I'll explain later," Elena promised her as she backed away slowly and speeding up as she got farther away from the Lockwood girl. "I just — I need to find Stefan."

She ran and got lost in the crown as the other and younger brunette tried to follow her. "Elena? Elena!"

☾❄☽

WHEN CHARLIE FINALLY GOT HOME AFTER the long day of prepping she had had, she was ready to go to bed and sleep. The universe had other plans because there was a knock on the door right as she was getting ready to go upstairs.

"This better be good," she muttered as she walked over to answer it. She swung it open and was both surprised and relieved when she saw who was standing there. "Jeremy? You're okay."

"Did you know?" he asked her loudly like he was trying to let the entire house know that he was there and what he wanted, and he ignored her comment upon seeing him still intact. 

She pushed him further onto the front porch as she stepped out and closed the door, hoping that her family didn't hear that. She furrowed her eyebrows. "What?"

"Did you know?" he repeated, and he sounded angrier this time, and she was still really confused.

"What the hell are you talking about, dude?" She threw her hands up in the air. "I know a lot of things. You're gonna have to be a bit more specific with your questions."

He groaned at her comments but decided that he would listen to them since he wanted answers. "Fine. Did you know that there are vampires running around town?"

"How do you know that?" Charlie exclaimed, her jaw dropping in shock.

His did the same but for a different yet still similar reason when he heard and processed what he had said. "So, you did know! You lied to me!"

"Jer—"

"Don't 'Jer' me," he ordered with a betrayed expression. "You knew everything for all this time, and you didn't tell me?"

"I was trying to keep you safe! I was trying to protect you," she insisted, and she knew that it was a cliche. She just didn't know what else to say because that was the truth. Knowing about the supernatural puts you in danger. It was just a fact.

He rolled his eyes. "Don't give me that 'protect me' crap. I just got kidnapped by a vampire, and I might've been killed if Anna hadn't told me about it already."

"So, you knew too?" she gasped, staring at him in disbelief. How was he getting mad at her for not telling him that vampires existed if he already freaking knew that vampires existed?

His mouth shut when he realized what he had just said. "Um, I didn't say that."

"Yeah, you did," she responded, and then she pulled a reverse and repeated his words back to him with a smug expression. "You knew everything all this time, and you didn't tell me?"

"That's not the point," he muttered, looking down at his feet.

She gaped at him. "It so is! Why are you mad at me when you literally did the exact same thing." He did not know what to say to that.

"Ugh," he just groaned before spinning on his heel and walking right back down the driveway, and Charlie smirked, knowing that he knew that she was right.

She yelled after him, "You can't just walk out in the middle of an argument!" What he said next made her lean against the door and chuckle a little bit.

"I just did!"