Elena shrugged and laughed a little, feeling awkward. “Paris was nice, but there’s no place like home.”
For a moment, she tried to focus in on Caroline, to read her aura, but it was hopeless. Elena wasn’t a Guardian here, and so she didn’t have those powers anymore. It was a strange, helpless feeling to lose them.
Then Bonnie flung her arms around Elena, her red curls tickling the taller girl’s chin, and Elena relaxed.
“Do you like my hair? I think it makes me look taller.” Bonnie fluffed up her bangs and smiled.
“Gorgeous,” Elena said, laughing. “But maybe not tall.”
Once Bonnie let go, Meredith moved forward for a warm hug. Raising one elegant eyebrow, she considered Elena. “Well, your hair is two shades lighter from the sun … but where’s your tan? I thought you were living it up on the French Riviera.”
Wait. Elena remembered this. She lifted her own pale hands and said, “You know I never tan.”
“Just a minute, that reminds me!” Bonnie grabbed one of Elena’s hands. “Guess what I learned from my cousin this summer? Palm reading!”
There were a few groans, and someone laughed. Elena’s breath rushed out of her. Of course; she had almost forgotten. This was the first time Bonnie had shown her Power. She’d seen the future in Elena’s palm. Slowly, Elena flattened out her hand, opening it to Bonnie’s gaze.
“Laugh while you can,” Bonnie said serenely, peering into Elena’s palm. “My cousin told me I’m psychic.”
There was something Elena had said then, the first time this happened, but she couldn’t remember exactly what. It didn’t matter anyway. What had mattered here was what Bonnie had seen in her hand: Stefan.
“Okay,” Bonnie said, frowning as she traced the lines on Elena’s palm with one finger. “Now, this is your life line—or is it your heart line?” In the crowd around them, someone snickered. “Quiet. I’m reaching into the void. I see … I see …” Bonnie frowned. “I don’t get this. It says you have two loves, Elena.”
Elena’s chest tightened. This wasn’t right.
Bonnie touched one end of the line running across the center of Elena’s palm. The line forked there, splitting into two lines wrapping around the side of Elena’s hand. “See? Your heart line divides into two.”
“Greedy,” Caroline said, not quite jokingly.
Elena blinked, bewildered. Bonnie should have started talking about Stefan. She was supposed to say he was dark and handsome, and he had been tall once. But instead Bonnie must be seeing something of what had happened in the time after this, the truths of Elena herself, the one who didn’t belong here.
“I can see the two loves,” Bonnie went on. “But there’s something else here. …” Her eyes widened, and, with a quick, sudden movement, she dropped Elena’s hand as if it had burned her.
“What’s wrong?” Elena asked, suddenly frightened. She reached out to her, but Bonnie backed away, tucking her own hands behind her back.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Palm reading’s silly anyway.”
Elena was having trouble catching her breath. Bonnie’s Power was incredibly strong, although in this time she didn’t know how to use it. If there was something in Elena’s future that frightened Bonnie this badly, then Elena should be frightened, too. “Bonnie?” Elena asked anxiously, reaching toward her again. “Tell me.”
There was something panicked in the smaller girl’s face, and she shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It’s a dumb game.”
Unsure of what to do, Elena wavered. She couldn’t make Bonnie tell her anything. But if what Bonnie saw in her palm had changed, maybe it was a clue to how her plan was going to work, how things would turn out differently. It might be important.
But maybe it was just showing all the awful things that had already happened to Elena after this moment—the future that hadn’t yet appeared for Elena of the past. The future she was going to change.
Elena swallowed hard. That was it, it must be, she reassured herself. Bonnie was seeing things she didn’t understand, frightening things. But it wasn’t Elena’s future, not now.
“We should head into class,” Meredith said, sounding slightly irritated as she glanced at her watch.
They were turning toward the school building when the roar of a finely tuned motor stopped them in their tracks. The group of girls swung around to look.
“Well, now,” Caroline said, her green eyes speculative. “Quite a car.”
“Quite a Porsche,” Meredith corrected dryly.
Elena didn’t look; she kept her gaze firmly fixed on the brick façade of the school. But she could hear it, the purring of the sleek black Porsche’s engine as its driver searched for a spot, and her heart pounded wildly in her chest.
A new student had arrived, one she’d been waiting for despite herself.
Stefan.
6
Elena’s heart clenched. She had to look. She couldn’t help herself.
Talking to Stefan, touching Stefan, wasn’t an option. But she was going to take this chance to at least see him, a chance she had thought would never come again.
The purr of the engine died, and she heard the car door open before she glanced up.
“Oh my God,” Caroline whispered.
“You can say that again,” breathed Bonnie.
Oh, Stefan.
He was alive. He was here. He looked just as he had that last night they’d been together. Elena wanted to run to him and wrap herself around his lean body, run her fingers through his wavy dark hair, kiss the sad curve of his mouth. Sunglasses shielded his face like a mask, but Elena knew Stefan well enough to see through the protection they provided. She could sense the misery that had driven him to enroll in school, had made him try to act like a teenage boy so that he could have some brief human contact.