The Struggle

Bonnie shut her mouth and thrust her chin out. "Right," she said grimly. "Now I’m stuck for the rest of my life doing whatever Elena wants me to do about Stefan. Wonderful."

"This is the last thing I’ll ever ask," Elena said. "And I promise that. I swear – "

"Don’t!" said Meredith, suddenly serious. "Don’t, Elena. You might be sorry later."

"Now you’re taking up prophecy, too?" Elena said. And then she asked, "So how are we going to get hold of Caroline’s house key for an hour or so?"

November9,Saturday

Dear Diary,

I’m sorry it’s been so long. Lately I’ve been too busy or too depressed – or both – to write you.

Besides, with everything that’s happened I’m almost afraid to keep a diary at all anymore. But I need someone to turn to, because right now there’s not a single human being, not a single person on earth, that I’m not keeping something from.

Bonnie and Meredith can’t know the truth about Stefan. Stefan can’t know the truth about Damon. Aunt Judith can’t know about anything. Bonnie and Meredith know about Caroline and the diary; Stefan doesn’t.Stefan knows about the vervain I use every day now, Bonnie and Meredith don’t. Even My life is full of lies right now, and I need someoneto be completely honest with. I’m going to hide this diary under the loose floorboard in the closet, so that no one will find it even if I drop dead and they clean out my room. Maybe one of Margaret’s grandchildren will be playing in there someday, and will pry up the board and pull it out, but until then, nobody. This diary is my last secret.

I don’t know why I’m thinking about death and dying. That’s Bonnie’s craze; she’s the one who thinks it would be so romantic. I know what it’s really like; there was nothing romantic about it when Mom and Dad died. Just the worst feelings in the world. I want to live for a good long time, marry Stefan, and be happy. And there’s no reason why I can’t, once all these problems are behind us.

Except that there are times when I get scared and I don’t believe that. And there are little things that shouldn’t matter, but they bother me. Like why Stefan still wears Catherine’s ring around his neck, even though I know he loves me. Like why he’s never said he loves me, even though I know it’s true.

It doesn’t matter. Everything will work out. It has to work out. And then we’ll be together and be happy. There’s no reason why we can’t. There’s no reason why we can’t. There’s no reason.

Elena stopped writing, trying to keep the letters on the page in focus. But they only blurred further, and she shut the book before a betraying teardrop could fall on the ink. Then she went over to the closet, pried up the loose board with a nail file, and put the diary there.

She had the nail file in her pocket a week later as the three of them, she and Bonnie and Meredith, stood outside Caroline’s back door.

"Hurry up," hissed Bonnie in agony, looking around the yard as if she expected something to jump out at them. "Come on, Meredith!"

"There," said Meredith, as the key finally went the right way into the dead bolt lock and the doorknob yielded to her turning fingers. "We’re in."

"Are you surethey’re not in? Elena, what if they come back early? Why couldn’t we do this in the daytime, at least?"

"Bonnie, will you getinside ? We’ve been through all this. The maid’s always here in the daytime. And they won’t be back early tonight unless somebody gets sick at Chez Louis. Now, come on!" said Elena.

"Nobody would dare to get sick at Mr. Forbes’s birthday dinner," Meredith said comfortingly to Bonnie as the smaller girl stepped in. "We’re safe."

"If they’ve got enough money to go to expensive restaurants, you’d think they could afford to leave a few lights on," said Bonnie, refusing to be comforted.

Privately, Elena agreed with this. It was strange and disconcerting to be wandering through someone else’s house in the dark, and her heart pounded chokingly as they went up the stairs. Her palm, clutching "It’s got to be in her bedroom," she said.

Caroline’s window faced the street, which meant they had to be even more careful not to show a light there. Elena swung the tiny beam of the flashlight around with a feeling of dismay. It was one thing to plan to search someone’s room, to picture efficiently and methodically going through drawers. It was another thing actually to be standing here, surrounded by what seemed like thousands of places to hide something, and feeling afraid to touch anything in case Caroline noticed it had been disturbed.

The other two girls were also standing still.

"Maybe we should just go home," Bonnie said quietly. And Meredith did not contradict her.

"We have to try. At least try," said Elena, hearing how tinny and hollow her voice sounded. She eased open a drawer on the highboy and shone the light onto dainty piles of lacy underwear. A moment’s poking through them assured her there was nothing like a book there. She straightened the piles and shut the drawer again. Then she let out her breath.

"It’s not that hard," she said. "What we need to do is divide up the room and then searcheverything in our section, every drawer, every piece of furniture, every object big enough to hide a diary in."

She assigned herself the closet, and the first thing she did was prod at the floorboards with her nail file. But Caroline’s boards all seemed to be secure and the walls of the closet sounded solid. Rummaging through Caroline’s clothes she found several things she’d lent the other girl last year. She was tempted to take them back, but of course she couldn’t. A search of Caroline’s shoes and purses revealed nothing, even when she dragged a chair over so that she could investigate the top shelf of the closet thoroughly.