Friday was awful from the very beginning. You hadn’t slept all night, tossing from side to side with a heavy head and burning eyes until sometime near dawn you simply stopped trying to fall asleep. College was even worse, the noise of people echoed inside your skull like a hammer, the light irritated your eyes, and the exhaustion made you feel more like a ghost than a person. For months now you had practically been living at the boarding house - writing papers there, falling asleep on the couch, sometimes even at the table in the living room, and nobody ever seemed to mind. Insomnia had become something everyone associated with you. Especially Damon, who had strangely gotten used to waking up at least twice a week to find you curled beneath his blanket, sleeping peacefully for the first time in days.

That day, though, was worse than usual. First you called Lexi - nothing. Then Stefan, but he was busy and hung up after a short moment. Damon was the only one who answered immediately, and less than twenty minutes later you sat pale and exhausted on a bench against the wall of the college building, trying to ignore the nausea and throbbing behind your eyes.

Then he pulled up.

The light blue convertible stopped by the curb, immediately catching the attention of the girls from your year, who started whispering to each other the second Damon stepped out and leaned casually against the car door, spinning his keys around his fingers with that irritatingly confident calmness of his. He didn’t even try to ignore the attention. If anything, he looked like someone who knew exactly the effect he had on people.

He looked straight at you and raised an eyebrow slightly. “Should I start charging you for rescuing you from this campus, or are you finally gonna move and get in the car?”

he said loud enough for you to hear him over the noise around you, the corner of his mouth twitching in amusement when a few girls nearby nearly choked from interest.