Changes Among the Past

22 - Recognizable Faces

Hope found herself back at the Mystic Grill the next morning. She took a seat inside and pulled out her phone to scroll through contacts. As suspected, Jed was on the list of more recent calls.

"Well, if I turned you, you probably know something about this Leah." She mumbled to herself as she clicked his contact, ready to call the number. But Hope was interrupted when the waiter came to her table.

"If you order something, are you actually gonna have it this time?" The man smiled with a slight chuckle.

"I wasn't feeling quiet like my best self at the time," Hope smiled. "Just the peanut butter blast, whip cream on the bottom." She asked for. The waiter raised his eyebrows at her, so Hope added, "I'll make sure to drink it this time."

The man walked away, and Hope looked back at her phone. She clicked the button to ring Jed then brought her phone to her ears.

•*•*•*•*•

Lizzie walked around Mystic Falls. She'd spent the last few weeks with so many worries. Maybe it is finally time to catch a break. To amuse herself, the blonde decided to check off everything that is different about Mystic Falls. She compared to both the memories she had of her last time there and the memories she had from the other timeline.

The biggest differences were the contribution that the Salvatore School had put into the town. The publicity of the school grew significantly, and the school serves in the Mystic Falls' events. In fact, most of the town's events are funded by the school. The town even began a remodeling of the public high school thanks to those fundings. The design plans were very—inspired.

Lizzie began walking away from the high school, but she came to a halt. She'd already seen everything else in the town, at least the interesting bits, in the time she's already been in it.

The blonde stood alone in an alleyway. She couldn't go to Hope. The tribrid literally vanished without so much as a goodbye. Within mere moments of a sigh, Lizzie found herself pinned to a wall.

The man had a smirk pasted onto his face. He had dirty blonde hair, and as annoying as it was, his face was very recognizable. "Hello, Elizabeth." His menacing smirk formed into a happy, kind one.

"You—," Lizzie closed her eyes and let a breath of air out of her mouth. "Seems you don't know what 'no' means."

"You remember me?" The vampire said with confusion and released his grip from the blonde. "I thought you weren't going to—."

"Don't get so ahead of yourself, it's not gonna last." Lizzie snarked, causing the vampire to seem hurt. The siphoner stepped away from the wall and crossed her arms. She turned her head to the side to make eye contact with the vampire near impossible.

"What do you mean?" He questioned quietly and with hesitation. He dropped his head down slightly as the thought of being erased from the beautiful blonde's mind hurt.

"Well. Put it this way. I know that this is all—wrong. It's not correct. But I don't know how it's supposed to be. I assume once all my memories are—replaced?" She said with an awkward face since there wasn't really a good word to describe it. "Then I would assume everything to be normal. Whatever normal is."

"Oh..." the vampire muttered, loud enough for Lizzie to still hear.

"What does it matter to you? You can just reintroduce yourself. Bit of advice, do it the right way next time." Lizzie bobbed her head and raised her eyebrows for a short moment.