Unstoppable | The Vampire Diaries

28. Behind The Candles

"Ugh!" Riley groaned, waking up to the sound of a phone ringing. Thanks to Stefan, Elena and Bonnie had also joined the sleepover; all of the girls wanted to support Caroline after what she had gone through.

"Go away!" Caroline said, her voice muffled by her pillow as she kicked Elena out of the bed that they were all sharing. With more space, the three girls wiggled into their new positions while Elena answered her phone.

"Hello?" she said softly.

"Shhhh!"

"Shut up!"

"Elena!"

Elena left the room, shutting the door. Riley, now more than half awake, quietly inched out of bed so that she wouldn't wake the other two. She'd been able to avoid going home for the third night in a row thanks to the slumber party, but she didn't want to put it off again.

"Hey," she whispered to Elena out in the hallway. "I'm gonna go home."

"OK," Elena whispered back, before saying hesitantly. "Stefan said..."

"Stefan said what?" Riley asked with a raised eyebrow.

Instead of saying what she wanted to say, Elena pulled Riley into a hug. "Your parents will be OK."

Riley wanted to be angry at Stefan for telling her, but she couldn't be, because the hug meant so much to her. So she tightened her arms around Elena and mumbled "Thank you."

They smiled at each other, and Riley left feeling a lot better than she did before. No matter what happened with her parents, she had amazing friends that she loved more than anything.

She thought about this as she made her way home. It felt strange knowing that she hadn't been there in three days, and even stranger when she noticed that her mother's car wasn't in its usual spot. She wasn't supposed to be working today.

"Hello?" she called into the house.

"Riley!" her father said with relief, wrapping her in a tight hug. "Are you OK?"

She slightly pulled away from him, unsure how to answer his question. "Where's mom?"

He sighed, gesturing to various missing items around the house. "She left."

"Right," she nodded. "Of course. I didn't realize she was going so soon."

"She wanted to... move things along as quickly as possible."

Riley nodded again, looking at the missing spaces where pictures of the three of them together used to reside. Memories that her mother had taken for herself. "I don't understand," she said absentmindedly. "You guys were completely fine before this whole vampire thing started – what changed?"

"Honey," her dad said sensitively. "The 'vampire thing' wasn't what caused this. If anything, it was the last straw. We moved to this town because we thought that a fresh start would make our marriage better. But it didn't."

"I didn't even know you guys were having problems. And now you're just... giving up?" Riley asked.

Her dad shook his head. "No, we're not giving up. We spent the last year being miserable because neither of us wanted to be the one to end it. Now, we're free to finally be happy."

She sighed. She'd never for a second even considered that her parents were unhappy, and she didn't want to contribute to their unhappiness by making them feel guilty for breaking up.

"I understand."

"No, you don't," her father chuckled. "But you don't have to understand. You're 17, we don't expect you to."