White Lies (The Vampire Diaries)

| 10 | Midnight Visit

The light of the shared bathroom between the siblings' bedrooms spilled out through the small crack as the door was fully pushed open. A silhouette formed around Jeremy's body from the bright light behind him, shielding his red and puffy eyes in the shadows. The silents cries subsided after an hour of returning home with Jenna and Elena.

He reached back to shut off the bathroom light until a soft knock on the window ceased his actions. His eyebrows automatically furrowed at the odd sound with his lips tipped downward. The window facing the side of the house was encompassed in darkness from the late hour of the night.

The knock repeated.

"What the—" he mumbled to himself, confused.

He curiously inched closer to the window on the right side of his bed. His footsteps were slow and hesitant. The curtains fully pushed to the side as he peered into the darkness, ignoring his own reflection in the glass. He squinted with suspicion when the moonlight on the second floor roof moved.

Presley cautiously shifted into his view in front of the window, perfectly balanced on the balls of her boots on the roof. She moved until the moonlight caught the side of her face. Jeremy flinched back in utter surprise. Her fingers wiggled in the air at him through the glass in a friendly greeting.

Bewilderment grew on Jeremy's face as he gawked at her figure, mystified as to how she scaled the side of his house to reach his window on the second floor. Jeremy moved a few things on his bedside table to his bed and opened the window.

"How the hell did you get up here?" He whispered, glancing at the edge of the roof and eyeing the high drop to the ground.

"I'm good at climbing," she easily lied with a grin.

The grin masked the way she bit down on the inside of her cheek. She wanted nothing more than to tell him how she used her vampire abilities to gracefully jump from the grass down below to the shingles of the room with great ease.

Out of all of her friends in Mystic Falls, Presley wished Jeremy was the one person allowed to know the truth about her true identity. She wanted to tell him all about her supernatural abilities and her life growing up in the 1800's, but she found herself forced to keep quiet about all of it— everything that made Presley who she was.

That was one of the hardest things Presley encountered while protecting Elena and her friends. She hated having to keep her real life a secret, forced to lie to them every single second of every day.

She grew tired of it.

Jeremy took a step back when Presley adjusted her crouched position on the roof before she inserted her left leg through the opened window frame. Her foot accidentally kicked the small lamp on the bedside table and clattered to the carpet with a metal clang.

They both froze in their places, glimpsing between the bedroom door to the opened bathroom door, afraid Jenna or Elena woke up from the noise. They held back their soft, amused chuckles.

Presley listened intently to both rooms until she realized neither of them woke up. She continued to sneak into his bedroom and touched down on the carpeted floor with the toe of her boot. Her upper torso bent over as she slipped into the bedroom with a gracefulness that surprised Jeremy after she knocked the light over.

"What are you doing here?" Jeremy whispered in a questioning tone, glancing toward the brightly lit bathroom, partially worried his sister would walk through on her side and catch Presley sneak into his bedroom.

The late hour of the night confirmed Elena was fast asleep in her own bed, yet he still feared she would randomly wake up. She took a shower after they returned home with Jenna, shortly falling asleep not long after with her cell phone in hand, in case Matt called with an important update about Vicki during the night.