Fic: When will I feel soft (TVD; Jenna/Logan, Jenna/John)
Title: When will I feel soft
Author: empressearwig
Pairing/Fandom: Jenna/Logan, Jenna/John; The Vampire Diaries
Spoilers: All aired episodes
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~ 4500
Disclaimer: I own nothing, this is all for fun. This hasn't happened. Yet. Etc.
Summary: The life and times of Jenna Sommers, ages seven to twenty-nine.
Author's Notes: Many thanks to the people who looked at various drafts of this, including katayla, torigates, and normative_jean. Any inconsistencies with the show's canon are entirely my own mistake.
Her dress itched.
Jenna sat in the front row of the church next to her mother and tried not to squirm, because she knew squirming would earn her a sharp pinch to her arm and a disapproving look. Jenna was used to disapproving looks, but it would be worse than usual, because she'd been told repeatedly that it was Miranda's day and Jenna was supposed to be seen and not heard and Jenna was trying, really she was. She loved her big sister and she didn't want to do anything to ruin Miranda's wedding for her.
But her dress itched and she wanted to go outside and play, not be sitting in church and waiting. Jenna hated waiting more than anything else in the whole world.
Finally, finally, music started to play and her sister's friends started to walk down the aisle, one by one. Everyone in the church stood up and Miranda came down the aisle, too, looking so beautiful in her white dress and on their father's arm. When she walked past their pew, she gave Jenna the smile that was just Jenna's and then she looked at Grayson and her entire face lit up. Jenna had never seen her sister so happy.
"Who gives this woman to this man?" Pastor Thomas said.
"I do," their father answered, and he kissed Miranda's cheek and squeezed her hand, and crossed the front of the church to sit down next to Jenna.
"Now, don't you grow up too fast on me," he whispered in her ear, and Jenna nodded her head solemnly. She wouldn't.
***
When Miranda and Grayson showed up at the house with a baby in tow and announced that they'd adopted a little girl and that her name was Elena, it was a surprise. Especially for their parents.
Practically the minute after they walked into the house, Miranda and Grayson were ushered into their dad's study, the door closed firmly behind them. The closed door didn't do anything to block out the volume of their mother's voice.
Jenna was left alone with the baby, who was sleeping peacefully in her carrier, totally oblivious to the commotion that her existence had caused. Jenna watched her sleep for a minute and then got bored and turned the television back on. Baby or not, she wasn't going to miss Blossom. She'd be totally screwed the next day at school if she did.
Halfway through the episode, Miranda appeared back in the living room and sat down next to her on the couch. "So what do you think?" she asked, nodding her head towards the baby sleeping on the coffee table.
Jenna shrugged, trying for nonchalant. Seeming too interested in anything wasn't cool. "She's pretty cute, I guess."
The corners of Miranda's mouth twitched like she wanted to smile or laugh, but wasn't going to. Jenna hated when she did that. Just because Miranda was older, didn't mean she had to patronize her. "Well, I'm glad you think so," her sister said. "Because Grayson and I have something we wanted to ask you."
Now that got Jenna's attention. People other than teachers rarely wanted to ask her anything. They wanted to order her, and that was entirely different. "Really?" she asked. "What?"
"How would you like to be Elena's godmother?"
Jenna felt her eyes go wide and she looked at Miranda in disbelief. "What?"
Now Miranda did laugh, and she wrapped her arm around Jenna's shoulders. "You heard me. Do you want to? You are her aunt, after all. Who would be better?"
"Wow," Jenna said. "Wow."
"Can I take that as a yes?" Miranda asked.
"Yes!" The word came out more interested than she meant it to. "I mean, yes. I guess that would be kind of cool."
The baby started to fuss, just a little, and Miranda reached over to unstrap her from her seat. Jenna expected her sister to comfort the baby herself, but instead found Elena in her arms, Miranda rearranging them so that the baby's head was being properly supported. "You two should get to know each other," Miranda said, and Jenna looked down at the baby and smiled, a little foolishly.
"Hi, Elena," she said. "I'm your Aunt Jenna."
***
Two years later, when Jeremy was born, Jenna was much less interested. She was fourteen then, starting high school in the fall and far more interested in other types of boys.
Sure, she still showed up at Miranda and Grayson's every Sunday afternoon, like clockwork, to spend time with Elena, but most of the time her mind was a million miles away, or depending on if Grayson's brother John was visiting from college, right down the hall.
Jenna had the worst crush on him, and practically every time he actually noticed she existed, it was to pat her on the head and call her a nice kid. She hated those moments.
But she tried not to let it bother her, because there were other boys out there and her best friend, Erica, insisted that Logan Fell liked her. Jenna wasn't opposed to this, of course. Logan was cute, nice most of the time, even, and a member of one of the founding families, which in Mystic Falls was always a big deal. Best of all, Logan was two years older, sixteen, and newly gifted with a driver's license and a car of his own.
If Logan ever bothered to work up the courage to actually ask her out, Jenna would say yes in a heartbeat.
And while she waited for Logan and pined for John, there was always Mason to flirt shamelessly with, all the while knowing that it would never lead anywhere else. It was an arrangement that worked well for them, one that they'd agreed to in the sandbox when Jenna was four and Mason was five, when they'd promised that they'd never like each other like that. And to the best of Jenna's knowledge, they never had.
One afternoon in October, at the party that Miranda threw for Grayson's birthday, Jenna found herself standing in a corner with Mason. She watched John. Logan watched her. Mason watched it all and laughed.
Jenna turned to him with a frown on her face. "What?"
Mason shook his head. "You know what."
She rolled her eyes. "Whatever," she said, waving a dismissive hand through the air. "If Logan wants to ask me out, he knows where to find me. It's not my fault that he won't do it."
Mason raised an eyebrow and looked amused. "Sure. And the way you're looking at John Gilbert isn't supposed to make him think twice about that at all, right?"
"And just how am I looking at John?" she asked, knowing the answer, but wanting to hear him say it anyway.
"Like you're a fat kid and he's cake," Mason said promptly.
Jenna hit him in the arm. He wasn't supposed to say it like that.
"Hey, you asked," Mason pointed out, not even bothering to do her the courtesy of pretending that it hurt. "Don't blame the messenger."
"Fine," she said. He was right about that, even if she didn't want him to be. And okay, if it was that bad, she was on the verge of looking pathetic, that was if she hadn't already crossed over into it without realizing. Jenna Sommers didn't do pathetic. She squared her shoulders, decision made. "I'm going to go talk to Logan," she said, and walked away, not bothering to wait for Mason's response. She was sure there was a smug smile on his face and that was not something she wanted to deal with at the moment.
Jenna wove her way through the people crowded into Grayson and Miranda's living room, until she found herself at Logan's side. "Hi," she said, and looked up at him expectantly.
"Jenna, hey," Logan said, the traces of surprise she'd seen as he saw her heading towards him not totally gone from his face. "What's up?"
"Do you want to ask me out?" she asked, not willing to beat around the bush any longer.
Logan blinked, and then nodded slowly. "Yes," he said. "I do."
She raised an impatient eyebrow at him. "Well, then?"
"Right," he said, nodding his head again. "You want to go out some time?"
"Yes," she said, grinning just a little, surprised to find that she actually meant it. "I'd like that."
He smiled at her and she smiled at him and for the rest of the afternoon, she didn't think about John Gilbert once.
***
Dating a member of one of the founding families was a little like dating Mystic's equivalent of a rock star, Jenna discovered. She got way more dirty looks from girls, especially older ones who were pissed that a freshman had the audacity to get together with a junior, especially a junior like Logan. She was suddenly included in invitations to parties that she'd never been invited to before, parties where everyone drank and smoked weed and danced to loud music and it was amazing.
Maybe it was mercenary of her, but Jenna thought that if she'd known this came along with dating Logan she'd have gotten him to ask her out a lot sooner.
The first time he took her to a party and someone handed her a beer, Jenna heard her mother's voice in her head, saying what she'd said to Jenna at least once a day for her entire life. What would Miranda do, the voice said, and Jenna took the cup and drank anyway.
This time, she was going to do what Jenna wanted to do. Miranda had made her choices. It was time Jenna made hers.
***
Her father died when she was seventeen, of a sudden and massive heart attack. It was two weeks before Junior Prom and she was sitting in the cafeteria at lunch, deliberately flirting with Andrew Davis where Logan's best friend could see and report back, because they'd broken up the week before over Logan hitting on Lindsay Parker. Her name came over the PA system, "Jenna Sommers to the main office," it intoned, in scratchy, barely understandable tones. "Immediately." She didn't even hear it at first, had to have Erica elbow her in the side and hiss her name in her ear.
Jenna frowned at her, irritated at the interruption. "What?"
"Didn't you hear the announcement?" Erica asked. "You were just called to the office."
Jenna's heart sped up and she felt panic settle over her. But she wasn't going to show that, not where people could see. "Oh," she said, standing up and brushing her hair back off her shoulders. "I'm sure it's no big deal." She smiled one last smile at Andrew. "I'll see you later, right?"
"Sure," he said, looking worried for her. "Jenna --"
But she didn't stick around to hear whatever he was going to say next, starting for the doors to the cafeteria, waiting until she was just past them to break out into a dead run. When she got to the office, her mother was standing there in the little reception area with it's uncomfortable chairs, a crowd of people standing around her. No one even noticed her walking in the door.
"Mom?" she asked, her voice full of dread. Somehow, without hearing a word, Jenna knew.
The people backed away and her mother looked at her and said, "It's your father."
Jenna didn't remember much after that.
***
The funeral was three days later, in the same church where she'd watched Miranda get married when she was seven years old and the same church they went to every Christmas and Easter. She wore a black dress she borrowed from Miranda, held Elena and Jeremy's hands as they walked down the aisle to the same pew where she'd sat at the wedding and hated how much her dress itched. This dress itched, too.
She held Jeremy on her lap and Elena sat next to her on the hard wooden pew, while Miranda comforted their mother. She watched her sister comfort their mother and tried not to be angry that no one had bothered to try to comfort her.
Grayson slipped into the pew next to her and made a motion to take Jeremy from her, but she just shook her head.
"No," she said, holding onto him tighter. She had this at least. She wasn't giving it up.
He laid a hand on her shoulder in silent sympathy and Jenna might have thanked him for it, but then Pastor Thomas started to speak and Jenna felt tears start to burn behind her eyes.
She didn't let them fall. She didn't want anyone to see her cry.
***
After, it seemed like the entire town was gathered at Grayson and Miranda's. Jenna didn't want to go, she just wanted to go home and be alone and to cry, but her mother insisted and Miranda gave her the please, not now look and Jenna gave in, just like she always did when her sister gave her that look. She would fight her mother when she looked at Jenna like that. But not Miranda. Never Miranda.
So she stood near the door and accepted condolences from everyone who passed through it for as long as she could stand it, until she finally had to slip away, stealing a beer from the kitchen and out the back door. She sat on the wooden swing in the back corner of their yard, out of the way of the lights of the house and drank, the beer bitter against her tongue. The night air was cool, even though it was spring and her eyes fell closed.
That's why she felt, not saw, someone settle on the swing next to her.
"Go away, Logan," she said, not bothering to open her eyes. "Not now, okay?"
"I'm not Logan," the person said and Jenna's eyes flew open. "But I could still leave if you wanted me to."
She turned her head and looked at John. He looked back at her with sad, serious eyes and she sighed. "Grayson sent you?"
"He did," John confirmed, stealing the bottle of beer from her hand and taking a drink. "You're not old enough to be drinking this, you know."
She raised an eyebrow at him as he passed it back to her.
He shrugged and his arm fell back against the edge of the swing. "I didn't say I had a problem with it."
Jenna took another drink and resisted the urge to lean back into his arm. "I see," she said instead. "Has anyone but Grayson even noticed that I'm gone?"
John cocked his head to the side, considering. "Miranda, probably. She notices everything. But she's pretty busy with your mom and the kids."
Jenna drank again, more deeply this time. "Right," she said. "My mom."
His hand moved to her shoulder and squeezed gently. It felt far too good for something that wasn't meant to be taken that way at all. "Hey," he said, "I know you and your mom have problems --"
She snorted.
"--but don't hate her for this," he finished as though she hadn't interrupted him. "Everyone grieves differently."
She bit her lip. He would know. She remembered when his and Grayson's mom died two years ago. "I'm sorry," she said.
"Don't be," he answered, taking the beer from her once more. "Just don't do anything you'll regret."
They fell silent after that, swinging together in the dark. They passed the beer back and forth between them and when they finished the first one, John disappeared back into the house and came back with another. This time when he sat back down, his arm fell around her shoulders and she let herself lean into it, just a little.
"What's the deal with you and Logan Fell?" he asked out of the blue, not looking at her at all, but towards the lights from the house.
She wasn't sure what he was asking. She knew what she wanted him to be asking him, but she couldn't tell if he was. "He -- we -- nothing," she said finally, shrugging one shoulder. "We broke up."
The arm around her shoulders tightened just a little. "That's too bad," he said.
"Really?" she asked, looking up at him. This time he was looking down at her and even though she'd seen his face hundreds of times before in her life, there was something she'd never seen before on it: want.
"No," he said, and then he kissed her.
He kissed her and it was every bit as good as Jenna had always imagined it would be. She moved closer to him, as close as she could get and his hand slid down her back, pulling her closer yet. They kissed and they kissed and it wasn't enough.
When John finally broke away, he ran his hands through his hair, standing it up on end, and said, "Damn it."
"What?" she asked, trying to regain her sense of balance. She felt like she could fall over and she was sitting down. It didn't work. "What?"
"I said you shouldn't do anything you'd regret," he said.
The laugh bubbled up before she could stop it. "You think I'd regret this?" she asked incredulously, looking up at him with wide eyes. "I wouldn't. I couldn't."
He looked down at her for a moment more and then stood. He held out a hand for her. "Want to get out of here?" he asked. They both knew that wasn't all he was asking.
She took his hand. "Yes," she said.
They slept together for the first time that night, in his childhood bedroom, on musty sheets. She didn't regret a single second of it, not then, anyway. The regret would come much later.
***
Her senior year came and went in a blur of homecoming and applying to colleges and breaking up and getting back together with Logan a half dozen times and sleeping with John one more time at Christmas, because she was alone and lonely and because she wanted to. It came and went in a blur of missing her dad so much it hurt. She wanted to leave Mystic Falls to go to college, to get away from the almost oppressive grief in the house that she and her mother shared, but when she got an offer of a full scholarship from Willow Creek College, she knew she didn't have a choice but to stay.
So she stayed and it was okay because Logan was already there, because his whole family had gone to Willow Creek all the way back to its founding, and just her being out of high school was enough to make things better between them. More stable. They stopped breaking up every other week and simply started treating each other better. Jenna knew no one married their high school boyfriend, but sometimes she let herself hope that maybe, just maybe things could be different for her. That Logan might be the one.
Logan wasn't the one.
A month before she was due to graduate with her degree in psychology, she walked in on him in bed with another woman. It was such a cliché that she wanted to laugh, but she didn't do that and she didn't cry either. She just turned around and walked out the door, head held high. She graduated and he stayed to keep working at WPKW and Jenna left for New York, despite Miranda's pleas for her to stay.
Jenna couldn't stay, not while Logan was still there. She couldn't do it, not even for Miranda and if there was anyone that Jenna would have done it for it was her.
She left and moved into a terrible sublet with five other girls, finding work as a receptionist by day and a bartender by night so that she could cover her rent. She dated and slept with a string of losers, and it wasn't a glamorous life, but it was hers and really, that was all Jenna cared about.
Nine months after she moved to New York, Miranda called and her voice was thick with tears. "Jenna," she said. "You need to come home. There's been an accident."
"What do you mean?" Jenna demanded, feeling that sense of panic she'd felt six years settle over her. "Who's hurt, Miranda?"
"Mom." Her voice broke. "There was a car accident and she has some sort of head injury and Jenna," she said, stumbling over her words. "Please. Come home."
Jenna went home.
She met Miranda at the hospital and her sister's face was deathly pale and her eyes were red with tears, both shed and unshed. She went straight into her sister's arms and hugged her as tightly as she could. "How is she?" Jenna asked into Miranda's neck. "Has their been any change? Any --"
Miranda shook her head as she pulled back. "They did more tests. There's no brain activity," she said.
Jenna just stared at her sister. "I don't know what that means."
"That means they don't think she's going to wake up," Miranda said, her voice breaking on the last word. "It means we need to decide what comes next."
"What?" Jenna said, shaking her head in disbelief or denial, she wasn't sure which. "It's mom, Miranda. Her head is hard as a rock. She's going to wake up and she's going to be fine."
"No," Grayson's voice said from behind her. "I'm sorry, Jenna, but not this time."
She spun around to face him. "I don't understand how this happened."
Grayson spread his hands out in front of him. "We aren't really sure either."
Jenna shook her head again. "I don't accept this," she said, and stalked down the hall to her mother's room. She let herself in silently, because that's what her mother had always trained her to do and she knew that she'd be angry if she woke up and Jenna was making too much noise. Her mother was still in the bed, hooked up to tubes and monitors, the only sound in the room the beeping of machines. There was an ugly bruise on the side of her face and Jenna wondered idly why no one had bothered to cover it up. That wouldn't make her mother happy when she woke up either. "A lady never leaves the house without putting her face on," she heard her mother's words in her head, the way she'd heard them spoken aloud hundreds of times before in her life.
She took a step closer to the bed and then she really saw. Saw what Miranda had tried to say and that she'd refused to hear. Because the person laying so completely still in the bed, that wasn't really a person at all. That wasn't their mother.
She reached out and took her mother's hand, her skin cool and dry to the touch. She heard the door open behind her and knew it was her sister. "This isn't mom," she said.
"No," Miranda said, wrapping her arm around Jenna's waist. "It's not."
Jenna turned into her sister's arms and felt herself started to cry. It was the first time she could remember crying in front of anyone in forever. They stood there for Jenna didn't know how long. She never let go of their mother's hand.
In the morning, they disconnected the life support.
***
It was back to church for the funeral, only this time Miranda's hand was warm and firm in hers the entire time. Jenna let herself lean on her sister, the way she'd always hated their mother for leaning on their father or Miranda. For leaning on someone the way Jenna was always afraid of leaning, because she worried it would make her too much like their mother. At their mother's grave, she learned that leaning wasn't the weakness she'd always thought it to be.
It was the best thing their mother ever taught her.
After, it was back to Miranda and Grayson's and the endless rounds of condolences and just like she had six years earlier, Jenna stood it for as long as she could before she slipped out into the backyard, beer in hand. She didn't have long to wait for John to join her, six years older and no less handsome, wearing his black suit like a man this time, instead of the boy playing dress up he'd been back then.
He stood in front of her and held out a hand. "Want to get out of here?" he asked her again, just like he'd done six years before.
She took his hand. "Yes," she said.
When she went back to New York, John went with her. When he left six months later, that's when Jenna learned to hate him.
***
She drifted. Through life, through years. She worked one shitty job and then another, dated one asshole and then another. Whenever she'd go back to Mystic Falls for Thanksgiving or Christmas or Elena's birthday's, she'd always make her life seem more glamorous than it really was, but Miranda always watched her with careful, worried eyes, with a mother's eyes, and Jenna knew that she knew.
For her twenty-sixth birthday, Miranda sent her one of her old psychology textbooks that had been gathering dust in Miranda and Grayson's basement since Jenna left, four years before. Jenna looked at it once and laughed, and then looked at it again and considered.
That night, she pulled up the University of Virginia's website and looked at their graduate school. Maybe it was time to try to move towards something, instead of always running away. Maybe it was time to start thinking about going home.
In the morning, she scheduled an appointment to take the GRE. It was a step.
***
Going back to school was terrifying and exhilarating and a million other things all at once. But when she stepped on to the campus in Charlottesville for the first time, she knew that she'd made the right decision to try for this. She wouldn't know unless she tried. For the first time in longer than she could remember, Jenna really wanted to try.
And it turned out that she was good at it. She did well in her classes and with the students and in her life, too, rebuilding her relationships with Miranda and Grayson, building a real relationship with Elena and Jeremy for the first time. Her life was finally on track, so that she could see where she was headed, and then suddenly, without warning it wasn't.
She was at a bar with some of her fellow students celebrating the end of the semester when she got the call. It was noisy, voices and music and the sound of glasses hitting the bar, and she almost didn't hear her phone ring. But she did and she recognized the number as one from Mystic Falls, even if she didn't know the number itself.
She answered the phone. "Hello?"
"Jenna Sommers?" came a female voice through the other end of the line, and Jenna pressed the phone closer to ear, trying to hear better. She stood and made a beeline for the door, for the quiet that waited on the other side.
"Yes," she said, once she was finally there. "I'm Jenna Sommers."
"Jenna, this is Liz Forbes. And I'm sorry to tell you like this, but there's been an accident."
***
One more time, Jenna sat in that same pew at the same church where she'd watched Miranda and Grayson start their life together. This time, with Jeremy on one side and Elena on the other, Jenna watched it end.
When the service was over, she took each of them by the hand and walked down the aisle behind the caskets. She walked out the doors and her life began.
Author: empressearwig
Pairing/Fandom: Jenna/Logan, Jenna/John; The Vampire Diaries
Spoilers: All aired episodes
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~ 4500
Disclaimer: I own nothing, this is all for fun. This hasn't happened. Yet. Etc.
Summary: The life and times of Jenna Sommers, ages seven to twenty-nine.
Author's Notes: Many thanks to the people who looked at various drafts of this, including katayla, torigates, and normative_jean. Any inconsistencies with the show's canon are entirely my own mistake.
Her dress itched.
Jenna sat in the front row of the church next to her mother and tried not to squirm, because she knew squirming would earn her a sharp pinch to her arm and a disapproving look. Jenna was used to disapproving looks, but it would be worse than usual, because she'd been told repeatedly that it was Miranda's day and Jenna was supposed to be seen and not heard and Jenna was trying, really she was. She loved her big sister and she didn't want to do anything to ruin Miranda's wedding for her.
But her dress itched and she wanted to go outside and play, not be sitting in church and waiting. Jenna hated waiting more than anything else in the whole world.
Finally, finally, music started to play and her sister's friends started to walk down the aisle, one by one. Everyone in the church stood up and Miranda came down the aisle, too, looking so beautiful in her white dress and on their father's arm. When she walked past their pew, she gave Jenna the smile that was just Jenna's and then she looked at Grayson and her entire face lit up. Jenna had never seen her sister so happy.
"Who gives this woman to this man?" Pastor Thomas said.
"I do," their father answered, and he kissed Miranda's cheek and squeezed her hand, and crossed the front of the church to sit down next to Jenna.
"Now, don't you grow up too fast on me," he whispered in her ear, and Jenna nodded her head solemnly. She wouldn't.
***
When Miranda and Grayson showed up at the house with a baby in tow and announced that they'd adopted a little girl and that her name was Elena, it was a surprise. Especially for their parents.
Practically the minute after they walked into the house, Miranda and Grayson were ushered into their dad's study, the door closed firmly behind them. The closed door didn't do anything to block out the volume of their mother's voice.
Jenna was left alone with the baby, who was sleeping peacefully in her carrier, totally oblivious to the commotion that her existence had caused. Jenna watched her sleep for a minute and then got bored and turned the television back on. Baby or not, she wasn't going to miss Blossom. She'd be totally screwed the next day at school if she did.
Halfway through the episode, Miranda appeared back in the living room and sat down next to her on the couch. "So what do you think?" she asked, nodding her head towards the baby sleeping on the coffee table.
Jenna shrugged, trying for nonchalant. Seeming too interested in anything wasn't cool. "She's pretty cute, I guess."
The corners of Miranda's mouth twitched like she wanted to smile or laugh, but wasn't going to. Jenna hated when she did that. Just because Miranda was older, didn't mean she had to patronize her. "Well, I'm glad you think so," her sister said. "Because Grayson and I have something we wanted to ask you."
Now that got Jenna's attention. People other than teachers rarely wanted to ask her anything. They wanted to order her, and that was entirely different. "Really?" she asked. "What?"
"How would you like to be Elena's godmother?"
Jenna felt her eyes go wide and she looked at Miranda in disbelief. "What?"
Now Miranda did laugh, and she wrapped her arm around Jenna's shoulders. "You heard me. Do you want to? You are her aunt, after all. Who would be better?"
"Wow," Jenna said. "Wow."
"Can I take that as a yes?" Miranda asked.
"Yes!" The word came out more interested than she meant it to. "I mean, yes. I guess that would be kind of cool."
The baby started to fuss, just a little, and Miranda reached over to unstrap her from her seat. Jenna expected her sister to comfort the baby herself, but instead found Elena in her arms, Miranda rearranging them so that the baby's head was being properly supported. "You two should get to know each other," Miranda said, and Jenna looked down at the baby and smiled, a little foolishly.
"Hi, Elena," she said. "I'm your Aunt Jenna."
***
Two years later, when Jeremy was born, Jenna was much less interested. She was fourteen then, starting high school in the fall and far more interested in other types of boys.
Sure, she still showed up at Miranda and Grayson's every Sunday afternoon, like clockwork, to spend time with Elena, but most of the time her mind was a million miles away, or depending on if Grayson's brother John was visiting from college, right down the hall.
Jenna had the worst crush on him, and practically every time he actually noticed she existed, it was to pat her on the head and call her a nice kid. She hated those moments.
But she tried not to let it bother her, because there were other boys out there and her best friend, Erica, insisted that Logan Fell liked her. Jenna wasn't opposed to this, of course. Logan was cute, nice most of the time, even, and a member of one of the founding families, which in Mystic Falls was always a big deal. Best of all, Logan was two years older, sixteen, and newly gifted with a driver's license and a car of his own.
If Logan ever bothered to work up the courage to actually ask her out, Jenna would say yes in a heartbeat.
And while she waited for Logan and pined for John, there was always Mason to flirt shamelessly with, all the while knowing that it would never lead anywhere else. It was an arrangement that worked well for them, one that they'd agreed to in the sandbox when Jenna was four and Mason was five, when they'd promised that they'd never like each other like that. And to the best of Jenna's knowledge, they never had.
One afternoon in October, at the party that Miranda threw for Grayson's birthday, Jenna found herself standing in a corner with Mason. She watched John. Logan watched her. Mason watched it all and laughed.
Jenna turned to him with a frown on her face. "What?"
Mason shook his head. "You know what."
She rolled her eyes. "Whatever," she said, waving a dismissive hand through the air. "If Logan wants to ask me out, he knows where to find me. It's not my fault that he won't do it."
Mason raised an eyebrow and looked amused. "Sure. And the way you're looking at John Gilbert isn't supposed to make him think twice about that at all, right?"
"And just how am I looking at John?" she asked, knowing the answer, but wanting to hear him say it anyway.
"Like you're a fat kid and he's cake," Mason said promptly.
Jenna hit him in the arm. He wasn't supposed to say it like that.
"Hey, you asked," Mason pointed out, not even bothering to do her the courtesy of pretending that it hurt. "Don't blame the messenger."
"Fine," she said. He was right about that, even if she didn't want him to be. And okay, if it was that bad, she was on the verge of looking pathetic, that was if she hadn't already crossed over into it without realizing. Jenna Sommers didn't do pathetic. She squared her shoulders, decision made. "I'm going to go talk to Logan," she said, and walked away, not bothering to wait for Mason's response. She was sure there was a smug smile on his face and that was not something she wanted to deal with at the moment.
Jenna wove her way through the people crowded into Grayson and Miranda's living room, until she found herself at Logan's side. "Hi," she said, and looked up at him expectantly.
"Jenna, hey," Logan said, the traces of surprise she'd seen as he saw her heading towards him not totally gone from his face. "What's up?"
"Do you want to ask me out?" she asked, not willing to beat around the bush any longer.
Logan blinked, and then nodded slowly. "Yes," he said. "I do."
She raised an impatient eyebrow at him. "Well, then?"
"Right," he said, nodding his head again. "You want to go out some time?"
"Yes," she said, grinning just a little, surprised to find that she actually meant it. "I'd like that."
He smiled at her and she smiled at him and for the rest of the afternoon, she didn't think about John Gilbert once.
***
Dating a member of one of the founding families was a little like dating Mystic's equivalent of a rock star, Jenna discovered. She got way more dirty looks from girls, especially older ones who were pissed that a freshman had the audacity to get together with a junior, especially a junior like Logan. She was suddenly included in invitations to parties that she'd never been invited to before, parties where everyone drank and smoked weed and danced to loud music and it was amazing.
Maybe it was mercenary of her, but Jenna thought that if she'd known this came along with dating Logan she'd have gotten him to ask her out a lot sooner.
The first time he took her to a party and someone handed her a beer, Jenna heard her mother's voice in her head, saying what she'd said to Jenna at least once a day for her entire life. What would Miranda do, the voice said, and Jenna took the cup and drank anyway.
This time, she was going to do what Jenna wanted to do. Miranda had made her choices. It was time Jenna made hers.
***
Her father died when she was seventeen, of a sudden and massive heart attack. It was two weeks before Junior Prom and she was sitting in the cafeteria at lunch, deliberately flirting with Andrew Davis where Logan's best friend could see and report back, because they'd broken up the week before over Logan hitting on Lindsay Parker. Her name came over the PA system, "Jenna Sommers to the main office," it intoned, in scratchy, barely understandable tones. "Immediately." She didn't even hear it at first, had to have Erica elbow her in the side and hiss her name in her ear.
Jenna frowned at her, irritated at the interruption. "What?"
"Didn't you hear the announcement?" Erica asked. "You were just called to the office."
Jenna's heart sped up and she felt panic settle over her. But she wasn't going to show that, not where people could see. "Oh," she said, standing up and brushing her hair back off her shoulders. "I'm sure it's no big deal." She smiled one last smile at Andrew. "I'll see you later, right?"
"Sure," he said, looking worried for her. "Jenna --"
But she didn't stick around to hear whatever he was going to say next, starting for the doors to the cafeteria, waiting until she was just past them to break out into a dead run. When she got to the office, her mother was standing there in the little reception area with it's uncomfortable chairs, a crowd of people standing around her. No one even noticed her walking in the door.
"Mom?" she asked, her voice full of dread. Somehow, without hearing a word, Jenna knew.
The people backed away and her mother looked at her and said, "It's your father."
Jenna didn't remember much after that.
***
The funeral was three days later, in the same church where she'd watched Miranda get married when she was seven years old and the same church they went to every Christmas and Easter. She wore a black dress she borrowed from Miranda, held Elena and Jeremy's hands as they walked down the aisle to the same pew where she'd sat at the wedding and hated how much her dress itched. This dress itched, too.
She held Jeremy on her lap and Elena sat next to her on the hard wooden pew, while Miranda comforted their mother. She watched her sister comfort their mother and tried not to be angry that no one had bothered to try to comfort her.
Grayson slipped into the pew next to her and made a motion to take Jeremy from her, but she just shook her head.
"No," she said, holding onto him tighter. She had this at least. She wasn't giving it up.
He laid a hand on her shoulder in silent sympathy and Jenna might have thanked him for it, but then Pastor Thomas started to speak and Jenna felt tears start to burn behind her eyes.
She didn't let them fall. She didn't want anyone to see her cry.
***
After, it seemed like the entire town was gathered at Grayson and Miranda's. Jenna didn't want to go, she just wanted to go home and be alone and to cry, but her mother insisted and Miranda gave her the please, not now look and Jenna gave in, just like she always did when her sister gave her that look. She would fight her mother when she looked at Jenna like that. But not Miranda. Never Miranda.
So she stood near the door and accepted condolences from everyone who passed through it for as long as she could stand it, until she finally had to slip away, stealing a beer from the kitchen and out the back door. She sat on the wooden swing in the back corner of their yard, out of the way of the lights of the house and drank, the beer bitter against her tongue. The night air was cool, even though it was spring and her eyes fell closed.
That's why she felt, not saw, someone settle on the swing next to her.
"Go away, Logan," she said, not bothering to open her eyes. "Not now, okay?"
"I'm not Logan," the person said and Jenna's eyes flew open. "But I could still leave if you wanted me to."
She turned her head and looked at John. He looked back at her with sad, serious eyes and she sighed. "Grayson sent you?"
"He did," John confirmed, stealing the bottle of beer from her hand and taking a drink. "You're not old enough to be drinking this, you know."
She raised an eyebrow at him as he passed it back to her.
He shrugged and his arm fell back against the edge of the swing. "I didn't say I had a problem with it."
Jenna took another drink and resisted the urge to lean back into his arm. "I see," she said instead. "Has anyone but Grayson even noticed that I'm gone?"
John cocked his head to the side, considering. "Miranda, probably. She notices everything. But she's pretty busy with your mom and the kids."
Jenna drank again, more deeply this time. "Right," she said. "My mom."
His hand moved to her shoulder and squeezed gently. It felt far too good for something that wasn't meant to be taken that way at all. "Hey," he said, "I know you and your mom have problems --"
She snorted.
"--but don't hate her for this," he finished as though she hadn't interrupted him. "Everyone grieves differently."
She bit her lip. He would know. She remembered when his and Grayson's mom died two years ago. "I'm sorry," she said.
"Don't be," he answered, taking the beer from her once more. "Just don't do anything you'll regret."
They fell silent after that, swinging together in the dark. They passed the beer back and forth between them and when they finished the first one, John disappeared back into the house and came back with another. This time when he sat back down, his arm fell around her shoulders and she let herself lean into it, just a little.
"What's the deal with you and Logan Fell?" he asked out of the blue, not looking at her at all, but towards the lights from the house.
She wasn't sure what he was asking. She knew what she wanted him to be asking him, but she couldn't tell if he was. "He -- we -- nothing," she said finally, shrugging one shoulder. "We broke up."
The arm around her shoulders tightened just a little. "That's too bad," he said.
"Really?" she asked, looking up at him. This time he was looking down at her and even though she'd seen his face hundreds of times before in her life, there was something she'd never seen before on it: want.
"No," he said, and then he kissed her.
He kissed her and it was every bit as good as Jenna had always imagined it would be. She moved closer to him, as close as she could get and his hand slid down her back, pulling her closer yet. They kissed and they kissed and it wasn't enough.
When John finally broke away, he ran his hands through his hair, standing it up on end, and said, "Damn it."
"What?" she asked, trying to regain her sense of balance. She felt like she could fall over and she was sitting down. It didn't work. "What?"
"I said you shouldn't do anything you'd regret," he said.
The laugh bubbled up before she could stop it. "You think I'd regret this?" she asked incredulously, looking up at him with wide eyes. "I wouldn't. I couldn't."
He looked down at her for a moment more and then stood. He held out a hand for her. "Want to get out of here?" he asked. They both knew that wasn't all he was asking.
She took his hand. "Yes," she said.
They slept together for the first time that night, in his childhood bedroom, on musty sheets. She didn't regret a single second of it, not then, anyway. The regret would come much later.
***
Her senior year came and went in a blur of homecoming and applying to colleges and breaking up and getting back together with Logan a half dozen times and sleeping with John one more time at Christmas, because she was alone and lonely and because she wanted to. It came and went in a blur of missing her dad so much it hurt. She wanted to leave Mystic Falls to go to college, to get away from the almost oppressive grief in the house that she and her mother shared, but when she got an offer of a full scholarship from Willow Creek College, she knew she didn't have a choice but to stay.
So she stayed and it was okay because Logan was already there, because his whole family had gone to Willow Creek all the way back to its founding, and just her being out of high school was enough to make things better between them. More stable. They stopped breaking up every other week and simply started treating each other better. Jenna knew no one married their high school boyfriend, but sometimes she let herself hope that maybe, just maybe things could be different for her. That Logan might be the one.
Logan wasn't the one.
A month before she was due to graduate with her degree in psychology, she walked in on him in bed with another woman. It was such a cliché that she wanted to laugh, but she didn't do that and she didn't cry either. She just turned around and walked out the door, head held high. She graduated and he stayed to keep working at WPKW and Jenna left for New York, despite Miranda's pleas for her to stay.
Jenna couldn't stay, not while Logan was still there. She couldn't do it, not even for Miranda and if there was anyone that Jenna would have done it for it was her.
She left and moved into a terrible sublet with five other girls, finding work as a receptionist by day and a bartender by night so that she could cover her rent. She dated and slept with a string of losers, and it wasn't a glamorous life, but it was hers and really, that was all Jenna cared about.
Nine months after she moved to New York, Miranda called and her voice was thick with tears. "Jenna," she said. "You need to come home. There's been an accident."
"What do you mean?" Jenna demanded, feeling that sense of panic she'd felt six years settle over her. "Who's hurt, Miranda?"
"Mom." Her voice broke. "There was a car accident and she has some sort of head injury and Jenna," she said, stumbling over her words. "Please. Come home."
Jenna went home.
She met Miranda at the hospital and her sister's face was deathly pale and her eyes were red with tears, both shed and unshed. She went straight into her sister's arms and hugged her as tightly as she could. "How is she?" Jenna asked into Miranda's neck. "Has their been any change? Any --"
Miranda shook her head as she pulled back. "They did more tests. There's no brain activity," she said.
Jenna just stared at her sister. "I don't know what that means."
"That means they don't think she's going to wake up," Miranda said, her voice breaking on the last word. "It means we need to decide what comes next."
"What?" Jenna said, shaking her head in disbelief or denial, she wasn't sure which. "It's mom, Miranda. Her head is hard as a rock. She's going to wake up and she's going to be fine."
"No," Grayson's voice said from behind her. "I'm sorry, Jenna, but not this time."
She spun around to face him. "I don't understand how this happened."
Grayson spread his hands out in front of him. "We aren't really sure either."
Jenna shook her head again. "I don't accept this," she said, and stalked down the hall to her mother's room. She let herself in silently, because that's what her mother had always trained her to do and she knew that she'd be angry if she woke up and Jenna was making too much noise. Her mother was still in the bed, hooked up to tubes and monitors, the only sound in the room the beeping of machines. There was an ugly bruise on the side of her face and Jenna wondered idly why no one had bothered to cover it up. That wouldn't make her mother happy when she woke up either. "A lady never leaves the house without putting her face on," she heard her mother's words in her head, the way she'd heard them spoken aloud hundreds of times before in her life.
She took a step closer to the bed and then she really saw. Saw what Miranda had tried to say and that she'd refused to hear. Because the person laying so completely still in the bed, that wasn't really a person at all. That wasn't their mother.
She reached out and took her mother's hand, her skin cool and dry to the touch. She heard the door open behind her and knew it was her sister. "This isn't mom," she said.
"No," Miranda said, wrapping her arm around Jenna's waist. "It's not."
Jenna turned into her sister's arms and felt herself started to cry. It was the first time she could remember crying in front of anyone in forever. They stood there for Jenna didn't know how long. She never let go of their mother's hand.
In the morning, they disconnected the life support.
***
It was back to church for the funeral, only this time Miranda's hand was warm and firm in hers the entire time. Jenna let herself lean on her sister, the way she'd always hated their mother for leaning on their father or Miranda. For leaning on someone the way Jenna was always afraid of leaning, because she worried it would make her too much like their mother. At their mother's grave, she learned that leaning wasn't the weakness she'd always thought it to be.
It was the best thing their mother ever taught her.
After, it was back to Miranda and Grayson's and the endless rounds of condolences and just like she had six years earlier, Jenna stood it for as long as she could before she slipped out into the backyard, beer in hand. She didn't have long to wait for John to join her, six years older and no less handsome, wearing his black suit like a man this time, instead of the boy playing dress up he'd been back then.
He stood in front of her and held out a hand. "Want to get out of here?" he asked her again, just like he'd done six years before.
She took his hand. "Yes," she said.
When she went back to New York, John went with her. When he left six months later, that's when Jenna learned to hate him.
***
She drifted. Through life, through years. She worked one shitty job and then another, dated one asshole and then another. Whenever she'd go back to Mystic Falls for Thanksgiving or Christmas or Elena's birthday's, she'd always make her life seem more glamorous than it really was, but Miranda always watched her with careful, worried eyes, with a mother's eyes, and Jenna knew that she knew.
For her twenty-sixth birthday, Miranda sent her one of her old psychology textbooks that had been gathering dust in Miranda and Grayson's basement since Jenna left, four years before. Jenna looked at it once and laughed, and then looked at it again and considered.
That night, she pulled up the University of Virginia's website and looked at their graduate school. Maybe it was time to try to move towards something, instead of always running away. Maybe it was time to start thinking about going home.
In the morning, she scheduled an appointment to take the GRE. It was a step.
***
Going back to school was terrifying and exhilarating and a million other things all at once. But when she stepped on to the campus in Charlottesville for the first time, she knew that she'd made the right decision to try for this. She wouldn't know unless she tried. For the first time in longer than she could remember, Jenna really wanted to try.
And it turned out that she was good at it. She did well in her classes and with the students and in her life, too, rebuilding her relationships with Miranda and Grayson, building a real relationship with Elena and Jeremy for the first time. Her life was finally on track, so that she could see where she was headed, and then suddenly, without warning it wasn't.
She was at a bar with some of her fellow students celebrating the end of the semester when she got the call. It was noisy, voices and music and the sound of glasses hitting the bar, and she almost didn't hear her phone ring. But she did and she recognized the number as one from Mystic Falls, even if she didn't know the number itself.
She answered the phone. "Hello?"
"Jenna Sommers?" came a female voice through the other end of the line, and Jenna pressed the phone closer to ear, trying to hear better. She stood and made a beeline for the door, for the quiet that waited on the other side.
"Yes," she said, once she was finally there. "I'm Jenna Sommers."
"Jenna, this is Liz Forbes. And I'm sorry to tell you like this, but there's been an accident."
***
One more time, Jenna sat in that same pew at the same church where she'd watched Miranda and Grayson start their life together. This time, with Jeremy on one side and Elena on the other, Jenna watched it end.
When the service was over, she took each of them by the hand and walked down the aisle behind the caskets. She walked out the doors and her life began.