Elena looked at him. The soft light inside the car made his face look different, more serious somehow, or maybe just more tired. He had asked his question seriously, no trace of a joke in his voice. She understood now that this question was connected to the truth he had been hiding, the thing he could not say inside the Grill. Her irritation from earlier had faded completely, replaced by a quiet, cautious curiosity.
"Yes," she said. "I have read those novels. The ones about vampires and werewolves and all that supernatural stuff." She paused, thinking. "They were popular a few years ago. Everyone read them." Her voice was careful, neutral. She was not sure why he was asking this.
Leo's finger tapped once against the steering wheel. The sound was soft, muffled by the leather wrap. He kept his eyes on her face, watching her reaction closely.
"Elena," he said slowly. "Then if I tell you that Stefan and Lexi, the two people we were just sitting with at that table, are both vampires… do you believe it?" He stared deeply into her eyes at the end of his sentence, searching for something. Belief. Understanding. Acceptance.
For a moment, Elena just looked at him. Her face did not change. Her expression remained exactly the same as it had been when he started speaking. Then her lips parted slightly. A small, incredulous sound escaped her. It was almost a laugh, but not quite. It was the sound a person makes when they hear a bad joke, the punchline so absurd that the only possible response is disbelief.
"Are you lying to me again, Leo?" she asked. Her voice was flat, but there was a tremor underneath it. "How can you expect me to believe this fantasy in your mind?" She shook her head slowly. Her hair moved with the motion, catching the dashboard light. "Stefan is… I don't know what Stefan is. Maybe he's afraid of you. Maybe you know something about him, or someone he's connected to. That weird scene at the table, the way he talked to you like you were his boss—that was strange, yes. I saw it. I asked you about it. But vampires?" She let the word hang in the air between them. "That's not strange. That's impossible. That's just… you making up stories again."
She believed he was lying. Not because she wanted to disbelieve him, but because her mind simply could not accept what he was saying. Vampires were fiction. They belonged in books and movies, not in Mystic Falls, not at the Grill, not sitting across from her at a table. The human brain builds walls to protect itself from ideas that are too big, too frightening, too world-shattering. Elena's walls were thick and high, reinforced by seventeen years of ordinary life.
Leo sighed again. It was a heavier sound this time, deeper in his chest. He leaned back against the driver's seat and turned his head slightly, looking at the car wall, the window, anything but her face. His fingers drummed once, twice against the steering wheel, then stopped.
He was thinking. Even when he told her the truth, she could not believe it. Her mind rejected the information like a body rejecting an organ that did not match its blood type. Maybe that old saying of India was right. Seeing is believing. People needed evidence. They needed proof. Words alone were not enough to break down walls that had been built over a lifetime.
But he could not show her his devil face. He had seen it himself, the transformation that twisted his features into something ancient and terrible. If Elena saw that face, with her mind still unprepared, still innocent of the supernatural world, it would traumatize her. The image would sear itself into her memory and never fade. She would look at him differently forever. She would flinch when he touched her. He could not do that to her. He would not.
Maybe he could tell her he was an angel instead. Lucifer Morningstar had been born in heaven, after all. He had been God's favorite, the brightest of all the angels before the fall. That was true. That was not a lie. But would she believe that either? An angel sitting in a car with her in the parking lot of the Mystic Grill? It sounded even more ridiculous than vampires.
Or he could let Stefan show her. Stefan could demonstrate his vampiric teeth, his superhuman strength, his impossible speed. Stefan was the perfect proof. He looked human. He acted human. And then he could transform, just slightly, just enough to reveal what lurked beneath his gentle exterior. That would convince Elena.
But Leo did not want to ask Stefan for anything. And more than that, he did not want to reveal his own powers. Showing her his strength, his speed, the things he could do that no human could do—that felt like showing off. Like a magician revealing his tricks. It diminished him somehow, made him less powerful in her eyes. He wanted her to believe him because he was trustworthy, not because he could perform miracles.
His thoughts circled and spiraled, going nowhere.
Elena watched him. She saw his face shift through a dozen micro-expressions, each one flickering and disappearing before she could fully read it. He was deep inside himself, wrestling with something heavy. This time, she did not feel irritation. She did not feel impatient. She felt anxious. Worried. Something was wrong with him, something real and serious, and he was struggling to find a way to tell her.
She reached across the center console and placed her hand on his shoulder. Her fingers pressed gently into the fabric of his coat. The touch was warm, grounding.
"Are you okay, Leo?" she asked. Her voice was soft now, all the sharp edges smoothed away. "You're scaring me a little."
Leo slowly turned his head toward her. The worried expression on her face, the slight furrow between her brows, the softness in her brown eyes—it was not something he wanted to see. Not because of him. Not because his words had put it there.
"I'm fine, Elena," he said. His voice was quiet, meant to reassure her. But even as he spoke the words, he knew they were not entirely true. He straightened himself in the driver's seat, shifting his posture away from her. His gaze moved forward, through the windshield, out to the road ahead.
The street was dark now. The Grill's bright sign still glowed behind them, but in front of the car, the road stretched out under only a few scattered streetlights. Their orange glow pooled on the asphalt in uneven circles, leaving long stretches of darkness between them. On the sidewalk, a small group of men stumbled past, their laughter loud and loose. One of them swayed, caught himself on a lamppost, then continued on with his friends. They had drunk too much. They probably knew they could not handle that much alcohol. But they drank anyway, chasing pleasure, ignoring the consequences until the consequences arrived to collect their debt.
Leo watched them for a moment. Then he spoke again. His voice was gentle, low. He did not turn to look at Elena. His eyes stayed on the road, in the darkness between the lights.
"Elena," he said. "What I said before is completely true. There is not a single word in it that is a lie." He paused. The weight of his own words settled in the car between them. "I know you cannot believe it. I understand that. I knew it would be like this before I even opened my mouth. But I also cannot think of a way to make you believe it. Not right now. Not tonight." Another pause, longer this time. His fingers rested on the steering wheel, motionless. "So why don't we stop this discussion here. Let it rest. We can talk about it tomorrow. Okay, Elena?"
His tone was not dismissive. It was not a brush-off, not another lie dressed up in patient words. It was exhaustion. He was tired of circling the same truth, offering it to her again and again, watching her reject it each time. He needed a break. They both needed a break.
Elena's lips tightened. She pressed them together, a thin line of consideration. Her mind turned over his proposal, examining it from different angles. She still wanted answers. The questions had not disappeared; they had only grown larger and more persistent. But she could see that Leo was not trying to escape her. He was not deflecting or avoiding. He was simply… spent. The energy had drained out of him during that conversation, and now there was nothing left to push against.
She let her imagination run for a moment, just a small, forbidden experiment. Let's say, for once, that it's true. Let's say Stefan really is a vampire. The thought sat strangely in her mind, like a shoe on the wrong foot. Then what is Leo? If Stefan, a Vampire and centuries of life, feared Leo enough to bow and apologize… what did that make Leo? What kind of being commanded that kind of fear from a vampire?
She forced herself to stop. The thoughts were wild, spinning out into territory that could not possibly be real. She was inventing fantasies, constructing elaborate fiction out of nothing but Leo's tired words and her own overactive imagination. This was not healthy and reasonable.
But somewhere in the back of her mind, a small, stubborn voice whispered: His words keep echoing. 'Not a single word is a lie.' Over and over, that phrase plays in your head. Maybe… maybe there is something real underneath all of this. Maybe the fantasies are not as fictional as you want them to be.
She pushed the voice down. She could not deal with it tonight.
"Okay, Leo," she said. Her voice was soft, accepting. "If you want to talk about this tomorrow, then we'll talk about it tomorrow." She paused, then reached across the center console. Her hand found his thigh and rested there, warm and steady. It was not a romantic gesture. It was something simpler and more important: a sign of trust. I do not understand what you are telling me, but I trust you.
Leo looked down at her hand briefly, then back up at the road. He nodded. The motion was small, barely visible in the dim light. She felt the tension in his leg relax slightly under her palm. This matter was finally on hold. He did not know how he would resolve it tomorrow. He did not know if she would ever truly believe him. But for now, the things have eased.
Elena removed her hand. She settled back into her seat and pulled the seatbelt across her chest. The click of the buckle was loud in the quiet car.
Leo started the engine. The car hummed to life, headlights cutting through the darkness ahead. He pulled out of the parking space and turned onto the main road, heading toward the Gilbert house.
Elena looked out the window. The trees passed by in dark shapes, illuminated briefly by the headlights before slipping back into shadow. Her reflection ghosted across the glass, transparent and fragile. She watched the world move past her and thought about what Leo had said.
Vampires. The word felt absurd even inside her own head. But Stefan's behavior at the table had been absurd too. Lexi's sudden emotional exit had been absurd. Leo's patient insistence had been absurd. All of it stacked together, one absurdity on top of another, forming a pile too large to ignore.
Maybe things were not really simple. Maybe they never had been.
She did not know if vampires existed. She did not know if Stefan and Lexi were Vampires or just two very strange people with complicated relationships. She did not know what Leo makes Stefan fear much. But she knew one thing now, with certainty: there was more to this world than she had ever imagined. And she was no longer sure if she wanted to discover what that "more" contained, or if she wanted to keep her eyes closed and pretend everything was normal.
....
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