When Elena Gilbert came back from her vacation that she had gone on with her twin brother, Jeremy, and legal guardian, her Aunt Jenna, she discovered that almost everything had changed while she was gone. The vacation had lasted for the last month of summer as well as the first two weeks of school. Elena was still amazed that Jenna had taken them on a six week trip to Europe and let them miss the first two weeks of school. What could she say, the woman was awesome.

Elena noticed how different things were as soon as she pulled into the parking lot. A few spots down, Damon and Stefan Salvatore were getting out of their 1967 Chevy Camaro. Elena instantly recognized that something was off when Caroline, who had been Damon's girlfriend when Elena left, didn't crawl out of the car after them; Damon and Caroline had used to be attached at the waist. Even though Elena felt how odd this was, and sensed something even stranger in the way that the two guys instantly began to walk in opposite directions without so much as a nod, she still managed to cover that feeling up and convince herself that maybe Caroline was just sick. Or maybe they broke up. So what? And maybe Damon and Stefan, who were both best friends first and brothers second, had just been in a minor fight, or one of them had been in a hurry to get somewhere.

Elena shook it off, then got out of the car with Jeremy and they headed to the office to get their schedules for the year.

Their lockers were on opposite sides of the school, so they went their separate ways down the hallways.

When Elena reached her new locker, number 283, she quickly unlocked it. She had already memorized her new combination.

"Elena!" Came an excited voice from down the hallway as she closed her locker.

That was a voice that Elena would recognize anywhere, she whipped around and began to grin as she spotted her best friend walking towards her.

"Bonnie, hey!" Elena said, glad to finally see her friend again after such a long trip. Sure, they had talked online, but it wasn't the same.

The two friends shared a short embrace before Bonnie asked, "So how was your trip?"

"Amazing," Elena told her. "It's coming back that sucks. Getting up for my first Monday morning back at school after being on the opposite sleep schedule for a month and a half was more than a little difficult. And the fact that everyone else is two weeks ahead of me didn't make it much easier to get out of bed. But then I thought about seeing all of you guys again and that got me up."

"What class do you have first?" Bonnie asked.

"Chemistry," Elena responded and then crinkled her nose at the sight of Bonnie's reaction as she asked. "I'm guessing that there's zero chance that you're in it with me?"

"Sorry," Bonnie said. "But Caroline has it with you."

"Are you sure that she's here today?" Elena asked.

"Yeah, I saw her a few minutes ago," Bonnie responded. "Why?"

"Oh, I just saw Damon and Stefan in the parking lot and she wasn't there," Elena explained.

"That's right," Bonnie said realizing now what the problem was. "I never told you. Damon and Caroline broke up during the summer. Not long after you and Jer left, maybe a week or two.."

"Why? They seemed pretty inseparable to me," Elena pointed out.

"Trouble in paradise I guess," Bonnie responded. "Apparently Damon just suddenly got bored of her and that was it. She's not the only one that he got bored of though. It seems like since he was going into grade twelve he couldn't stand the idea of being associated with anyone younger. Including Stefan."

"Really?" Elena asked, this was probably the most shocking thing that she could have come back to. Even more shocking than if she had come back to find Damon and Matt, who had already hated each other before Damon had decided to hate all of the grade elevens in their group of friends, making out in the middle of the cafeteria.

"Yeah," Bonnie said. "He still talks to Klaus and Tyler sometimes because they're in the same grade, but now he's trying to be some loner badass or something."

"Is it working?" Elena asked. Although she had been in the same social circle as Damon, she personally hadn't overly cared for his arrogance so she didn't talk to him much. She would be able to imagine him as a loner badass if she hadn't seen how he acts when he's teasing his younger brother or hanging out with him. There were always the occasional moments away from douchiness where Damon had actually seemed like a nice guy when he let himself act like a complete idiot with Stefan. Apparently those moments were gone, which was not good news. The only reason that Elena could stand him was because every once in a while she would get that tiny glimpse at a nice guy. But not now, with him acting like a dick to even Stefan. There was no chance at him acting even remotely acceptable anymore in her mind.

"Kind of," Bonnie confirmed. "Stefan has no idea why Damon's acting like that, either. He's still trying to figure that out for himself. And he's different now, too. Now that his best friend slash brother has decided to hardly even talk to him, he's not as happy of a guy. Or as fun to be around."

"You'd think that I'd been gone for a year, not a month and a half," Elena pointed out.

"You'll figure it out quick," Bonnie comforted her.

Before Elena had the chance to argue that she wouldn't, the bell rang loudly.

"I've got to go be the new kid in a class of people that I've been in school with since kindergarten," Elena said with a slight smirk.

"Have fun," Bonnie told her before they headed off in opposite directions towards their classes.

As soon as Elena entered the chemistry room, Caroline leapt from her seat and began to squeal as she pulled Elena into a big hug.

"Hi to you too, Caroline," Elena responded with a small laugh.

"I can't believe that you're actually back," Caroline squealed.

Caroline only let go of her friend when the teacher asked, "Ms. Forbes, Ms. Gilbert can we hug on our own time? I kind of have a class to teach here."

"Sorry," Both girls muttered apologetically. Caroline went and sat back down in her seat, while Elena awkwardly remained standing at the front.

"Elena, I'll catch you up while the class is doing work out of the text book, but first we're taking some notes," Mr. Cranch told her. If only she would really be able to catch up in that short amount of time. "So why don't you go take a seat next to Caroline and try to keep the screeching to a minimum."

Elena nodded, struggling to keep a straight face, and instantly broke into a grin and a silent snicker as soon as her back was to the teacher.

When Elena went to her next class, Language Arts, she found that both Matt and Bonnie were in the same class as her. She managed to catch up a little with Matt during the class. She also gladly discovered that all they had done so far was read through a good chunk of Lord of the Flies and answered questions about each chapter. That was something that Elena would actually be able to catch up on easily. She was a quick reader and unlike a lot of the other kids in her class, she actually enjoyed books.

After Language Arts class it was lunch time.

Elena quickly put her binder in her locker with her new chemistry text book, then headed to the cafeteria. After she bought her lunch, she headed over to sit at her usual table from the year before. It didn't seem as if much had changed at first sight. Bonnie, Caroline, Matt, Tyler, Stefan, Jeremy, Klaus, and Rebekah were already sitting at the table when she arrived. The only person who seemed to be missing was Damon, but it had become very obvious that he wasn't going to show up after Bonnie's speech and the way that no one seemed to think twice about his absence.

During the short lunch hour, Elena discovered just what Bonnie had meant when she had said that Stefan had changed too. Stefan had used to be a pretty fun guy to be around, but now he remained quiet during most conversations and seemed shockingly serious. Most of the others seemed to be the same, acting as if Damon's random decision to ignore them all didn't phase them in the slightest. Apparently they had all had enough time to adjust to the situation, however slight of an adjustment it may have been for some. But for Elena, even if she hadn't been close friends with Damon at all, the wound was still fresh and she couldn't believe that Damon would ever treat Stefan like this for no reason. There was something deeper going on here, she just wasn't sure of what.

She couldn't believe that no one else seemed to care, or even considered that there was something off about all of it, with the exception of Stefan. Elena really didn't want to be the person to take action or do something about this, but she was pretty angry about Damon for hurting Stefan and breaking up with Caroline just for part of his badass act. She decided that the next time that she saw him, she would have to confront him. And from there she imagined that she would probably end up yelling at him for being such a jerk and try to force him to explain what the hell he had been thinking.

She did not see Damon again for the rest of her first day back.

She did, however, find out that she had Stefan, Jeremy, and Tyler, who was a year older but had failed the class the year before, in her History class with Mr. Saltzman after lunch. Tyler wasn't really much of an asset, the only reason that a lot of them put up with Tyler was because he was Matt's best friend. Still, the guy was kind of a jerk a lot of the time and for some reason had it out for Jeremy still just because they had liked the same girl a few years ago.

The closest thing that Elena had to a friend in her last class, gym, was Rebekah. Elena and Rebekah did not have a good history either, they had started out as friends, but through a series of misunderstandings and altogether cattiness from Rebekah, they had become a lot closer to enemies. By the time that gym class was over, Elena had been 'accidentally' hit in the head with a volleyball by Rebekah approximately three times. Elena had managed to spiked one straight into Rebekah's face near the end of class though, which made getting hit herself very much worth it.

When the final bell rang, Elena quickly went to her locker, then headed outside to find Jeremy already waiting at the car. They left the parking lot before either Salvatore brother showed up in it.

By the time that they arrived at home, Elena was beyond exhausted. She would have gone for a nap, but she had a lot of work to do to catch up at school, so instead she laid down on the couch and began to read Lord of the Flies.

By dinner time she had managed to get through half of the chapters that they had already read as a class and was just about finished the questions for chapter three. She actually managed to finish catching up on her Language Arts work after dinner, then began to read through the surprisingly thick booklet of photocopied notes that she had been given during Chemistry that day. Using them she managed to get a few of the assignments done, but wasn't even half done when she gave up and went to bed.

The next day at the start of lunch, Elena discovered that she had forgotten her wallet in the car and went out to grab it so that she could buy her lunch. As she locked her car and began to head back towards the school, she spotted the one and only Damon Salvatore. He was standing by himself on the manicured grass of the school's lawn, sneering over at a group of guys who were playing a loud game of tackle football a couple dozen feet away from him. Last year Damon and Stefan had frequently been in that very same group of loud idiots playing football, yet now he seemed to despise each of them for no reason as well. Elena was really starting to get confused about what the hell was wrong with Damon as she walked over to where he was standing.

A/N: Please read and review! :) I already have a little over 50k of this story written, since it was my NaNoWriMo story for this year, so updates should be fairly frequent. I hope that you liked the beginning and thanks for reading :D