Counting Down The Days (Counting on Hockey #3)

Chapter 6: I Can't

Warning: minor TVD spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen season four or after.

I don't have a boyfriend anymore, I think. What does any other girl do during a break up? Sit there in front of a TV eating ice cream in her pajamas and listens to sad love songs.

That's not what I'm going to do. Well, I'm not going to listen to sad love songs, but I will eat some ice cream. I mean, who passes up that opportunity. And, well, no pajamas. I haven't gone upstairs yet since I got home from classes. So, I'm sitting here in the clothes I wore today.

In my mind as I scroll through the TV on this Wednesday night, I make a list of all the movies I can no longer watch because they remind me of Cole. The heat (our first date), The Breakfast Club (the day of our first kiss), Unstoppable (his favorite movie), and the list goes on and on. Let alone hockey, in which I don't have the guts to watch his team, or any team in his division of the league play. The only game I've bared to watch so far is a rerun from last season, Bruins play the Ducks. Bruins lost in OT.

I finally decide on reruns of The Vampire Diaries. Season four, I think, maybe season five, or season three, I really have no idea. Stefan and Elena are fighting about something in the school gym, then she starts crying and Stefan hugs her. She cries in his arms for a while, then, the episode ends.

"Meredith?" I hear a voice coming from the front door through the screen, since it's nice out. I get up from the couch and mute the TV.

The screen door opens as I walk into the foyer. Around the corner, the guy walks in. I smile happily, but soon tears fill my eyes again. I stop. "Noah".

"I'm here, Mere", he walks slowly over to me and wraps his arms around me. I move my arms from under his and they go around his back, locking them in place, clasping my fingers together. He runs his hand over the back of my hair. "It's okay".

"Noah", I unwrap his arms from around me. "Why aren't you on his side? He's your best friend. You known him since you were little".

"Because he broke up with you. If you broke up with him, I would be hugging him right now", the last part made me laugh a little, on how he said it. "So. What do we need to talk about?"

"How perfect Cole was", I reply.

"That's not how we get over a guy you were with for five years", Noah says back sarcastically. I smile a little.

"Why didn't he fight for me?" I cry into Noah's shoulder.

"He just fought too hard for you, Princess", he replies.

"Noah, that doesn't even make sense", I say to him as we walk into the living room. He sits on the couch and I start to pace back and forth in front of the TV.

"Mere. I know this isn't what you want to hear, but he did", Noah looks at me. "When you lived in Chicago, he fought so hard. Everyone told him that you and him were never going to make it and you were never going to see each other again. He fought against every single one of his friends to tell them how much he loves you. You have to believe me. I know you fought for him, too. But some fights aren't meant to be won".

"I fought just as hard. I was emancipated for him. I moved away from my parents, for him. I moved into a house in which I never stayed in before, moved my entire new life from Chicago, went to a college that I liked, but I had others I liked much better, for him!" I stop in the middle of the room, staring at Noah.

"Then you're stronger than he is, and you deserve someone who can fight just as hard. So, please, Mere. Forget about Cole. You have me, your best-est friend in the whole world. You like me more than you like your sister sometimes", he tries to make me smile. "Go get another spoon. We are going to need it if we are going to eat ice cream".

~~~~~~~~~~

"No. Stefan is Silas's doppelgänger. And Elena is Katherine's doppelgänger. The travelers need the blood of each doppelgänger to start a home in Mystic Falls", I try to explain to Noah.

"But why can't they have a home?" he asks again. I've already explained this to him a million times.

"Because they are Travelers. The definition of that word in the show is, someone can not settle in a permanent home. But if they do the spell with the blood, they will be able to shut out all other mystical creatures of the town and the Travelers will finally have a permanent home", I reply.

We continue on watching the Vampire Diaries. Noah asks questions over and over, some points just to annoy me. But it's keeping my mind off of the whole break up, and this is just what I needed.

Noah is my best friend. He is everything to me. With no Cole, Noah is the only thing I have left from high school. They were my only good friends, Noah and Cole. But I always knew something would happen, it was in the back of my mind. I never wanted to believe anything bad would happen to the three of us.

But it did. And nothing is going to help anymore. Nothing but Noah.