The Beautiful Monster

Alyssa felt her blood run cold. She told herself not to be jealous of Stella and Elias getting close. It didn\'t matter.

Maybe she wasn\'t even meant to be with Elias, and she wasn\'t going to keep him from being with anyone.

She just wasn\'t sure how she felt about Elias talking to Stella about them.

"We had a conversation," she merely said.

"He told you about who he is," Stella said, pushing a little more.

Alyssa felt her jaw tighten slightly when she realized that Stella knew that Elias was a vampire too.

Did that mean that Stella was a vampire too? It wouldn\'t surprise her.

"You know who he is?" Alyssa asked her.

Stella smiled and shrugged.

"We were very close friends," she replied. "I\'m glad we\'re starting to get back to that point now."

Alyssa almost rolled her eyes. It was obvious that Stella was trying to rub all of this in Alyssa\'s face, but she wasn\'t going to take the bait and act upset.

She was going to be calm and figure out why Stella was really here.

"Yes, he told me who he is. What about it?" Alyssa asked, wondering what point Stella was trying to make by bringing all of this up.

"Well, I care a lot about Elias, and I just wanted to make sure that you wouldn\'t repeat what he told you. His parents wouldn\'t be happy," Stella replied.

Alyssa wanted to scoff so badly. She would never repeat anything that Elias told her, but it looked like Elias ran his mouth a little.

Had he told Stella about her. She hoped that he hadn\'t. She didn\'t want Stella knowing anything about her.

"I would never say anything. I don\'t want him to get in trouble or get hurt," Alyssa replied as she shook her head.

Stella lifted her eyebrows out of interest.

"Oh, good. Sounds like you care about him too," she said, poking around some more.

Alyssa didn\'t know how to answer that. She did care about Elias, but she didn\'t want to say it in a way that made Stella think that she was competing.

Alyssa wasn\'t competing. Elias could have whoever he wanted, and Alyssa might not want him anyway. She felt her face heat up.

"We just have history," she merely said.

"So do we. A lot. I can\'t tell you all the things we\'ve done together," Stella said with a light laugh.

"You\'ll have to ask him about us sometime. He can tell you all our best stories."

There was no way in hell that Alyssa was going to do that. She wanted to avoid the topic of Elias and Stella\'s friendship as much as she could.

"Yeah, totally," Alyssa said with a faint laugh. There were so many people and factors involved in her life right now. She didn\'t know how she was going to juggle all of them.

She had to look out for Scott, figure things out with Elias, avoid Stella, and still keep her job and life afloat. It was already becoming overwhelming for her.

Stella scooted closer to Alyssa, adopting that sweet expression again.

"You know, if you need a friend, I\'m here. Elias told me so much about you," she said.

There it was. So, Elias had been running his mouth about her. Alyssa withheld a sigh. She would have to talk to him about that.

She wanted her life to be her own, and he could have his life. He didn\'t need to drag her into anything because she was already in a bad situation just for being associated with him.

"Oh, he hadn\'t told me anything about you," Alyssa said. Then again, Elias hadn\'t mentioned anyone from his past to her.

He kept all of that secret, along with almost everything else about her life. She should\'ve known that he was hiding something huge, but she had been so in love that she hardly questioned it.

Stella shrugged.

"Well, you guys were together. It might\'ve been weird for him to talk about me," she replied with an almost sly look.

"Why\'s that? I thought you two were just friends," Alyssa asked, narrowing her eyes slightly in confusion.

It seemed like Stella was hinting at the possibility of there being more history between her and Elias.

Stella laughed faintly.

"I guess we were a little more than that. We were really close," she said.

It seemed like Stella was teasing her with the details, but Alyssa wasn\'t going to fall for that and pry.

She had to act as uninterested as possible. Then, Stella would back off of this whole act. It was starting to get annoying.

"Well, at least you guys are back to being friends again," Alyssa said, plastering a fake smile of her own onto her face.

She decided to take matters into her own hands to end this conversation. She looked at her phone and faked a wince. "Oh, shoot. I need to head to work soon."

Luckily, Stella took a hint and stood up.

"Well, it was nice talking to you. I\'m sure we\'ll see each other soon," Stella said as she walked over to the door.

"Yeah," Alyssa said, hoping that wasn\'t true. She could go her whole life without seeing Stella again, and she would be happy.

She knew that she was thinking a bit mean, but something about Stella didn\'t feel right.

Something about her really dug under Alyssa\'s skin. After all these years, she finally started listening to her gut.

Stella paused at the door and turned to face her.

"Your silence is appreciated," she said before heading out of the apartment.

Alyssa narrowed her eyes as she watched Stella walk out. She wondered what Stella meant by that.

She quickly shut her door and locked it, sighing as she shook her head. She wished that her life could be normal for once.

She didn\'t want to deal with vampires and old friends. She just wanted to be a doctor and live her life, but it looked like things weren\'t going to be that simple anymore.

Elias was back, which meant trouble was back too.