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about every little detail, anxious that Elena's col ege career wouldn't start off perfectly without her there to supervise. It was al because Aunt Judith loved her, Elena knew.

Elena slammed the blue-velvet-covered journal shut and dropped it into an open box. She climbed to her feet and headed for the door, but before she opened it, she turned to look at her room one last time.

It was so empty, with her favorite posters missing from the wal s and half the books gone from her bookcase. Only a few clothes remained in her dresser and closet. The furniture was al stil in place. But now that the room was stripped of most of her possessions, it felt more like an impersonal hotel room than the cozy haven of her childhood.

So much had happened here. Elena could remember cuddling up with her father on the window seat to read together when she was a little girl. She and Bonnie and Meredith - and Caroline, who had been her good friend, too, once - had spent at least a hundred nights here tel ing secrets, studying, dressing for dances, and just hanging out. Stefan had kissed her here, early in the morning, and disappeared quickly when Aunt Judith came to wake her.

Elena remembered Damon's cruel, triumphant smile as she invited him in that first time, what felt like a mil ion years ago. And, not so long ago, her joy when he had appeared here one dark night, after they al thought he was dead.

There was a quiet knock at the door, and it swung open.

Stefan stood in the doorway, watching her.

"About ready?" he said. "Your aunt is a little worried.

She thinks you're not going to have time to unpack before orientation if we don't get going."

Elena stood and went over to wrap her arms around him. He smel ed clean and woodsy, and she nestled her head against his shoulder. "I'm coming," she said. "It's just hard to say good-bye, you know? Everything's changing." Stefan turned toward her and caught her mouth softly in a kiss. "I know," he said when the kiss ended, and ran his finger gently along the curve of her bottom lip. "I'l take these boxes down and give you one more minute. Aunt Judith wil feel better if she sees the truck getting packed up."

"Okay. I'l be right down."

Stefan left the room with the boxes, and Elena sighed, looking around again. The blue flowered curtains her mother had made for her when Elena was nine stil hung over the windows. Elena remembered her mother hugging her, her eyes a little teary, when her baby girl told her she was too big for Winnie the Pooh curtains.

Elena's own eyes fil ed with tears, and she tucked her hair behind her ears, mirroring the gesture her mother had used when she was thinking hard. Elena was so young when her parents died. Maybe if they'd lived, she and her mother would be friends now, would know each other as equals, not just as mother and daughter.

Her parents had gone to Dalcrest Col ege, too. That's where they'd met, in fact. Downstairs on top of the piano sat a picture of them in their graduation robes on the sun-fil ed lawn in front of the Dalcrest library, laughing, impossibly young.

Maybe going to Dalcrest would bring Elena closer to them. Maybe she'd learn more about the people they'd been, not just the mom and dad she'd known when she was little, and find her lost family among the neoclassical buildings and the sweeping green lawns of the col ege.

She wasn't leaving, not real y. She was moving forward.

Elena set her jaw firmly and headed out of her room, clicking off the light as she went.

Downstairs, Aunt Judith, her husband, Robert, and Elena's five-year-old sister, Margaret, were gathered in the hal , waiting, watching Elena as she came down the stairs.

Aunt Judith was fussing, of course. She couldn't keep stil ; her hands were twisting together, smoothing her hair, or fiddling with her earrings. "Elena," she said, "are you sure you've packed everything you need? There's so much to remember." She frowned.

Her aunt's obvious anxiety made it easier for Elena to smile reassuringly and hug her. Aunt Judith held her tight, relaxing for a moment, and sniffed. "I'm going to miss you, sweetheart."

"I'l miss you, too," Elena said, and squeezed Aunt Judith closer, feeling her own lips tremble. She gave a shaky laugh. "But I'l be back. If I forgot anything,