The river has run wild tonight.
I entered the boarding house and went straight to my bourbon. While I was walking towards my room I realized there was someone there. I didn't even had to look to know who it was. I could recognize that scent anywhere. How dare she come here after everything she did to me?
"Very brave of you to come here," I said and turned around to see her sitting in the couch. My heart skipped a beat when I saw her and I hoped she didn't hear it. She was as beautiful as always.
"I wanted to say goodbye," Katherine said looking serious. What? She was already leaving? I finally had her again and she was leaving me? Then I had to remember myself that she was never mine and she had left me once, she could do it again whenever she wanted.
"Leaving so soon?" I asked, pretending I didn't care but I knew she could see right through me.
"I know when I'm not wanted," she answered looking a little disappointed. What? The bitch thought she could leave and then come back and have us wrapped around her little finger again? Because that's exactly what was happening. At least to me. It only took me one look in her face for all the feelings I've been fighting to hide come back.
"Don't pout. It's not attractive in a woman in your age," I said and drank the rest of my bourbon. I could see in her eyes that my remark surprised her but she only replied with an: "Ouch."
I turned around to leave the room but she appeared in front of me.
"What? No goodbye kiss?" She asked. Was she serious? Couldn't she see how much she had hurt me? Couldn't she leave me alone?
"What don't I kill you instead?" I threatened, even though I knew I could never do that. When didn't get an answer I asked her what she was doing here.
"Nostalgic, curiosity, etc." I knew I wouldn't get a straight answer. Katherine wouldn't tell her plans to anyone. Especially not me.
"I'm better at the enigmatic one liners, Katherine," I retorted, even though I knew it was another lie. She was the one who taught me that. "What you're up to?"
"Trust me, Damon, when I'm up to something you'll know it." Oh, if there was one thing I trusted about her it was that. "Come on. Kiss me or kill me. Which one will it be Damon? Cause we both know you're only capable of one," she said, getting closer to me.
She was getting under my skin too fast and too hard for me to stop her. She was breaking all of my carefully constructed walls and she knew it. The worst part was that she knew it. She knew it all. She knew how much I loved her. She knew I missed her for 145 years and where I was the whole time. She knew what to get to me because she knew me. Every part of me.
I turned around because I knew that if I didn't I would've kissed her. She vamped in front of me and pushed me to the ground. I knew I couldn't resist her for much longer. She was on top of me and all of the memories from 1864 were coming way back to me.
"My sweet, innocent Damon," she said, looking into my eyes. She didn't know how wrong she was. I haven't been sweet or innocent in a very long time. While she was gone I became a serial killer. Like she was. I did every little thing she had taught me. I followed each one of her steps because that was one of the many ways I found to be closer to her.
I turned us around and in a split second I was on top of her, my hand on her throat with an unsaid threat. I looked at her face. God, she was so beautiful. She and Elena might share the same face but there was something about her that made her so much more beautiful. Maybe it was the mischievous glint in her eyes while Elena's eyes looked so innocent and confused all the time. Looking into those eyes, my suspicious were confirmed. I would never be able to kill her. I loved her. I loved her more than anything in this world. I would give anything for her to love me. Even Stefan. Even Elena. And I hated that.
But I kissed her anyway. How many nights had I spent awake dreaming of kissing her like that? How many times had I kissed a girl wishing it was Katherine? I mean, there was the kiss in the porch but I thought it was Elena. Katherine is a very good actress, by the way. She even changed the way she kissed to a more Elena way of kissing. More innocent. Because Katherine's kiss was nothing innocent. It was hot and passionate and I could always sense a little love in it. Love. Stefan always had said it wasn't real. I couldn't believe that. Sure, Katherine was manipulative and liar but I knew she hadn't compelled me. Maybe once or twice but not to love her. I did that by myself. But what about her? Was it real for her?
In the midst of my mental disarrange, we continued to kiss. She pushed me against the wall and I ripped her shirt. I breathed her in and suddenly I was on a lemon and ginger cloud. Her scent was absolutely amazing. It always has been. I missed it. I missed her. I loved her. That was all I could think about. I needed to know the truth.
"Wait, wait. Brief pause" I said breathlessly stopping the make out session. She pushed me off of her and by the strength she used I could tell she wasn't pleased by the pause. "I have a question. Answer it and it's back to the fireworks and rockets' red glare. Answer it right and I'll forget the 145 years I've spent missing you, I'll forget how much I loved you, I'll forget everything and we can start over. This can be our defining moment because we have the time. It's the beauty of eternity. I just need the truth, just once." While I made this little speech I approached her, lovingly placing my hands on her face. God, she was breathtaking.
"Stop," she said raising her hand to stop me. "I already know the question and its answer." I was afraid. I was never so afraid in my life. I pleaded, begged her with my eyes. I truly didn't know what I would do if it was all a lie.
"The truth is I've never loved you."
My brain went blank. She never loved me. Katherine Pierce – Katerina Petrova, like she had told me all those years back – never loved Damon Salvatore. I was still hoping it was a joke, a really bad joke, but she never looked more serious than right there
"It was always Stefan."
It was like she had just ripped my heart out. No, it was worst. Because while your heart is being pulled out, it hurts, but the pain ceases once it's out. But the pain I felt when I heard Katherine saying it was never me, that it was Stefan, would never leave me. I'd have to carry that pain forever. I looked into her eyes, searching for any hint of lie. Searching for anything. But all I could find was the truth, her words playing on his head over and over. It was excruciating.
Katherine freed herself from me and had the decency to leave the house. I couldn't bring myself to think because if I thought about this I would have a huge Stefan-like breakdown and I didn't want to. I would do what I always did: drink and ignore my feelings.
Half an hour is a really long time when you're about to have a huge breakdown. I had been drinking in the house for half an hour and there was no minute, no second, the phrases "I've never loved you" and "it was always Stefan" didn't replay on my mind like an annoying broken record. But that was my life. A broken record. I fall in love with a girl, do everything for her and she chooses my little brother. Always. And that was so fucking unfair. I loved Katherine with everything I had and yet she chose Stefan. He didn't even had to try, he just had to be Stefan. I was the one who loved her the most, I was the one who did everything for her, I was the one who died for her, I was the one who missed her for 145 years and I was the one who did everything in my power to get her out of that fucking tomb just to find out she was never really there. How could she? How could she be so heartless and so cold to someone who loved her so much? How could that bitch do this to him?
I thought so much about it that there was a point where I almost turned it off. Because after everything the bitch had done to me I still loved her. I would never stop. Okay, I felt something for Elena, but even though I didn't know exactly what it was, I was pretty sure it was nothing close to what I felt towards Katherine. It never would be. I threw my glass in the fire in anger.
Anger. Exactly. I wouldn't turn it off or have an emotion breakdown. I was going to explode. That's what I do when my feelings overwhelm me. Funny, every single time my feelings overwhelmed me Katherine had a finger on it. Every single time. That bitch had seriously fucked up my life just like she had fucked me up. I hated it that I couldn't bring myself to hate her. Why couldn't she stay away? Why? Did she really have to come back here just to shove it on my face that she loved Stefan? Katherine destroyed my life and my after-life, cause I was sure as hell that wouldn't be such a murderer if it wasn't for her, even I had become a vampire. Not that I don't like being a murderer, now that I'm used to it I couldn't think of any other way to live Seriously, what's wrong with Stefan? But still. And now that I was finally healing and getting over her with a little help from Elena, the bitch had come back and destroyed my life all over again. Every time there's something even slightly related to Katherine the river ran wild. And somehow I was always the one who was taken away by the flow. This had to stop.
At that moment I decided I would bring myself to love Elena. Fully love her, like I loved Katherine. The only way I would let Katherine go is if I had a better, more caring and loving, selfless version of Katherine. Don't take me wrong, I would never make Elena the bitch's replacement, she meant a lot to me. I already had feelings for her I just needed to shut off whatever Katherine-loving cells in my body so I could focus on Elena and Elena only. And I was gonna start that right now. I drained the rest of my bourbon then took my jacket and headed to Elena's. My love now. My only love, I repeated to myself over and over again. It had a weird ring to it. Yeah, it would take me some time to get used to it.