I found myself lying in the center of the road, of all places.
I mean I knew I was completely and utterly hammered. And bad things usually happened when I was drunk. I ended up in Elena's room killing her brother and making a complete and utter ass of myself, and before Elena I had usually come to after a night of drinking surrounded by a bunch of drained and dead hookers.
But tonight I was in the middle of a road, and for the life of me I could not remember why, or how, I had gotten here. I only knew I was drunk and, to my dismay, I was pondering. Pondering my life and the choices I'd made in it, the regret and despair and everything I could never have back. I hadn't thought about stuff like this for a hundred years and I hated it.
It hurt. It hurt a whole damn lot.
The familiar flash of car headlights fell upon me, and I struggled to open my eyes before squeezing them shut again, the light proving too much for me. This was painfully familiar, reminding me too much of how I was before, how I would spend nights getting run over by cars, laying in ditches or faking an injury so I could feed and kill. How that was all my life was, it was so easy then…
I heard a car door push open and someone exit the car. It was a woman, I could tell by the slight click of her heels on the pavement. I lay still, hoping she'd maybe just go away, or run me over, do something to not bother me but at the same time get rid of the seemingly endless misery I was feeling.
"Sir are you ok?" she asked, and I could hear the urgency and fear in her voice. Stupid humans, always asking questions when they already had the answer. I was quite obviously not ok, no man ever questioning the very meaning of his life was.
I heard her tapping on a cell phone and groaned. I didn't need to deal with the sheriff or any other authority figures tonight.
"What happened?" she gasped.
I moaned and moved my head, trying to look up at her and failing. It was just too heavy for me to lift. What had happened? Nothing made sense any more, nothing was right. My entire way of life had been uprooted due to one girl, and no matter how hard I tried I was never good enough. I couldn't be good enough. It hurt to try, it wasn't what I was. Somewhere along the way, the Damon Salvatore of the past hundred and fifty years had disappeared, and a new one was taking place inside my body, tearing and clawing and doing all the damage he could do to me until he reached the surface. "I'm…" I paused, searching for the right words. "Lost," I settled on. I couldn't find myself.
"You're lying in the middle of the road?" she said, and I hated how she made it sound like a question, like she couldn't be sure. It was me that was unsure, me that couldn't have told the girl who I was if she held a stake to my heart. Good or evil, kill or let live, Katherine or Elena, I didn't know. I only knew which choices numbed the pain and which ones set it on fire.
Sighing at her narrow mindedness, I pushed myself into a sitting position. "I'm not that kind of lost," I groaned, looking out into the woods. "Metaphorically." I turned to look at her for the first time and felt a sneer slip onto my face, like it always used to when I spotted a woman that looked like an easy kill. "Existentially."
"Do you need help?" she asked uncertainly.
"Well," I began, fumbling in my pocket. My hand made contact with my flask and I pulled it out, unscrewing the top. "Yes I do. Can you help me?" I said the last bit as sarcastically as I could manage and take a gulp of alcohol. She couldn't help me. No one could help me, not even myself. I was probably better off dying, like Rose.
"You're drunk," she said quietly.
"No. Eh-eh-eh we-yes, a little..maybe," I quickly amended, deciding it was too obvious to hide.
She gave me a look, disgust and fear mingled in her gaze, and began to walk away, back towards her car. "No, please don't leave me," I said quickly, realizing what was happening. I didn't want this girl here, but anything was better than lying on this road and contemplating my non-existence. "I really do need help," I said in a last, desperate plea to make her turn around and come back.
But she kept walking, and before I realized what I was doing I was standing in front of her, grabbing her by the arms and looking straight into her eyes. "Don't move," I ordered.
"I don't want any trouble," she stuttered.
"Neither do I," I laughed. I didn't want trouble. I wanted a lot of things. I wanted my life back, my brother back, Elena, to not feel all the time. Things I could never have. But trouble was easy, it followed me wherever I went, and I didn't want it. "But it's all I got, is trouble."
I raised my flask again, mockingly holding it out towards her before taking another slug. "Why can't I move?" she asked fearfully.
I finished taking my drink and looked at her. Her eyes were large and brown with tears glinting in them, and I had a sudden flashback of someone else's large brown eyes, which only ever teared up because I did something wrong. Attempting a smile I'm sure came out more as a grimace, I set my hands on her shoulders. "What's your name?"
"Jessica," she whimpered.
"Jessica," I repeated. Jessica was nobody important. I'd never met a memorable Jessica before. She wasn't an Elena or a Katherine or a Stefan. She was just some stupid girl who traveled down the wrong empty road at night. I had her here, compelled, and she couldn't get away. I could tell her everything. Just let it all out and it wouldn't matter, because she was nobody, but maybe it would erase my pain and let me go back to the way I had been dealing with life before Rose had died, letting the feelings touch me briefly before I got rid of them and they could truly touch me.
"I have a secret," I said, taking my hands off her shoulders. "I have a big one. But I've never said it out loud! I mean…what's the point? It's not gonna change anything, it's not gonna make me good and adopt a puppy. I can't be what other people want me to be, what she wants me to be." I paused as the words I said out loud sank in. Everyone expected me to do better when I was being the best I could be without dying of pain. Feeling hurt too much, I couldn't do it, and I was being as good as I could while trying to stay away from the feelings but it still hurt. Elena would never accept that this was what I was, neither would Stefan or anyone else. They'd always keep pushing me to keep trying when I just couldn't and it hurt even more because I could feel their disappointment, and me not being able to live up to their standards. I wanted to go back to not feeling or caring, but I didn't know how. "This is who I am, Jessica."
"Are you going to hurt me?" she asked, and I could hear the fear in her voice, the wavering note of her words.
"I'm not sure," I answered truthfully. Because here was my easy way out. If I could kill her, everything could go back to how it was, I could be Damon Salvatore again. But in doing so I would lose my friendship with Elena and my newfound brotherhood with Stefan.
But those things didn't belong to the old Damon—they belonged to the new one. And I hated him for the pain he gave me.
"Because you," I continued, running my hands over her hair. "Are my existential crisis. Do I kill you…or not kill you?"
"Please don't," she begged.
"But I have to Jessica," I protested, and I realized that I did. I had to go back. Keeping these feelings, trying to be better, something that I wasn't, would kill me. I needed to find my old self again, because my dream of what I wanted to be, what I could never be again, and what I wanted more than anything, would only end up hurting me again and again. "Because I'm not human. And I miss it. I miss it more than anything in the world! That is my secret. But there is only so much hurt a man can take…"
"Please don't!"
I stared at her, with the large brown eyes brimming with tears that reminded me so much of Elena. Was I really willing to give up the small amount of progress I had made because of a little pain? Was I really so weak that I couldn't handle what life threw at me without knowing myself and forgetting my feelings? "You're free to go." I told her, making a split second decision. I could keep fighting.
She immediately set off towards her car, walking quickly and not running, which I remember thinking was strange. If she was smart she would have gotten out of there as fast as she could. She was almost like Elena, not really thinking about her own safety. And Elena…Elena never tried for us, for what we could have. She was never going to, no matter how much I tried. And I tried so fucking hard, and all I got was pain…
Suddenly I found myself pinning Jessica to her car, biting into her throat and savagely taking the soft warm blood and she went limp in my arms. I dropped her, stepping away from the discarded body and looking back into the woods.
I still hurt.