Caroline's happy. She really is. She has everything she's ever wanted. She's getting married for God's sake but she still can't seem to shake the feeling in her gut that something's wrong. And she tries, boy does she try, but something is wrong. The ring, beautiful and glittering on her finger, seems to weigh her down the more she examines it.
She's laying next to Stefan on a stormy night when the nagging burns deep into her heart. She's happy. She repeats it at least three times a day but this feeling, this sensation isn't letting up. It's an ache she hasn't felt in a while. It feels as if she's missing something detrimental to her being.
Stefan's asleep beside her, and she can't help but gaze at him because she loves him, she really does. She's fought for this moment, this exact moment to be able to lay beside him, to be able to call him hers. Somehow that doesn't feel enough. It doesn't seem…right.
Because before she can stop herself she's remembering their first encounter and her June wedding comment and she wants to smile, she wants the happiness that accompanies that memory to spread through her but it doesn't. It stays in her mind, like an offhand thought.
Another feeling does instead and when she thinks back to that moment again she sees another face, another memory. It's Tyler. His dimples shine as he smiles at her across the quad in his football jersey. The moment seems too long ago (almost like another life) but she can still smell the light breeze and see the way his eyes light up when he spots her. A deep ache enters her chest. An ache she hasn't allowed herself to feel since the last time she's seen him. Her hand falls away from Stefan slowly, a line forming as her lips turn down into a frown.
Tyler Lockwood is still the love of her life. Be the love of my life! The remembrance of that fact makes her cheeks burn and her throat sting. Why now? She asks herself. Why think of this now? But she doesn't have a logical answer. All she has is this new/old feeling. The one where her world's caving in and she doesn't know how to stop or control it.
Turning her back to Stefan she closes her eyes trying to return to the happiness she felt the moment he slid the ring onto her finger but her mind tricks her. She's back on the porch of her mother's house. The night Tyler came to apologize for not standing up for her. For almost letting his friends hurt her. Caroline's back there again, with a gun pointed at her head.
There's a burning sensation in her chest, it's deafening, overbearing and she feels tears prickle her throat. Feels the broken pieces of her heart that Stefan hasn't been able to access open once more. They're Tylers' and they'll always be. She curls into a ball with her arms wrapped protectively around herself, scooting further away from Stefan and further away from this little life she's created with him.
Because she knows that no matter how hard she tries, Tyler Lockwood will always be the love her life. One tear drops on to her pillow and then another, and another.
I'm not moving on from anything. I love you. The words vibrate through her body and it's like she's in that moment again. Like she's standing there with him, his hands grasping hers desperately, his eyes pleading with her not to leave, not to give up on him.
She realizes then all he's ever wanted was for someone to be there. All he asked of her was to be there and she couldn't…wouldn't was more fitting; she wouldn't be there. She balls a fist into her mouth to stop the sobs from coming. She doesn't want to wake Stefan. She doesn't want him knowing where her mind is, or her heart because Caroline is finally the girl who everyone picks. She's finally who Stefan picks.