title: paper thin promises
summary: because she was selfless with every other person but him.
notes: this is inspired by some quote i heard that goes like this: "it's painful to say goodbye to someone you don't want to let go, but even more painful to ask someone to stay when you know they want to leave." again, kind of a follow up to last week's episode in the last few lines.
.
.
.
The shadows dappled the sheets spread around her, and she couldn't help but stare blankly at her door.
She felt incapable of anything, of feeling any more than she already felt in these past few months. Everything hurt, everything felt broken, hanging there by some tangible thread threatening to snap. She rolled to face the window, eyes set on somewhere beyond this house and time.
Then the door creaked open, and she held her breath. It opened wider, and instinctively she rolled over, hair cascading across the pillows and the angles of her shoulders, pooling on the pristine sheets.
She appeared ethereal, with wide eyes and a blank stare.
"Elena." He hung hesitantly at the edge of the door frame and shared the same wide eyes as her – but his were searching, searching to find something in hers that she knew was not there.
"It hurts, Damon," she said, her voice breaking, straining on his name. She sat up as he walked over simultaneously. She reached her arms over his shoulders, burying them in his shirt, and her face found the crook of his neck.
And she cried, cried because she was scared, and she'd been trying way too long to let it go then keep it together all at once. And it just wasn't possible, not for anyone. She couldn't start over when nothing had changed.
Even this action made her throat swell and her heart hurt because she could not yet give him what he wanted. She was curled here in his arms, taking but not giving.
She was selfless with every other person but him.
It wasn't fair, and she tried to tell him sorry, but he just shook his head. And when she had finished crying and her face appeared to meet his, she couldn't ask him to stay.
She just couldn't.
But in the end as he tucked her under the sheets and brushed her hair back from her face with gentle, practiced fingers, she grabbed his hand, eyes shining.
"Can you sleep here tonight?"
She tried to read his eyes, but he turned his head towards the sheets, pulling them back and slipping in. She made sure not to touch him, to not make it harder for him that it already was.
And she tried to tell herself that one day she would be able to make up for it all.
For she hadn't been the one to say it, but he – it just wasn't the right time.