CHAPTER ONE.
It was sunny in Mystic Falls, which on a regular day wouldn't be out of the ordinary, but there had been a low gloom that hung over the town for quite a while. Elena didn't want to get out of bed. Actually she rarely wanted to get out of bed anymore. There had been too much loss in her life, and she didn't know how to cope with it all. Today, of all days was difficult for her, it was the day her parents and her brother had driven off the old bridge and died. Elena had always felt as though she was to mourn them extra on this day, but found that her heart could only contain, and therefore expunge, so much pain, and mourning.
She had Jenna. Her aunt, who had become the only person as of late who she could turn to. Jenna understood this missing and longing that had Elena all huddled in bed. Jenna worried about her, cared about her, loved her. She would be incomplete without her now, and Jenna knew it. It had been hard for her… To learn to raise a teenager while just barely being an adult herself. Jenna could remember the day she got the call, the call that told her she was all Elena had left and visa versa. She had rushed back to Mystic Falls, leaving her hopes of a degree and a life behind; to comfort and take care of the only member of her family who remained alive.
It had been three years. Elena couldn't tell if it passed slowly, or quickly... There were some moments which she revisited that seemed to flash by and others that seemed to lull on and on. There were even some moments which seemed hazy, and misplaced but she couldn't tell why. Jenna poked her head in the room, jostling Elena out of her reverie.
"How are you feeling?" Jenna asked somberly, coming in and taking a seat on the edge of the bed. She looked down at the Elena before her, this shell like person who used to be so full of life giving joy… Who was now just an empty shell of the person she used to be. How much loss was one person expected to endure before they shut everything and everyone out completely? Jenna didn't know and she wasn't entirely keen to find out either.
"I know today is a day where you don't feel like doing anything," Jenna began, reaching a hand over to gently stroke Elena's face, "God knows that I don't… But you've got to get up sweetie, you've got to face today with me because I can't do it alone." She had nearly choked on her own tears. But it was true, for all intents and purposes, Elena was the only person who could help Jenna get through today. Through every day. Elena was the last living connection to her sister that she had, and she couldn't, wouldn't survive today without her.
Elena looked up from her pillows, and looked at her aunt's face. Her aunt who had always been so brave and so happy, so carefree… Whose face was now lined with tears, and wrinkled with worry. The accident had done this to her, changed her… Aged her in ways that her young soul had not been prepared for. Was it the accident? Or was it how Elena had been acting in the three years since the accident? Elena didn't know. And she was incredibly reluctant to find out. She sat up, and reached her arms out to embrace this woman who had learned to care for her even in her desperation to not be cared for.
Jenna almost leapt into her arms, and in that moment Elena felt warmth inside her. A warmth that had been gone for three years, a warmth that she had tried to find again in the arms of Stephan Salvatore. A warmth that she had tried to find in his brother Damon. The warmth of love, need, compassion… the warmth of human companionship.
Everything since the accident had begun to feel less and less human, less and less regular. More supernatural, more dark, more evil and for Elena; more alone. She recounted every night she's spent with Stephan, indulging herself in physical intimacy that didn't fill the void, saying three words to him that she hadn't meant to keep him around. Elena hadn't been afraid of losing his love, no. She had been afraid of losing him. Losing another 'person' in her life, of handing up the only individual she could talk to… Of losing the only connection that had started to make her life feel worth living again.
Of course there had been Damon as well, but it had been different with him… She could have loved Damon, realistically if she thought hard enough about it. He did have some redeeming qualities. But what Elena liked so much about him was that he liked to be reckless- Just enough to spark her interest. Damon was different than his brother that way, Stephan was too controlled, too absolute. It went against all of Elena's human nature to be with someone with his personality. Good girls love bad boys right?
But truthfully Elena loved neither of them. Perhaps she couldn't. Something in the pairing with them didn't feel right. It wasn't right.
Elena let go of Jenna, realizing that she had been holding on for far longer than necessary. Her own eyes mirrored Jenna's; Tear stained and bereft for love of someone (or someones) who were not ever to return. Poor Jenna, in all of this she had been so blind to the crazy goings on in Mystic Falls… The unnaturalness of it all. Elena wondered how she was so oblivious to it all; how all regular humans were.
Jenna started to speak but Elena was too lost in her thoughts to notice… Ignorance is bliss. And once you knew the kind of things that Elena knew, you would never know bliss again. Sleep stopped coming easy to her a long time ago. Perhaps four or so months since her parents and brother had died it started (or stopped depending on the way you look at it). She would sleep for either two hours or fifteen, there was no in between for her. And the hours where rest was the primary goal, were restless and riddled with dreams turned nightmare.
She couldn't remember the amount of times that she had dreamt of that night, of all the things that could have been if she had just stayed home that night… If she hadn't ditched her family to go to some stupid bonfire. She stopped counting the number of times she'd watched the car plunge into the watery depths of the river in her dreams. Dreams so real she could almost taste the unfiltered pungent flavour of it, like she could feel the splash and hear the 'plunk' as it fully submerged, ripping the air, and life from her family. Sometimes her dreams placed her in the car with her family, and she began to drown along with them.
In a way she would have preferred that fate, death with her family, versus a life without- Elena would choose death every time. She welcomed it really; death. To be fair she had tried, many times to kill herself. In the first two months it had only been at the sight or mention of the bridge that she felt the urge to be re united with her family. In the first year it became a constant desire- to not exist. To be dead. The second year, she had met Stephan. A beautiful distraction from all of the pain and anguish she had been holding on to.
And here she was Year Three, alone again. Certainly without a death wish, but alone never the less…