ELENA

Dear diary,

it's been 157 days since he...since that day.

They say there are 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Denial has always been my coping mechanism: that summer Stefan left with Klaus I kept thinking, hoping that as soon as he was free from him he would come back to me and everything would be as it was before. Denial and a hint of "Gilbert optimism" as he would call it...that's what has always gotten me through the worst parts of my life-except this time: how the hell am I supposed to pretend or deny that he is gone? He is dead- my best friend, also gone, is the one who told me and there is no way around that.

So I resorted to all the other stages, starting with anger. I can barely remember the first couple of weeks, just a haze of tears, screams and blood because the first thing I did as soon as i realized what happened was tracking Liv down...I know she tried her best, I know she did more than others would have done for a bunch of strangers ( I knew it then too) but anger is blinding and blind I was, and I thought hurting her was the only way of making it right- definetely not my finest or smartest moment. And yet I can't bring myself to fully regret it because it was for him- stupid and cruel for sure, but for him nonetheless.

Jeremy, who has lost as much as I have, directed and is still directing, all his anger towards the spell that keeps us from going home: it's a distraction obviously, his own way of avoiding, but its keeping him and Matt occupied- and it's giving him a purpose in the meantime. The pain will catch up with him eventually and I want to say that i'll be there for him when it does, that I'll be there with words of wisdom and a shoulder to cry on, but being there has not been my strongest suit lately.

Which brings me to the second stage I experienced: bargaining. Rational again ( or so I thought) I looked everywhere I could for a way to bring them back which led me straight back to Liv and the other twin, the only witches i know. Note to self: if you want help from a witch, torturing her first is not the best way to get it, not that there was anything she could have done- she did try after Caroline begged ( she was the one to give her blood to heal the wounds I created, so i guess she felt she owed to her. Or maybe she just wanted to be free of me and my tears/ screams once and for all. It worked, that was the last time I saw Liv).

I guess Stefan is still stuck in that stage: everytime I see him he looks like he is scheming, planning, searching for a way to bring his brother back. That's what kept us united at first- there's no one who loved him as much as we did (do), so we tried to be a team even though we actually never spoke about him. But I lost hope in Stefan, in me- all our plans reminded me that we were missing the key ingredient, the person who got shit done. Him.

That is how I slipped into depression and that's what drove me away from Stefan. Actually it wasn't him I couldn't stand- we wanted the same thing after all, but the more hopeless I got the less I could stand Caroline- and nowadays if there is Stefan, then there is Caroline. It wasn't her fault, really, she was just being her shiny, bright self, but I couldn't handle the light tone in which she spoke about him. Why would she even speak about him? I know she was sad for Bonnie and him, but I was (am) too enveloped in my grief to keep reminding myself that she can't help being bubbly and justifying her inconsiderate remarks. I love Caroline, I admire her and her way of dealing with life but right now we can't be close cause we are too far away emotionally- but she is good for Stefan, a real support system and I'm glad he can lean on her. Thankfully she cares about him enough to know that was he needs now is patience and to not expect much in return- who knew they would get so close? Now they are somewhere, still looking for a way- but I had to stop leading and then following them cause the reality is that he is gone, and I can't stand to get my hopes up anymore.

Am i finally in the acception stage? Have 157 days of pain been enough to get over the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with? The answers are maybe and no. Maybe I finally accepted that he is not coming back- but getting over it, over him? That's just unconceivable. But I can't talk about him, write about him...I can't, so I won't.

Alaric is the only one who gets that... He seems to know what I am going through, what I need. Drinking bourbon with him, in silence, in the living room of his apartment near Whitmore is the only time I remember feeling calm, the only time in which I'm afraid that if i stop moving all the pain I try to run away from will drown me.

But I haven't been honest, even with him... He doesn't know what my new pass-time is.

It started a couple of weeks ago: I was in the Whitmore cafeteria when I turned around and saw a pair of piercing blue eyes. God, they looked so similar to his- they weren't as beautiful, they didn't hold the devotion for him that his did, but if I stared at them long enough I could trick myself into believing that it was his eyes I was seeing. Turns out said eyes belong to Mark, a sweet enough guy with whom I started hanging out from that day forward-along with Jake (smirk), Trevor ( sarcasm) and Sam (OCD with a passion for black leather jackets)... They are nobody to me, they have no idea of who I am or of what I lost and somehow that makes it a lot easier for me to talk to them instead of all the people that knew him. To them I'm just a college girl- they probably think I'm a serial dater... There was also another guy I was talking to ( drove a Camaro) but I dropped any contact once he asked me whose ring I was wearing as a necklace. And that is what i will do as soon as they start to expect something from me... I need to be strong for Jeremy, help Alaric, help Liz- but I don't owe them anything..They are nothing to me.

I said I wasn't in denial and I'm not because I realize that what I am doing is not healthy...but it's been 5 months and nothing else has worked and this small glimpses of him, this small doses of pain/ pleasure, are the only thing that keeps me going right now...Is it so wrong for me to indulge a litlle while putting myself back together? Would he understand? How I wish Katherine hadn't deprived me of the only pictures I had of him...But then, would I have been able to look at them?

How is it possible that I'm avoiding anything real that reminds me about the most real thing I felt and lived in my entire life?

DAMON.

I am Damon Salvatore. I love Elena Gilbert.

This is all I know, all I've ever known...but right now it feels like I don't know it anymore- all those emotions, that reckless passion I was known for, feels like something foreign, distant..It's kind of like a reversed flipped switch: not feeling anything gives me calm, peace.

I see her sometimes: flashes of her and her grief and I know it's for me, but I don't know what grief is anymore. I want to make it stop, I don't want her to be in pain...But I can't do anything anymore, I don't even know if I am something...is this what death feels like?