AN: Hey, so this is my first fanfiction, though I write a ton. Please review and let me know what you think! Rated M for strong language and smut in later scenes.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. The Vampire Diaries and all characters within belong to their respective owners. I'm just borrowing for a bit
Room 515
Chapter One
Elena
It was pitch black outside, and I hadn't moved for hours. I just sat on the window seat in my room and tried to forget. The streetlights came on, flickering at first then lighting up my street with a blinding light. I knew they came on at 11:00 PM, but didn't bother double-checking the clock. I pulled my favorite, huge, oversized sweatshirt over my knees as I curled them to my chest. I wanted to cry, sob and scream until I passed out. But I couldn't. I couldn't do anything. I didn't just want to cry. I wanted to get angry, really truly angry. I had been mad a lot lately, but not how I wanted. I wanted blinding rage, because feeling rage was the first step to feeling, period.
When the person you love more than anything dies, they take a piece of you with them, and you'll do anything to live again without them. The sadness is infinite. You are broken without them, and like a little girl's broken music box, you just repeat the same sad song and spin in circles until someone finally just throws you in the trash.
I wanted someone to love me, the kind of love you see in movies and books. A strong passionate romance that was wild and untamed and true. But no, all I had was another friend I didn't need. Another person offering help and support I didn't want. I was sick of people saying, "I'm sorry". Sorry couldn't fix the past. Sorry couldn't make me happy. Sorry was a stupid fucking excuse for people who couldn't do anything. I hated it when people told me they were sorry. Sorry for what? Why are you apologizing because I am fucked up? Sorry was just a shorter version of "I pity you".
The sorrys haunted me, like a nightmare you can never wake up out of. Sorry was what my mom said a week after she slammed my head in a door.. I would rather people say "sucks for you" or anything other than sorry. I had enough of sorrys to last a lifetime and all I wanted now was for someone to say, "Okay, your life is totally fucked up. So what are you going to do about it?"
I wanted a challenge from a total stranger cause whenever I told myself that, it never worked. The people who love me are too involved. Fuck them. I could run away with a random person and never look back. Even life with a complete stranger would be better than this.
Sometimes I wondered to myself why I didn't just end it all. At first I thought it was because I was too afraid to hurt the people I loved, but whom was I kidding? I hurt them a little more each time I sunk a blade into my skin. I was just too selfish to let the people I loved go.
My brother Jeremy got home at midnight every night. After about a month I stopped asking where he went. The answer was always the same. "Nowhere". My mom came home around 2:30 am. Sometimes later if she found other bars still open at that hour, other times the bartenders let her stay a little late. She had become one of the local bar's best customers lately.
I wish dad were still alive. When dad was here I was never sad, Jeremy was home at 10:00 every night, the only alcohol mom ever had was a glass of wine at dinner on Sunday nights. He kept our family together, sometimes only by a string but we always figured it out.
A family cannot live after a member takes their own life. He was my best friend, and one day he took himself from me, and everyone else who loved him. He was charismatic, and charming, and funny, but like all stars, he burned bright until he imploded, and was just a flash of brilliant light in our memories. And all of us who happened to be caught up in his orbit were left floating in space without a source of light to guide us.
I can remember the day I found out too well. I wanted to forget the tears of my mother, the forlorn face of the school guidance counselor, the glassy eyes of my brother. Jeremy wasn't the same after that. He was the one who found dad, hanging in his and mom's old bedroom. The old bastard didn't even have the courtesy to leave a note.
Jeremy started staying out late ever since the funeral. He would go out in the morning for school and not come back until the last trace of the day was gone and a new one was about to start. Jeremy always came home totally wasted and smelling like weed and cigarette smoke. I tried talking to him, forcing him to do things, threatening him. Nothing worked; Jeremy wasn't talking to anyone anymore.
I shuddered and shook away the bad memories, rebuilding the walls around myself. After that day I vowed to never bring out those memories again. I hadn't since. People tried to get me to talk about it, but I shut them out.
Caroline wasn't there when it happened. Since it was in July she was at summer camp. She wrote me tons of letters when her mom told her though, but for a while it was just Matt and I wasting the summer away. It was the last summer of childhood.
Jeremy poked his head into my room.
"Mom's out cold on the couch. I'm going out."
I didn't acknowledge his message, but he didn't care. He just ducked back out of my room and clomped down the stairs. I waited until he was out the front door before reaching under the cushion of the window seat, reveling in the comforting feel of the razor blade hidden there.
I heard my mom stirring downstairs, and heard footsteps as she merely moved from the couch to her bed. I hated her guts. I hated her for giving up on Jeremy and I. I hated her for not being strong when we needed her. I hated her for doing this to our family. She didn't even care when Jer stayed out all night, or brought drunken girls home. I was disappointed in Jeremy, but could never hate him. He was my little brother. I just wished he would talk to me, to anyone. He stayed silent, high and unreadable.
So I sat trying to fight off the sleep that crept its way into my head. I knew that the minute I closed my eyes that the nightmares would start, and then they would lay dormant in my subconscious until I closed my eyes again.