He walks slowly up to his front door with his girlfriend supporting his muscle filled body for his weak legs. He pulls out his key and unlocks the front door with only a mild difficulty. She helps him through the front door.
"Thanks for walking me home but aren't I supposed to be the one walking you home?" He jokes with his loving girlfriend.
"Well traditionally, yes, but I am not the drunk one now, am I?" She says winking at her boyfriend. "Besides," she continues. "I can protect myself against anyone who tries to challenge me so really you are the one who should be protected!" she mocks.
"OK, you can stop gloating over your immense power now, Bonnie!" he retorted tickling his girlfriend's sides, playfully.
"OK," she giggles. "I'll stop gloating if you stop tickling me!" He stops his hand movements and just lightly holds them on Bonnie's waist, looking deep into her beautiful green eyes. He slowly leans in to her beautiful lips.
"Jer?" sounds a voice from upstairs, stopping his advancement to the girl's lips. Just his luck.
"Hey, Elena," Bonnie bellows as she realises that she is feeling somewhat frustrated, she shakes it off. "I'm so sorry, we didn't mean to wake you!" she sincerely apologized to her boyfriend's sister who just happened to be her best friend.
"Oh no, you didn't" she walks to the stairs and begins walking down calmly "I was waiting up for Jer to come home so I could see him before I went to…" she stops her mouth from forming her words, weary of saying his name in front of Bonnie.
"Went to…" Bonnie repeats. "Went to… Where Elena?" she questions. "Or more importantly who!" as Elena reaches the bottom of the stares and has her eyes locked with Bonnie's she knows that Bonnie is not actually asking because she knows the answer. She knows that this is just a new way for her to express her disgust at Elena's choice of Salvatore.
"Bonnie!" Jeremy snapped. "Stop it!" he said glaring between the two best friends. "She is just trying to find love and happiness," he continues lecturing his girlfriend. Strangely, instead of looking hurt by his tone she just began to grin.
"Just like we have!" She smirks kissing him lightly and hugging him tightly around his waist whilst looking deep into his deep brown eyes. Seeing her happiness, he allows the corners of his mouth to ever so slightly raise. Seeing the love of his life smile gave his heart, burdened by family drama, ache less.
"Exactly Bon, just like we have." he offers, softly kissing her forehead.
"You are so damned convincing Jer!" Bonnie giggles before nodding to Elena. "Have fun," she musters, still resenting Elena's choice but reminding herself of Jeremy's words.
Elena gives Jeremy an appreciative smile before hugging the couple and softly whispering 'Thank you' in Jeremy's ear. She walks over to the front door, which her drunk brother and his devoted girlfriend neglected to shut, before turning round.
"Happy 17th birthday Jeremy!" she calls and with that she walks out, shutting the door, and drives to see her boyfriend.
Bonnie begins guiding Jeremy up the stairs and toward his room. As she does this he falls deep into thought about how easy everyone had gone on him in the past few weeks. Obviously he knew why. As Jeremy's thoughts begin to deepen, he is slumped onto his bed pulling him out of his mind.
Bonnie kisses her boyfriend deeply and passionately before withdrawing. "C'mon Jer, you should sleep, it's a big day tomorrow…" she reminds him. Of course, it will be Jeremy's first day back at school in a few weeks. "You really do need to sleep off the alcohol," she jokes with him, trying to soothe him to sleep by rubbing his shoulder.
"I don't want to go back to school!" he groans. "No one likes me; I'm just the useless stoner with family problems to all of them jerks!" he continues, raising his voice.
"Oh Jer, I know that it feels that way but it isn't! No one sees you as a useless stoner and people do like you!" she warns.
"Well I don't see why!" he snaps, shocking Bonnie. His morose eyes catch her disheartened ones in a gaze.
"You're just feeling nervous," she attempts to explain his fear and worry. "This night will bring a brighter day, I promise you Jer; things will feel different tomorrow!" Bonnie pauses allowing herself to take a breath, but as she paused it gave Jeremy room to argue with her, breaking her attempts at comfort.
"Just like things did a few weeks ago…" he argues. "Before my accident?" he continues, adding air quotes around the work 'accident'. Bonnie stares bewildered for a few seconds at the meaning of the air quotes before it finally clicked.
"Are you saying that you had an overdose intentionally?" Bonnie worriedly looks deep into Jeremy's brown eyes, seeing into his crumbling soul. He looks away, refusing to answer but this is, of course, an answer in itself.
Bonnie settles herself at his bedside as he turns away from her; she gently begins to stroke his hair. She tries to pull him up to an embrace but he resists and forces her hands away from his head in an attempt to dispel the guilt he felt from his telling movements. As he is pulling away her hands his sleeves roll up, only about an inch, enough, however, for her to catch a glimpse of his scars. She grabs his elbow tight and forces the sleeve up. Her eyes widen at the horrifying site.
She spends what feels like hours staring at his scars, old and new, before she gently runs her fingers over them to feel if they are as deep as they look, which they are. She takes a while to fully digest this shocking information.
Bonnie looks down at Jeremy, her confused eyes meeting his numb ones, she feels a struggle to force the air over her voice box and create speech.
"Jer!?" she bellows, feeling fear for her boyfriends safety having just discovered his hobby. "What is this!?" she begs for a response. She waits for a moment watching him as numbness washes over him to protect him as it frequently did. "Why do you do this to yourself?" she pleads for an answer, still holding his elbow and sleeve in place.
"This way…" he hesitantly begins. "I can control the pain I feel inside…" he struggles to continue.
"Jer!" she squeezes out painfully. "How long has it been since you started feeling this way!?" she asks, sincerely concerned for his physical and emotional well being. "Oh Jer, for the first time in a long time, I feel helpless!" she confesses, "My powers can't fix your soul… " she look down again at his scars morosely. "Or your skin," she finishes, brushing her finger over the deep scars again.
"Well," he starts contemplating lying but realised that there truly was no point in keeping secrets from Bonnie now. "It started when mum and dad died," he said signalling a few shallower scars. "It got worse when Vicky…" he pauses, feeling stupid for mentioning his ex when he notices that Bonnie doesn't have jealousy laced in her features, just concern.
"When Vicky died," Bonnie completes with sorrow in her eyes. Jeremy nods, generally gesturing to most of his scars.
"But then when Jenna," he swallows hard. "When Jenna was sacrificed," he breaks off, holding in his tears and pointing to the deepest scars. "After Jenna, I felt like I was drowning in my depression, it just got so bad!" he confesses as tears begin flooding his eyes, only allowing one to fall down his face. "Well, I started going deeper and more frequent, not caring if I died, until of course I thought of you and Elena, then I would move away from the veins," he continues showing her the scars on the top of his arm too. "And then my depression overtook my love for you and I tried to… you know," he quietly finishes, not able to find the strength to actually say 'suicide'. "I guess I needed better luck," he ends falling into Bonnie's arms weeping.
Tears gush down Bonnie's soft cheeks and she screams, through pain and despair as opposed to anger, "Baby, never cut!"