"Just so you know, I'll never forgive you for this." Elena Gilbert tried to stop the tears from overflowing out of her large brown eyes, but the waterworks were inevitable. Her delicate hands curled into angry fists by her sides as she struggled to control her emotions, an attempt that again proved to be useless. Finally, she turned on her heels and pushed her way through the kitchen doorway of her Mystic Falls home, stumbling up the stairs and finally collapsing on her bedspread.
"Elena!" Elena's Aunt Jenna, who was more like an older sister than an authority figure, was left standing helplessly in the kitchen. Tears were welling up in her own eyes at the sight of Elena so distraught. She and her husband Alaric had raised the girl ever since her parents had died in a car crash when she was sixteen. She'd always tried to do what she thought was best for Elena. And now, two years later, she was still trying. She wished Elena would understand that.
"Don't talk to me!" Elena was normally admirably calm and composed for an eighteen year old. She tried to cooperate, to make the lives of others around her easier and more pleasant. But this, what Aunt Jenna had just told her she had to do, this was too much. She wouldn't stand for it.
"Elena," Jenna tried again, using a pleading tone this time as she climbed the stairs to her niece's bedroom. "Please, lets just talk about it." She knocked softly on the white wood of Elena's bedroom door, wiping her eyes with one hand and trying the knob with the other. It was locked. "Just open up the door and we can-"
Elena suddenly flung the door open with such force that it nearly came off its hinges, a surprising feat for the petit brunette. "Marry him! You want me to marry him! Damon Salvatore! A TWENTY YEAR OLD MAN WHO I BARELY KNOW!"
Jenna started crying again, one hand grasping the doorframe as if it was the only thing keeping her standing. "Please Elena, we don't have enough money to send you to college, not to mention Jeremy. Damon could make things so much easier for us. We're already so in debt from the house and I can barely afford to buy Jeremy school supplies this year. He could help us – he could help you!"
The tears fell freely down Jenna's face, and something quivered inside Elena. The last time she'd seen Jenna cry like this was her parent's funeral, four years ago. Time had passed, but Jenna still looked so young. Too young to have to worry about the bills and schooling of two children when she was barely an adult herself.
"Fine." Elena's voice was barely above a whisper. "Fine, I'll marry him. I'll do it for Jeremy."
Nothing else needed to be said. Both young woman sank to the floor, their tear stained faces pale. Elena didn't move for a long time. Eventually, Jenna reached over and put her hand over Elena's, a silent gesture of comfort.
"It will be okay." She whispered. "I promise."
FOUR YEARS EARLIER
"Jeremy, come on! We've been waiting for twenty minutes." Elena called over the low brick wall that separated the Mystic Falls Lower School from the high school. Her twelve year old brother stood a few yards away, surrounded by a gaggle of girls his age and a few of his other friends.
"He just wants to flirt with that red headed girl. Young love." Caroline Forbes, Elena's oldest friend, was lounging on the brick wall, lazily covering her nails with a layer of pink polish that was drying fast in the hot June sunshine.
"Just a few more weeks of school then we'll be done with Jeremy After School Duty for the whole summer. I can't wait to not have to drive him home for three whole months." Elena settled down on the wall next to Caroline and started braiding her best friends long blonde hair, something the girls had been obsessed with doing for years.
"At least you have your license." Bonnie Bennett, Elena's other best friend, pouted from where she sat on the pavement, her long, olive toned legs stretched out in front of her. "I still have to wait three more months."
Elena opened her mouth to respond but felt a tap on her shoulder instead. She turned and saw Dr. Johnson, the high school principal, standing above her. His wrinkled face was grim, and something inside Elena squired at the sight of his dark eyes. She could tell something was wrong.
"Call your brother please, Ms. Gilbert. Then join me in my office please." Dr. Johnson's eyes surveyed the innocent scene, with Elena's hands still embedded in Caroline's hair in a childish show of schoolgirl entertainment. Pity flashed across his face. "Hurry please." His words were clipped with contained emotion, and he quickly turned to go.
All three girls could sense the fact that something was seriously amiss. "Jeremy!" Elena hollered. Before she knew it, she and her brother were seated in chairs in the principal's office. Elena had never been there before, but Jeremy, the troublemaker he was, had had his fair share of visits. None of them, however, had ever been quite like this one.
"There's been a terrible accident."
That's it. That's where Elena's vision blurred, where her mind closed up whenever she remembered that hot June day. That was the last thing she could recall, then it was all darkness, tears, strange arms pulling her closer into a hug, her brother's face, so young and innocent and fresh, marred with a mask of pain she wished she could protect him from. But her own arms were too weak to even hold herself together.
The day after she'd heard the news, Elena has escaped to the private place she'd gone to whenever she wanted to cry in peace as a child. Hidden along the west line of the trees in her back yard was a tiny enclosure made of old slabs of wood. One piece stuck out, making a perfect seat for her. The canopy of trees above seemed to promise that the rest of the world was hiding somewhere, waiting for her to feel better. Sometimes Elena thought that the little bench was a place built especially for her by some stranger in the past. Maybe they'd known how much she would need it. It didn't matter really, because the place was her own. It was private. Or so she had thought.
She was sobbing readily into her hands when she heard footsteps behind her. Upon turning quickly, she laid eyes upon the one person she had last expected to see out here, in her own private spot.
Damon Salvatore.
Damon was her neighbor, along with his wealthy parents, who worked in the oil industry, and his younger brother, Stefan. Stefan was Elena's age, and Damon was two years older, a senior at the time.
Even though they were close in age and lived next to each other, Elena had never really bonded with the boys. For one thing, they eluded a sort of wealth that Elena had never felt comfortable around. The Salvatore's sprawling mansion dwarfed the Gilbert's small Tudor house, and the boys were always adorned in the most expensive brands, even if they were just wearing sweatpants. Designer everything. Stefan was quiet and golden haired, mostly running with the soccer boys in Elena's grade. Damon, on the other hand, was more vocal. She had heard rumors about him. Womanizer. Man-whore. A bunch of other names she didn't wish to repeat. There was no denying he was handsome beyond his years at eighteen, but there was also something intense about his icy blue eyes, chiseled jawline, and dark brown hair. Something that made even naive, sixteen year old Elena, who was only just beginning to learn of the dangers of the world, nervous.
Although Elena and the boys had never bonded, their parents were quite a different story. The Mr. and Mrs. Salvatore, as Elena saw it, were both stuck up and intimidating. She had no idea why her sweet, intellectual mother and endearingly unfashionable, chatty father had ever become such good friends with the other couple. Perhaps it was their shared love of business. Before Elena's parents had died, they had collectively worked together to try to start a environmentally friendly oil business in the tropics. The Salvatore's, for their part, were oil tycoons with more than a hundred years in the family business. Maybe that was the topic that prevailed during all those late night dinner parties and double dates that had occurred over the five years that the Gilbert's had lived in Mystic Falls before the car crash. Either way, it didn't matter anymore, because there was one fatal flaw that would forever keep the two families apart. While the Salvatore's were undoubtedly swimming in money, Elena's parents, who had died in the wake of their failed business attempt, left the world penniless.
Money, however, was the last thing on Elena's mind that day in the woods. She sprung up at the sight of Damon, too distraught to care about how her tearstained face looked to the attractive older boy. He was impeccable looking as usual, in a plain white teen shirt and jeans that probably cost no less than three hundred dollars. But his face was dark and his eyes were muddled with sadness as he walked towards where Elena was standing, apparently not noticing her.
"What are you doing here?" Elena had meant for her voice to sound harsh, but instead it came out weak and thick with the tears she had been shedding moments before.
Damon's head sprung up, and he blinked, taken aback. "Elena?"
It was the first time Elena could recall him speaking directly to her. Of course she had endured small talk with him and his brother before, when their parents had force them to acknowledge each other at social events. But usually Stefan did most of the polite talking, while Damon focused on his cell phone, or the pretty neighbor from a few houses down.
"What are you doing here?" Elena repeated. "Go away." She couldn't tell if she was embarrassed or angry or sad or a mixture of all three.
"I-I'm sorry." Damon stuttered. "I just heard about your parents. I come out here to think sometimes. I wouldn't have come if I'd known you were going to be here." This was a different Damon then the one Elena had heard about. He seemed quieter, more vulnerable than the confident, flirtatious boy she had observed over the years.
He surprised her again when he opened his mouth to speak. "They were good people, Elena. I'm sorry."
A beat of silence hung in the air between them. Everything in the woods seemed still, as if the entire world was on hold. Then, Damon turned to go.
"I'm sorry." He repeated. "I'll leave you alone now."
"Wait." Elena didn't realize she was speaking until she heard the sound of her own voice echoing across the silent clearing. Something had shifted inside her at Damon's small speech, and she realized that she didn't want to be alone anymore. "Will you stay with me?"
Damon turned, the surprise clear on his face. "Sure."
So he sat with her, in silence, both of them staring out at the seemingly endless expanse of trees and grass, a mixture of green and brown and gray sky peeking out between the cracks in the tree line.
"My uncle passed away a couple years ago." Damon's gravelly voice was somber. "Its not the same obviously. But what I tried to do was focus on the happy memories. The good times. In a way, it kept me sane."
Elena nodded up at him, only half listening. She blinked, and a tear fell down her cheek. Then Damon did something she'd never expected him to do. He leaned over, and he hugged her. And Elena let herself be hugged, by this strange older boy who she had only ever spoken a few words to before. Because at the time, it was exactly what she needed.
PRESENT
Breakfast the morning after Jenna had made The Proposal to Elena was, in a word, awkward. Sun was streaming through the kitchen windows, and a heaping plate of homemade waffles was placed in the center of the breakfast table, but the atmosphere was anything but pleasant. Perhaps it was because Jeremy, now sixteen, had woken everybody up with an outrage of his own.
"Elena is MARRYING that creepy guy from next door? So I can go to COLLEGE? No way!" He had stormed downstairs, one hand grasping the letter Jenna had written and slipped under his door explaining the situation, for she had been too nervous to tell him the facts in person. Although Jeremy was only a sophomore, he was already tall and well built, his floppy brown hair the only boyish trait left, contrasting with his hardened facial features.
"Jer. Sit down." Alaric, Jenna's husband and a father figure to Elena and Jeremy, provided the calming force in the household, as he often did. But it wasn't enough for Jeremy this time.
"I can get a job! I can support myself! I'll get a scholarship! Elena, you don't have to do this! Who is making you do this? Is it you?" Jeremy turned angrily on Jenna, who sat at the kitchen table with Alaric and Elena, nervously folding and unfolding a napkin as she watched her nephew's tirade.
"Jeremy." Alaric stood and placed two firm hands on the younger boys shoulders. "Stop. Let us explain things to you." Finally, he coaxed Jeremy into one of the kitchen chairs beside his sister. Alaric seemed to have a way with Jeremy, which made sense because he was a history teacher at the Lower School. He'd always known how to handle children, making him a useful source of peace and balance in the grieving years following the car crash. His dark eyes were seemingly knowledgeable beyond their years, and his soft brown hair was always slightly mussed, as if he'd been up late reading every night. He contrasted with Jenna, who was an immaculately dressed redhead who always seemed to have gotten a good nights rest, but Elena thought that was why they worked well together. They'd met when Jenna was eighteen, and gotten married three years later. Elena realized that now she was in almost the exact situation. Expect, of course, for some crucial differences.
"It was written in your mothers will. She knew . . ." Jenna's voice broke off as she struggled to contain her tears. "She knew she and your father didn't have a lot of money. We tried, Alaric and me, we really did, to make enough money so that this wouldn't have to happen. But your parents died in debt. We're still in debt."
"This is the best shot you two have at a future. I wouldn't be saying it if it weren't true." Alaric's face was solemn, his eyes focused on the two young Gilberts.
"Elena." Jeremy's voice was soft in a way Elena had never heard it be before. "Don't do this for me. You don't have to."
"Its okay Jer." Elena studied her brother's face. She remembered the young boy he had been just two years ago, innocent and cheerful and excited. She wished she could make him that boy again. He had grown up too fast; his eyes had turned dark too quickly. "I'm doing it for us. And Damon will treat me right. He will support us. Everything will be okay." She couldn't tell if she was trying to convince him or herself.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, then finally Alaric broke the silence by reaching out and stabbing a waffle with his fork. "Mhm, these look good." He said awkwardly. Jeremy begrudgingly took a sip of his juice, and Elena grabbed the butter knife. Slowly, the family transitioned into what would be a normal every day breakfast.
"Excited for your last final?" Elena winked at Jeremy, who gave her a small smile. It was the end of June, and Elena could tell her brother was restless to start the summer break. She herself had finished school two weeks earlier, because seniors didn't have final exams.
An hour passed, and Jeremy had left for school, Alaric for work. Elena and Jenna sat in silence in the kitchen. Elena had planned to go shopping for textbooks for the community college courses she would have been starting this summer in the hopes of getting a job in the fall. But now she realized that she wouldn't be doing that. In fact, she had no idea how she'd be spending the summer.
"So when do I meet Damon?" She asked Jenna, breaking the silence.
Jenna looked up, clearly remembering what she'd forgotten to tell Elena earlier.
"Tomorrow."
