The silent words
Disclaimer: The characters and other things from The Vampire Diaries don't belong to me. Credit goes to the rightful owners.
My biological mother, Isobel, only did two things for me. The first was to give birth to me. The second was to remove all traces of blindness in my heart and cause my own words to haunt me.
He saved my life. It was my excuse. The damsel in distress had to believe in his hero, if only for five minutes.
I was repaying a favor. What kind of person wouldn't beg for the life of the one who saved her just hours earlier?
"She loved you. She said that when it's real, you can't walk away."
The words didn't fit but they were the only ones that came to mind. I couldn't walk away from him. Not now.
"Don't. Please don't hurt him."
I was desperate. I felt raw panic as I saw the tiny flame flicker to life, I could admit that much at the time. Images of him turning to ashes burned my mind. It would have been over before I found help. He would be gone forever. I went cold with fear and for a second that I couldn't see past that single moment. I had to do something, anything and everything to save him.
"Don't do this. I'm begging you. Please."
I begged for his life when I should have been running for mine. That should have been my first clue.
"Damon. Please."
Stefan cares about him and that's as good as any other reason to get him out of that tomb. I was prepared to argue, bargain, or even beg, but in the end I could only get out those two words and they were enough. The relief rushed over me like a wave when we finally got outside, and it was enough to propel me to throw my arms around him, wanting to take away his pain. It was the only time I wished I were Katherine, if it meant filling the emptiness in his eyes.
"Ask me if I'm lying now."
I trust Damon—to be there, to keep me grounded and to be honest with me. It scares me how easily I can be myself around him and willingly take down all my defenses to the point of blind stupidity.
I'm not the only one though. I can see through him. I've stripped him down that I've managed to see his humanity. But I never bothered to understand why he even let me in.
"But you can trust me."
The moment he closed my fingers around the device I felt strange, as if something locked in place that I didn't even know was broken into pieces before.
It was a puzzle. I had all the pieces in front of me but I focused on each individual one instead of the big picture. I didn't want to. I loved Stefan. I love Stefan.
"But you took a risk with Damon. How did you know he was going to give it to me?"
"Cause he's in love with you."
Stefan's arms were around me and I felt safe. But it wasn't enough to keep my eyes from straying over to where Damon stood.
I asked because I needed to hear it, not because I didn't know.
I knew. I always knew he loved me. He loves me.
He looked at me with the same eyes that disarmed me when we danced—the single minute of my life that everything slipped away and the only people left in the world was us.
"You had me fooled."
"I didn't compel you in Atlanta because we were having fun. I wanted it to be real."
"I'm trusting you. Don't make me regret it."
"You'll get yourself killed, you're not going in."
"I can't protect you Elena."
"I know… I get it."
"You don't have to see her if you don't want to."
Everything he said before flooded my thoughts with mind-numbing clarity. In so many ways he tried to tell me without meaning to, even with his silence he said it.
Yet, the only words that stayed with me, as he looked at us, were the ones I said the night he was almost killed.
"When it's real, you can't walk away."
I buried my face in Stefan's chest, wishing the confession away. I can never walk away from Damon because somewhere in my sick and twisted heart, I learned to love him.
I love Damon.
My mother knew this and warned me as she said goodbye, veiled as a threat and an insult.
Stefan knew but he didn't want to believe.
I knew but I also understood it was wrong to feel that way.
As for Damon, well, he can never know.