play by the rules.
The sky is such a vibrant blue, she thinks. Everything is so much deeper. So much more vivid. She inhales and identifies a dozen different scents, some sweet and some sour, and breathes them out again. The pavement is cold behind her head. Her palms that lay pressed against the ground are embedded with loose gravel, capable of being flattened into dust between her fingertips. It's all she can do to stay; to remain stoic and stagnant and immobile.
Everything within her screams MOVE. But that would be giving in.
The truth is that she can't go forward and she can't go back. Nothing can undo death; the freezing water that fills lungs or the final, deafeningly silent moments. Nothing can turn back time, not even a crafty hybrid. And so she must forgo the past and look to the future. A future that promises blood-stained lips and gut-wrenching emotions just as vibrant as this afternoon sky. A future blurred by two men: one she cannot seem to lose and one she cannot live without. And she's not quite sure she can do that either.
It's funny how not one single car has come down this road. It's a highway exit. The one that turns off the main and eventually ends up in Mystic Falls. Not a single soul has passed since she's settled herself in the middle of the street. But then again….maybe it's for the best. No one ever seems to leave here untouched. Every resident is involved, in some small way or another. Even the few tourists get a taste…or have been tasted. You'd think someone would get the idea that it would be much more suitable and a lot less dangerous to move to a different town. Perhaps a different state. Or a different country. Some place where people don't mysteriously die. All the time.
She doesn't want to move until something comes along. Something that forces her to make the choice. Is a masochistic that she wants to be forced into this? That she wants to be crushed? She can't seem to drink human blood on her own; it just doesn't seem fair. She wants her bones to crumble underneath the family minivan or a tractor trailer. She wants to feel the pain; to want to live enough to drink the blood that will regenerate her supernatural bones. Because right now all there is is nothing and she feels more trapped existing this way than free. She can't be the girl Stefan wants her to be like this. She can't be a sister or a friend. She can't be anything when she doesn't even want to be alive.
A cloud floats carelessly by and she traces it with her eyes. What must it be like to be a cloud? To not have to eat, or drink or breathe. To just… float. Endlessly. She thinks she'd like to trade being a vampire for a nice, fluffy white cloud. A cloud that doesn't need to drink blood or choose who they love more or even die. Then again…they're not really living either.
Her iPhone buzzes suddenly in her pocket, and not just once. She removes it without taking her gaze from the never-ending blue.
"Time for class." His voice purrs through the receiver. She almost shivers and she doesn't like it. (Yes, yes she does.)
"Leave me alone, Damon."
"Elena…we both know you can't put this off much longer. When was the last time you ate? Last night? I will have no crazed blood-arexic teenage girls living in my house. You need to learn how to eat right. "
Everything is always a joke with him. Without fail. "I'm busy."
"Oh yeah?" he says, deeply curious. "Are we thong shopping? I could always offer an experienced opinion on what looks the most…delectable."
"No. We're not thong shopping, and neither am I." She says sharply. Than sighs. "I'm trying my own methods."
"Elena." His tone immediately changes from a sultry tease to something soft, concerned. "You shouldn't do this alone. Tell me where you are."
"I'm gone, Damon." She says. "Gone." She isn't sure if this means emotionally, or physically. She's halfway between Mystic Falls and the rest of the world. Halfway between sane and insane.
"I'm coming to find you. Don't move." He barks gruffly and then the call ends with a click. The phone falls from her hand to the ground. She prays some heavy-duty vehicle will decide to make a Mystic pit-stop in the next ten minutes. But, of course, it doesn't.
Instead she bathes in the empty silence of the abandoned road, wondering if she'll kill and who that'll be. Will the guilt drive her mad? Or will her switch be flipped the instant the act is finished, with the final breath lost from drained lungs?
She doesn't want to hurt anyone. That is her greatest fear…dragging another innocent into this mess that she's made…that they've made. No one deserves this. No one deserves death.
The familiar screeching of tires has her hoping for the worst, and dreading the best. They slam to a stop about 10 feet from her spread-eagle body, and she counts the footsteps after the driver's side door slams. His form shields the sunlight and casts her in shadows. She squints.
"And you're laying in the middle of the street why? Are you asking to get run over?"
"Yes." There is not an ounce of hesitation in her reply. He raises a concerned eyebrow.
"That's not the way to do it."
"I thought…maybe if it hurt bad enough…I'd be desperate enough to do it on my own. Without stopping myself. I'd want to live, to end the pain. And to do that…I'd have to drink." She sighs, feeling the need to explain. It's pointless though. He won't understand
"They'd see you. They'd stop beforehand. No one wants to smush a pretty little face into the asphalt." He says after a moment. His lips tease up into a half smile. "Not even severe assholes like me want to see a pretty face go to waste. It'll be okay-"
"But it's not. " She explodes and suddenly she's on her feet and staring him in the eyes in less than a second. "Because I'll do it. I'll kill someone, Damon. And no one..no one needs to die so I can go on living for the second time."
"You don't have to kill anyone Elena." His expression hardens, irises turning to cold, blue ice. "Forget what Stefan said. You don't have to kill anyone if you don't want to and I won't let you. I will make you the exception."
She frowns. There are almost never any exceptions. Everything fails in the end and nothing ever goes as planned. She wants to believe him; all he's ever done is save her time and time again. Will he save others from her if that's what it takes?
"How?"
"I'll do what needs to be done." He answers effortlessly and his eyes don't stray from her face. She feels herself freezing, becoming trapped in that same special thing he does that she can't seem to figure out. It's uncomfortable, burning her from the inside out in a way she can't accept yet.
"Fine. But I want to walk home." She relents, crossing her arms. He doesn't even put up a fight, shrugging his shoulders before sauntering back to his car.
"That's fine by me. As long as you're home by five…We can't have you missing dinner now, can we?" His black hair disappears inside the Camaro before it roars off with a flourish seconds later, the tires spitting gravel. She watches him until the car is gone, feeling like she will always be folding in this game. Always bending but not quite enough to break. At least this time he spares her her dignity.
She begins to walk calculating the distance between this highway exit and the boarding house, before glancing at her watch. In a single moment she is a blur, speeding off without a second human thought and an infuriated snarl.
4:58.
Asshole.