Prologue
Caroline Forbes hovered silently over the mahogany casket housing her mother's pale body clothed in formal police attire. Caroline stood tall in her sleeveless black dress, her blonde hair let down in waves with the top half pinned delicately to the back. The casket was being held in the chapel's side wing, slightly hidden to the mourners in the main area who had arrived to the ceremony early.
Her eyes detachedly focused on her mother's white-gloved hands folded atop her body, not having the strength to look at the lifeless face which now replaced the warm one that was once so comforting to her. She made an effort to channel her energy into bracing her shoulders and keeping her back rigid, finding it to be the only way to keep herself from crumbling to the floor. Everything they had built together, the contented life they had finally achieved—it was all gone quicker than it had lasted.
It had been a long year of hospital visits and tiresome treatment. Having graduated from the University of Virginia nearly two years before, she had moved back home to Mystic Falls, Virginia after being offered a job as assistant project manager at Lockwood+Perry, an architecture, interior and urban design, and project management firm based in Richmond, only a half hour drive from Mystic Falls. Carol Lockwood, wife to the Mystic Falls mayor, and who also happened to be the mother of her former high school sweetheart, Tyler, had gotten her the position at her firm.
It was convenient since it allowed her to move back in with her mother, the town sheriff. Both of their work schedules kept them busy, but living together made it easier to rekindle their previously-distant relationship. It had been a year before they had found out the horrible news. Liz had been growing more and more tired before she finally decided to make time for a doctor's appointment. It was after the tests were run and the results were delivered that the trajectory of their lives took on a dramatic shift for the worse. And so it was thus that Caroline found herself here, numbed to the bone and struggling to maintain the glue that had a tentative hold on the pieces of her heart.
"Caroline."
Caroline lifted her head to see Elena Gilbert standing a few feet ahead of her, clad in a black, capped-sleeve dress and with one arm holding her black winter coat to her side. Elena's dark brown eyes held her gaze, attempting to decipher Caroline's passive face, before Caroline slowly turned her head back down to once again stare at her mother's folded hands.
Elena briefly shifted her focus to look at the casket, the open lid blocking her view of the body lying in it, before turning back to look at Caroline. She took a deep breath and set her coat and the purse she held beneath it down on the nearest pew before making her way over to her best friend. She steadily walked towards Caroline, her heels clacking methodically as she came around to stand behind her. With her fingers, she brushed Caroline's long tresses to the left before circling her arms around her friend's considerably smaller waist from behind and setting her chin down on Caroline's right shoulder. Caroline held her rigid posture for a few moments before allowing herself to relax into Elena's embrace. She took a long breath while simultaneously crossing her arms across her waist to tightly hold onto Elena's arms. For the first time since getting dressed for the funeral in the morning, Caroline allowed the tears to fall and betray her passive features.
"I never expected it to turn out like this," Caroline breathed softly through her tears. The uneven sound of her voice conveyed her utter brokenness.
"I know," Elena replied gently, moving her cheek closer to Caroline's.
"It was just us, but we were finally happy!" Caroline continued, the upturn of her voice revealing the slightest hints of hysteria. "She's all I had. She's all I've ever had and now she's gone. Oh God," she finally sobbed, "now she's gone." Tilting her head back to let it rest in the crook of Elena's neck, she looked upwards and closed her eyes. Her cries broke through and her chest heaved as she sobbed, "She's gone. She's gone. Oh God, Elena! She's really gone!" Elena tightened her grip on Caroline's waist as her own tears silently fell at seeing her friend fall apart before her. "I'm all alone!" Caroline cried. "I've got no one left!" she exclaimed as her body was wracked with uncontrollable sobs.
Breaking free of Elena's hold on her, she rushed forward to kneel before the casket, staring straight at her mother's peaceful face. "Don't leave me, Mom! Oh please don't leave me here alone, Mom!" she weeped desperately. "I can't do this without you! You weren't supposed to leave me like this!" Her sobs were loud now and she felt tragically unconsolable.
Upon hearing the commotion, Matt Davis, her hometown friend since birth, and Katherine, Elena's older sister, rushed in to see Caroline's shaking frame over her mother's body. Katherine looked to Elena, who appeared teary-eyed and grief-stricken at the sight before her. She turned her gaze back on Caroline, faintly hearing the girl whisper "come back to me, Mommy" before laying her cheek down on her mother's chest.
Matt moved forward to encircle Caroline in his arms, picking her up off the ground. She didn't put up a fight as he delicately maneuvered her away from the casket. She also didn't respond when he began whispering words of comfort into her hair as she laid her cheek against his chest, staining his dress shirt with her uncontrollable tears. Her hands tightly clung to the lapels of his suit jacket as he rocked her gently.
Katherine and Elena both stepped forward to stand on either side of Caroline as Matt continued to hold her firmly. They both rubbed her arms and back in soothing circles as her tears gradually subsided.
After a short while, Caroline took a deep breath, wiping the remnants of her tears, and stepped back from her friends' embrace. Avoiding their gazes and choosing, instead, to stare down as she smoothed her dress, she said determinedly, "I'm fine, now. It's over. I'll be fine, now." Taking one last breath, she gathered herself together and walked towards the chapel for the funeral service, bound to begin in a few minutes, leaving her friends to stare after her in sympathetic silence.
The service and procession passed in a haze of sentimentality and despair. The service was probably beautiful, she assumed, though she had paid attention to none of it. As they had lowered the casket into the ground, she had the vague realization that the last of her family was now dead: her father first to a car crash a few years after the divorce and now her mother to cancer. She was truly alone now.
The wake was held afterwards at the Mystic Grill. It was teeming with people she'd grown up with and others she barely recognized. They were all there to pay their respects and say their goodbyes, but she couldn't help but feel stifled. So she quietly slipped away from the crowd and grabbed her coat and scarf from the rack by the door. She shrugged the coat on, wrapped her scarf snugly around her neck, and grabbed her purse. She made her way outside only to be assaulted by the frigid February air. She hurriedly walked down the steps, ready to walk the two blocks back home.
"Leaving so early?" she heard behind her. She turned back around to see Katherine wrapped in her coat, leaning up against the wall, and puffing on a cigarette.
"Since when do you smoke?" asked Caroline. Katherine was three years older than her and Elena, having moved away to college before a real friendship could develop between the two.
"Since all of this death is giving me anxiety," she responded. Caroline inwardly bristled at her careless mention of death. Any other person, especially today, would have been careful with their words. Not Katherine, apparently—always brazen and always unaffected.
Katherine and Elena's parents had died in a car crash on Wickery Bridge during high school. Their Aunt Jenna was left with the daunting task of caring after the girls and their younger brother, Jeremy. While Elena's heartbreak had mended itself in time, taking away none of her softness and optimism, Katherine's grieving process had been quite the opposite. Her heart hardened, its previously existing cracks becoming more pronounced and nearly unfixable. She had chosen to shut herself off rather than give in to her tragic reality, and it was thus that she paved the rest of her life away from her hometown. Caroline hadn't seen her in two years, since her and Elena's graduation from UVA, Katherine preferring to stay as far away from Mystic Falls for as long as possible. Though it was true that a demanding career as a business agent in Chicago kept her busy and away, it was never a secret that Katherine detested her hometown and the memories it holds.
"Why are you leaving so early?" Katherine asked again, not entirely oblivious to Caroline's sensitive reaction to her previous statement.
"I think I'll suffocate if I have to stay here for one more minute," replied Caroline. "I want to go home. I just want some peace."
"I'm coming with you."
"No. No, please." Caroline lifted her hand signaling for Katherine to stop. "I've been surrounded by people all day today and yesterday and the day before that. I want to be alone, Kat, please" she said, using the girl's intimate nickname to emphasize the desperation in her plea.
"Fine," Katherine responded, stepping forward to stand in front of Caroline, the cigarette still held between the tips of her fingers. Catherine eyed the cigarette. She boldly reached down to take the stick within her own fingers, finally bringing it up to her lips to take a long drag before throwing it on the ground and crushing it with the toe of her black stiletto.
"We've had enough untimely death in this godforsaken town to last us a good while, don't you think?" Caroline asked annoyedly while she continued to crush the cigarette into the ground until she was satisfied with its demise.
Katherine only smirked, though her expression showed no traces of humor. She lifted her hand to brush the younger girl's long bangs from her face before bending down slightly to kiss her cheek. "Whatever you say, Care. Call me if you need anything." Caroline warmed to her touch, inwardly amending her earlier reaction to Katherine's offensive statement about death. It was easy to forget that under that boldness and fire was a tenderness hidden to most of the world.
"I will," Caroline said, relieved, before turning back around and walking away from the Grill.
"Hey, Care?" Katherine called out to her.
"Hmm?" Caroline stopped walking and shifted her head slightly to look back around.
"Welcome to the Lonely Orphans Club," Katherine said bitterly before opening up the door and going inside.
Caroline remained rooted in her position, her body facing forward but her head twisted to the side to look behind her. She nodded after a long while, not caring that Katherine had already gone back inside and no one could see her. She finally turned back around and continued her short journey home.
The night sky was bright and starry, but she refused to look upwards at the vast expanse for fear that the sudden shift of her gaze would prompt the onslaught of yet another wave of tears. She stared straight ahead of her, pleased that the crisp coldness was drying any liquid left in her eyes.
She made her way into her childhood home, lightly shutting the front door behind her. A knot of uneasiness settled into her stomach as she took in the quietness of the house. She set her purse down and removed her coat before tidying up the living room. She then moved on to the kitchen to put away the clean dishes left from the day before. When there was nothing left to do, she kicked off her heels at the foot of the staircase and made her way up to her bedroom, purposely avoiding looking into her mother's now empty room. She let out a sigh as she came into the gratifying darkness of the room, only dimly lit by the stars shining through the large window. After changing into pajamas and washing her face, she crawled under the covers and tucked her hands under her cheek. The blackness enveloped her in all of her sadness. The tears began to fall again, and soon her tired body succumbed to the fatigue.
It was only a couple of hours later that Caroline awoke to movement beside her on the bed. She hazily opened her eyes to see Matt, now changed out of his suit from before and in sweatpants and a white undershirt, slowly sinking himself onto the bed beside her.
"Matty?" she asked confused.
"It's me, Care Bear," he responded. He lay down beside her and turned so he was facing her. "Katherine told me you snuck away and I wanted to come and check up on you. How are you feeling?"
"Shattered," she said without hesitation. "I feel shattered and broken." She hesitated. "I loved her with my entire heart. She's all I had and I feel like I'm dying. I can't breathe without her here with me," her voice catching.
"I'm sorry, Caroline. I'm so sorry." He lifted up his hand and brushed back the hair falling on her cheek. "I'm sorry she's gone and I'm sorry you're left hurting."
She paused for a moment before she asked, "Do I still count as an orphan if I'm twenty-three?"
"I think you can be whatever it is you feel inside your heart, no matter your age."
They stayed quiet for a few minutes, Matt continuing to brush her hair with his fingers, until Caroline spoke up again.
"You know what I really want more than anything, right now?"
"Hmm?" he sounded in response.
"I just want to get in my car and drive far away. Except what I really want to run away from is myself and this pitiful existence. I just want to run away from myself and that's just not possible," she sighed tiredly. How badly she wished to divorce reality and escape the tragedy of her life, if only for a day.
Matt stayed silent, never ceasing his fingers' soothing ministrations in her hair. "You're wrong, you know," he said suddenly. Caroline shot him a confused look before he continued, "You're wrong about what you said before, to Elena. She told me. You're not alone. You will never be alone so long as you have all of us. Elena, Katherine, Jeremy, Bonnie, Jenna, even Tyler," he listed, "they're all sleeping downstairs right now. There may be no one left of blood, but you've still got us, and that's close enough."
"Thank you, Matty," she whispered, tears forming again in her eyes. She moved closer to him, allowing him to wrap his arms around her for the second time that day. He brushed a chaste kiss to her forehead and they both stayed wrapped in each other's arms until they each fell asleep to the lulling beat of the other's heartbeat.