Sunday is dragging slowly and miserably.
I've read an article about Sunday being the least happy day of the week. I'm not sure why people think so, but I'm pretty sure none of them said that the reason was a relationship they chose to forget because of the temporary death of their beloved, and the whole plan getting ruined because of their unexpected comeback.
I really want to spend the day with Bonnie, because I have a feeling she'll understand, but I don't think Jeremy is letting her out of his sight (or arms) anytime soon, and it's more of a girl talk. Caroline, as much as I love her, won't help me now. Her bluntness is good when I need somebody to push me to do something, but this is something I need to figure out myself.
I try to prepare for the test I have on Tuesday, but it's not distracting enough. I try watching TV, reading a New Adult romance Caroline gave me for my twentieth birthday, and it's only when I spend half an hour playing Flappy Bird that I realize something's really wrong with me today.
If I have to be honest with myself, maybe I should just call Damon.
Yesterday, he promised he wouldn't give up on me. And I know I was the one who wanted to wait, but now I'm not sure about that. All this time, he's been fighting to come back to the woman he loved, and instead, he got… well, this.
I don't have his number, but I could always ask Stefan. Why did I decide that my judgment now, with three years of wrong memories, is better than the judgment of Elena before the compulsion, the one who loved Damon?
The phone chimes, notifying me of a new text.
What are you doing? – D.
I smile to myself, because it's a bit freaky that he somehow felt that I wanted to talk to him, but at the same time kind of cute. I add him to contacts and type a reply.
Not much. Bored. You?
Then, as an afterthought, I add:
How do you have my number?
The reply comes so fast I wonder if he's typing at vampire speed.
Bored, too. From little bro.
And, in a second:
I could come over and entertain you ;)
I roll my eyes, but I still smile as I type the reply. Admittedly, I'm flirting with him, but I'm also genuinely curious.
If everything was like before, what would we be doing?
I'm trying to picture his face as he's reading my message. Would he be surprised? Intrigued? Would he smirk and form a plan to seduce me or would he just smile to himself?
You don't need me to spell that one out for you.
I giggle nervously, because this is when it kinda hits me. I had sex with Damon. A lot, I guess. And while I don't remember any of it because of the compulsion, he obviously does. He's seen, touched every part of me, probably heard me scream his name, or something. God, this is embarrassing.
It's hard to come up with a response when I feel like hiding under a blanket, but I manage to do it.
And if you're not here?
I immediately regret asking the question, but it's too late.
Easy. What are you wearing?
Damn. Walked right into that one. I can feel this strangely happy smile on my face, and no matter what I do, it won't go away. Still, I should probably chastise him.
Cut it out.
Did that sound annoyed? Did I make him think he'd crossed the line – which, yeah, but not so much that it would really bother me. Feeling ridiculous for giving so much thought to the tone of a freaking text message, I send him a smiling emoticon. I get the reply just a few seconds later.
We could be watching a movie. Or making dinner. You'll be so lucky to rediscover my amazing pasta making skills.
After those dreams, it's all too easy to imagine Damon at the stove, or laughing with me at a stupid comedy we picked up because life's dramatic enough and we just need to have fun.
One day, I promise.
He doesn't reply after that, but somehow, I feel a lot better.
I go to bed early, both wary and curious about what my subconscious throws at me today, but sleep doesn't come for a long, long time. When it finally does, the dreams are rather… erotic. Maybe it's because Damon kissed me yesterday, or maybe it's because of our texts, but I get flashes of tangled limbs and sweaty skin and me pulling at his hair and his hands parting my legs and cries of pleasure in which I hardly recognize my own voice.
In the morning, I'm still tired and more than a little frustrated. I take a quick shower (which does nothing to improve my mood) and start the coffee maker. That's when I hear a quiet heartbeat in the hallway, which would be completely normal if it weren't for the fact that it's vampire slow.
I open the door to find Damon sitting on the floor, his back against the wall. I clear my throat and he looks up at me from under his eyelashes, the sexy smirk he's wearing doing nothing to alleviate the consequences of my dream. I frown and cross my arms.
"What are you doing here? Trying to scare my neighbors?"
He stands up casually and stretches, the fitting T-shirt he's wearing riding up a little to reveal the smooth skin of his stomach. Is he doing it on purpose? Chances are, he actually is.
"Well," he drawls, and things deep within me stir at that low voice. "Since us staying away from each other never solved any problems, I figured it's a bad idea." He steps around me and walks into the room confidently, and I know I should be annoyed, but I'm more curious than anything.
"So, you're here," I say, closing the door. "What are you going to do now?"
He looks at me intently in a way that makes my throat dry. "I could think of a couple of things, but this place won't do. What about my place? Or somewhere more public?"
I narrow my eyes at him. "Excuse me?"
He laughs, and I'm fascinated for a moment. I've never seen Damon laugh. Well, I suppose I have, but can't remember it – which means everything feels like the first time even if it isn't.
"I was thinking about coffee and breakfast, Elena. Unless, of course, you had something else in mind."
I roll my eyes and shift uncomfortably. Not sure about my mind, but my body definitely has an agenda of its own today. And it's not like I have no control over myself, but I'm kind of wondering if he always had this effect on me anyway or if my body remembers him even when my mind can't. Maybe it's both.
He takes me to Ric's apartment, because that's where he crashed after coming back to life, he tells me. In my memories, Damon and Ric occasionally drank together, but I had no idea they were such great friends.
He starts the coffee maker and puts a mug with milk into the microwave to heat it. I'm watching him move around the kitchen with obvious ease, which kind of takes me by surprise. The Damon Salvatore I knew was hard to picture in the kitchen, but here he is, expertly whisking the milk, swirling the mug and tapping it on the counter before he adds the coffee, a dash of vanilla sugar, and delivers me a cappuccino that makes my taste buds explode.
"It's amazing," I confess, my eyes still closed, because yeah, it's that good.
"I know," he says. No modesty whatsoever. "Living with you for three months, I kinda figured out how you like your coffee."
I smile, because weird as it is, the idea calms me down. Hearing that I had myself brainwashed to forget most events of the last three years of my life was kind of scary. Hearing that I promised forever to the man I thought I'd vowed to hate was terrifying. The fact that he knows what coffee I drink? Yeah, that's information I can deal with.
"What do you like?" I ask, peeking at his cup.
"Coffee, black. But don't worry, you won't have to re-learn to make coffee for me. You always screwed it up anyway, so between the two of us, it's my job." He winks, and I chuckle, because that does sound like me.
We share a blood bag after that – Damon insists on pouring the blood into mugs, which is sort of ridiculous, but he claims it's "classier" that way. I don't know that anything related to drinking blood you get from a stolen plastic bag can be classy, but I don't argue. Maybe he's right. Maybe if I learn who he is, the good parts, too, I'll understand what it was that drew me in, that made me love him.
I consider what I've seen so far and decide I like it. I'm a little fascinated by his casual domesticity and even more – by the things he's telling me, things that somehow make the idea that sounded impossible two days ago seem infinitely more believable.
I stand up to put the empty mugs in the sink, feeling him watching me, and I'm suddenly taken back to one of my dreams, the one where he whispered my name and I forgot about everything in the universe that wasn't him.
I turn around slowly to look at him. "Damon, what happened in Denver?"
He tilts his head curiously. "Why?"
"I had this dream… about you. About us. In Denver. I'm wondering if it's true."
"Why do you trust me to tell you the truth?" he asks, and there's no bitterness in his voice. He just sounds tired.
"Well, if I loved you, I must have trusted you. Love without trust doesn't really work for a long time. I know that."
He smiles, at my explanation or at his memories, I'm not sure.
"Okay, I'll tell you the story, and you'll see if it's anything like what happened in your dream."
It is. It matches completely. As he tells me the real version of events, my dream, one of the few I remember in detail, plays in vivid colors before my eyes. I don't even need to imagine anything, because I still feel his fingers grazing mine, his lips on my skin, his hands tracing every line and curve of my body, even though in Damon's words it just sounds "a bit hot and heavy."
"How did we ever stop?" I ask, and Damon smiles.
"Actually, Jeremy walked in on us."
"What if he hadn't?"
His eyes study my face, and he's licking his lips, and I have no idea what I'm going to do next.
"I don't know, Elena. I never asked you, because the whole thing didn't end well, what with me getting mad at you for screwing with my head, so later it didn't really make a good subject to discuss."
"But what do you think?" I insist. I don't know why I'm asking, or why this moment seems so important, since we lived together for months, so I'm pretty sure we engaged in a whole lot of sexual activities.
Damon steps closer, trapping me between his body and the counter, but it rather excites me than frightens.
"You want to know what I think? I think, Elena, that you wouldn't have stopped, and that's what scared you. That's what made you run away, straight into my brother's arms, again. Because you couldn't ignore this thing between us. Not any more. Though, of course, you have no idea what I'm talking about, so-"
I kiss him.
Maybe it's the memory, maybe it's my body taking over again, but at this particular moment, I don't care. I just need to get closer to him, so I slip my hands under his T-shirt to feel the skin of his back as he devours me, my dream paling in comparison with what is going on right now.
He picks me up and sets me on the counter so I can easily wrap my legs around his waist, and one of his hands slips under my blouse to feel me, too. I arch into him and he groans, the sound beautiful and primal. His lips burn my neck, move over my collarbone, and I pant, breathing his name.
Damon freezes suddenly, pulling away and stepping back until the only part of him that's touching me is his hand caressing my cheek. I'm a little surprised and a little hurt that he stopped me, even though it's probably for the better.
"Sorry," I whisper, though I don't think I actually am. "I don't know what's gotten into me."
He smiles, but it doesn't look entirely genuine. "Lust, Elena. It's called lust." He shakes his head. "That's not what I want from you. You don't know me at all, you have only the worst memories we had and one dream, and I don't want you to jump into this when you don't know anything, when it's all about sex, though we were so much more than-"
"It's not just one dream," I say, and he stops.
"What?"
"There were more dreams. In fact, for the past month, I had these dreams every night. Always about you. Mostly nothing substantial, just… flashes, but in those dreams, I remember being happy. I remember loving you."
