There's a pull in the middle of her chest and she looks down to where her hands press trying to find relief. There's a sort of call which murmurs inside of her. Bonnie tries to resist however she can but giving in seems to be the only path to take and she closes her eyes expecting to open them up to see heaven or hell.

She sees Caroline, staring at their framed picture, crying over a creased form. It takes her a moment to understand that the pain she was feeling was Caroline's call to her. Bonnie smiles sadly watching her best friend leaning over her desk, chin resting on her hands, breathing noisily and chewing on her lower lip. She saw her doing that when she was a child and she was very sad because her parents had told her that they were going to divorce. She had been lost and scared and Bonnie knew exactly how that felt.

"Caroline," Matt calls her name before she can do it herself and she watches him approach her, pulling a chair out so that he can sit next to her.

Bonnie is relieved to see him there; funny that a human boy with a gentle smile can actually put an immortal girl back together. Matt — for how underestimated can be, considering that he is surrounded by dark, exotic creatures which are the new trend of her dumb generation – is a paradigm of honor and loyalty. He never speaks ill of anyone, he is honest and yet tactful, and he endured every loss and every wound with nothing but grace and dignity. She is proud Matt was her friend.

He holds one of Caroline's hands with him and uses the other to gently turn her face, taking her chin between two fingers. She does her best to stop crying.

"I miss her, too," and it's not set phrases, for his voice cracks on the h. But through the pain he smiles at his friend.

"We were supposed to decorate our room at the dorm," she explains. It's a weak motivation to torture her lower lip and cry to dehydration but Bonnie knows what she means, as Matt does. Pain makes you incoherent; the stupid little things you can usually overlook become dark holes that swallow you whole.

"I still have her lace top because I forgot to give it back to her," she adds. "Actually I didn't forget. I was hoping she would let me have it. She always let me have all I wanted," and that's when her tears come rolling back on her pale cheeks, and the only thing left to do for Matt is hold her tight. He's got his own troubles trying to not sob, but his eyes are red and his eyelids look heavy, like he hasn't had a proper night's of rest in days.

Bonnie feels so sorry that she wants for her time to be over already, and yet she cannot stop looking at them, cannot help but be there, trying to bear a little of that pain with them.

"That's because she loved you."

"Then why did she leave?" she asks in a sudden rush of rage, pushing him away and standing so fast that the chair falls back down. "She shouldn't have done what she did. She left me alone. She thought of Jeremy but she didn't think of me for one second!"

"You know that's not true," Matt replies, taking the pain of her shove with barely a flinch; he knows she's too out of control to realize she can actually hurt him.

"Do I?" She asks again, her fists at her sides, her whole form trembling from head to toe. "She showed up for our graduation and didn't even have the decency to tell me she was dead. I spent my time doing shopping instead of crying for my dead best friend, and I can't ask her which color she prefers for the walls of our room and I never got to tell her goodbye and now I can never see her again!"

The tension of her rage which kept her steady on her legs begins to shake her until she crumbles down, falling in Matts arms, which catch her promptly.

"It's not fair," she says sobbing. Matt can't say a word, because he's crying, too, silently, as he strokes her blonde hair.

Bonnie stands in a corner, watching the scene with thin horror for what she did. Was it really her place to make that call? She overstepped God's will, manipulated the Veil like it was her right to choose anyone's fate. She brought back so many people, so many things, whose time was over. She ignored her Gram's plea, to whom she had looked up to all her life. She screwed the world's balance. She screwed Caroline.

"I'm so sorry, Caro," she says, crying freely for the first time. Damon was right to mock her actions, because there's a thin line which separates rightness from pride and she fears she has crossed it. She fears she befriended and fed the greatest sin, the one that originated all others.

Strange the things you think of when you're looking at your crushed best friend as you realize you did the wrong thing. Bonnie remembers a literature class, and Mr. Diadori in his green waistcoat telling them of the ninth Circle of Dante's Inferno, where he meets Nimrod, the legendary hunter of the Bible who built the tower of Babel, his face the size of the bronze pine cone from St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome and his language just a pathetic, unintelligible gibberish.

"I'm so sorry," she repeats, rushing to her friends to hold them both against her. The feeling that runs through her is the comfort of a slow rocking, like their hearts are being lulled, and every wrong doing is forgiven, and every twisted action is straightened, and every scar is healed.

Caroline calms down instantly, and so does Matt. They don't say aloud they felt her presence, scared that the words will take her away, indefinitely.

#

It's like being inside a washing machine, slammed around and cleaned of every bad emotion one by one. It's as unpleasant as it feels and she's a bit dizzy as she falls on the sofa in the Salvatore boarding house as her own name resounds in her head.

"Ouch, can you please keep it down?" she asks Elena, taking her head in her hands. It's a bit like having a hangover, but without the fun part of the actual drinking.

"He needed to do it for himself," she tells Damon as his mocking face smiles sarcastically.

"Of course, in case you didn't notice, up to now everything that is been done, is been done for him."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asks, tensing. Bonnie is confused by this whole scene, because if she's been called there, they must have been talking about her. Isn't this how it's supposed to work?

"You know exactly what it's supposed to mean," he tells her, "playing the ignorant girl gets old soon," he adds, taking a sip of his drink. Lately, he drinks a lot, Bonnie thinks.

"Her death is not Jeremy's fault, and you should stop treating him like it is!" she says, vehemently, her perfect straight hair moving as they frame her face, "Bonnie made her choice."

"The wrong one!" he says exasperated.

"It's still her choice!"

"You keep telling yourself that," he spits, "She fucked up big time for a dumb kid that dumped her for a ghost-"

"Anna is in the past-"

"Well, now Bonnie is in the past too!" he says, angrily. She's right in the middle between them, in more ways than one and she wishes she could be anywhere else. She can feel her father's call and yet their rage and guilt and accusations are stronger and won't let her move.

"Great," she mutters to herself.

"We didn't stop loving her just because she's dead and you are only making things w-"

"Can you please cut the crap?" Elena's eyes go wide, as Bonnie's – she's not used to seeing him treat her friend like that. "She will always be in our hearts, let's go and have a pizza," he says, with a mocking tone.

"What do you want from us?" Elena yells at him.

"I want you to say the goddamn truth! I can be a bastard but at least I don't hide my dirt under the carpet. She didn't make that decision alone. The whole town pushed her to make it!"

"I chose to do it," Bonnie says, hoping he'll get the message somehow.

"The whole town had no idea what she was doing, we would have never-"

"Really?" he asks, his pupils so dilated that Bonnie can't see the blue anymore. "You would have never passed up on the opportunity to have Jeremy back; and I know that because I would have never passed up on the opportunity to have Stefan back if our roles were reversed, but at least I'd have the spine to admit that I sent my friend to the slaughterhouse."

"No one asked her to do anything that would kill her. She was my best friend."

"She was that, but were you her best friend?" he asks her.

"What?" Elena and Bonnie both ask at the same time.

"Let's not fool ourselves, shall we?" he asks, tired. "I knew which buttons to push with her. I could say your name or Jeremy's or vampire Barbie's and she would come running to the rescue," he says, his voice mimicking a cartoon's voiceover, "because you were her family. And you know what her family did? They abandoned her, or died, or just didn't care, and she tried to earn the love she wanted, and it was never-fucking-enough. How many times did you ask her how she felt and actually stopped to listen to her? What did you do for her exactly? And Jeremy dumped her for a ghost," he laughs bitterly, "which is a record. She is outstanding, I have to admit," he adds mocking her. Bonnie is so powerless against his brutal honesty that she must lower her head to hide her shame.

"How can you be so cruel?" Elena asks, crying, "Why are you hurting me like this?"

Damon grimaces, failing to see the connection in her reasoning. "I'm not trying to hurt you," he says, "I love you. I've tossed away everyone's life for yours and I'm probably not even done yet," he considers, sounding like a crazy man. "This is not about you," he spells, like he's speaking to a stubborn child, "I just know how it is to try and try to deserve something that you can never get. Her problem was that she was at the very bottom of her own list of important people. On the contrary, I am alive because I am on top of that list. As you are on top of yours," he says, with a shrug. "It's how it's supposed to be, really. It's called self-preservation, and Judgy didn't have any. That's how it is. I'm not being mean or cruel; I'm calling 'em as I see 'em. It's not like I've ever given a crap about her, so I'm not talking out of anger or some other pesky emotion."

"You did care," she says, calmly. Her tears already dry on her cheeks.

"See? That's your problem. You see good where there isn't," he says, grimacing, only standing up to go and refill his by now empty glass.

The silence in the room is suddenly disturbing. Bonnie feels like she's on the point of throwing up –well, that if she had actually a working stomach, instead of an imaginary one.

She doesn't feel like hugging them. Instead, she feels a lot like kicking Damon's ass to the afterlife. Yet staring at Elena she sees his words sinking in and she can't stand it.

"It's not your fault, or Jeremy's or anyone," she says. "When was Damon ever right?" she asks, exasperated. "I felt loved by every one of you, I really did," she explains, pushing back in her memories the missed parties, the lonely nights, the excuses Caroline made up when Elena was too absorbed in her love life drama. And yet, she was there when her Grams passed away. And when they were nine they had sworn to never leave each other side. Only, it's been so long since she felt her close. So much so that, tragically, it doesn't make a big difference to her to not be able to touch or communicate with her.

Ironically, the last time they spent a reasonable measure of time together was when Elena tried to kill her.

Bonnie blinks, swallowing every word that came out of Damon's mouth, every doubt flowing out from her heart.

She's always been so sure about her prerogatives. Her certainties were so unswerving. She based on them every step, every choice, until she came to this. Being a spirit in the Salvatore's living room.

I can't control my feelings
I can't control my thoughts

And being pulled away from Damon when he abandons the empty bottle on the cart and leaves the house because, "I've run out of bourbon."

The strength with which he holds on to the thought of her leaves her no choice but to follow him.

Bonnie must walk fast to keep his step, and he's not even using his vampire speed. His long legs eat the distance in a way she couldn't, even when she was alive.

"What the hell!" she protests, "Slow down, you can't be exactly thirsty after all that you drank. If you don't consider, of course, that prattling like that has probably dried your mouth," yet, was he really lying?

I'm staring at the ceiling
Wondering how I got so caught

She wants to think he got too caught up in his own crap and he confused his life with her own. Even so, she cannot just forget his words.

He growls and then slows down, pushing his fists into the pockets of his black jeans.

Bonnie doesn't know what to expect from him, so she stays quietly by him. They walk together, side by side but two feet apart, passing through the public park, ignoring the sign that orders them to not step on flowerbed.

"Punk," she insults him with no passion, turning her eyes on him as she steps on a yellow flower.

He turns his eyes too, like he's peeking at her.

"Sometimes I think you see me and you play it cool so that you can fool me," she says, holding her arms around herself like she's cold.

"I stalked Stefan under the shower, he's better equipped then you are," she says, to test her theory. Damon doesn't flinch and keeps on walking. The moon is so big that she can't help but admire it, and she doesn't see him peeking in her direction again.

You're completely off limits
For more reasons than just one
But I can't stop

If her time was coming to an end she would be able to turn around and see the past, and turn again and see the future, and look at him and see his unbeating heart. But her time is not coming to an end, just yet. And she doesn't see herself in his eyes, as he imagines her there walking next to him, side by side but two feet apart, passing through the public park, ignoring the sign the orders them to not step on the flowerbed.

So I'll remain
Within your reign
Until my thoughts can travel somewhere new
My mind is blind to everything but you
And I wonder if you wonder about me too.

###

Note: The song I used in this chapter is "Wonder" by Lauren Aquilina.