A/N: Hi again. Thank you for the reviews! I think it's awesome that you guys are so passionate about these characters that you're defending them. Half of you are saying Elena is overreacting and the other half are saying that Damon is an ass. To that I say, you're both partially correct.
Since music is such an integral part of my writing process, I'm going to start introducing each chapter with a lyric for a song. I've actually gone back and added these to pre-existing chapters. The lyric are to a song that I found particularly inspirational while writing the particular chapter. Think of it sort of like an Easter egg? You can Google the lyric and maybe discover some new music?
Or just skip it entirely, as it doesn't really affect the story at all.
Anyway – here is our next chapter. It's kind of sad. I'm sorry in advance.
Better that I break the window than him or her or me
Caroline clinked her champagne glass with Elena's. "Here's to fancy parties with fancy men," she toasted.
"Here's to tenacious, rich assholes who make me want to fall for them," Elena grumbled, taking a sip from her glass.
"You're grumpy," her friend remarked. "Grumpy Elena and free alcohol do not mix well."
Tapping the toe of her black stiletto on the floor beneath her, Elena stared at Damon across the ballroom. If looks could kill, he'd be a dead man already. "He has some nerve."
"So you're still mad about the whole sleeping with his employee thing?" Caroline asked.
"The man tried to have sex with me and then let her babysit me the next morning. What's so scary about me, huh?" She threw her arms into the air wildly, sending a little champagne onto the floor. "Am I really so horrendous that he can't at least try to see what's going on between us? The nerve. The fucking nerve he has. And then when I tried to call him out on it, he tried to make it sound like he hadn't done anything wrong."
"So that's a yes then?"
"You're damn right I'm still mad. I'm seething and if I wasn't stupid enough to care about him, I would have just stayed at home."
"If you didn't care about him, you wouldn't be upset in the first place," Caroline pointed out.
Elena tilted her glass up and chugged the rest of the bubbly liquid. "Well I'm done pushing him. Consider the little glances and the flirty gestures over. If he wants to keep his walls up, mine are going back up too."
"That's mature," Caroline sarcastically teased.
"He's the one acting like a child." She placed her empty glass on a passing tray and grabbed a full one to replace it. "I told him I was falling for him and all he could say was 'I don't want to fall in love', like I didn't know that already. Does he think I wanted this? I didn't want this to happen either."
"Is she going to kill my best mate?" Enzo asked Caroline as he walked up behind her and placed a hand on her lower back.
"Probably," Caroline casually shrugged.
"Did I tell you how beautiful you look in that dress?" he complimented her.
Caroline smiled. "Only about five times on the way over here, but feel free to tell me again."
"I'm actually going to throw up if you do," Elena interrupted.
"She's grumpy," Caroline whispered a little too loudly into Enzo's ear and he let out a small laugh in response.
"You happy people with your happy relationship make me want to scream," Elena grouchily quipped. "Look at you, no commitment issues, no crazy exes, it's just easy for you."
"Damon isn't easy, Elena. You lot think that he has it together, but if you had seen the month-long bender that he went on after he left Katherine, you'd realize how deep those scars run," Enzo advised her. "I love him. He's my lad, but he isn't ready for what you're asking of him and he was honest with you about that."
"So I guess you think I'm being irrational then?" Elena raised her eyebrows at him.
Enzo put his arms up in front of him in defense. "Whoa, whoa. I do not want to be on the receiving end of this fury. I'm just trying to give you some insight."
"It's okay," Caroline placed a reassuring hand on Enzo's chest and kissed his cheek.
Enzo smiled and looked at her like she was the only woman in the room.
The sight made Elena roll her eyes. Normally, she would be ecstatic for Caroline and deep down she really was, but she was wallowing about her unreciprocated feelings and she preferred not to do that in the presence of a happy couple.
"They're still in the honeymoon stage. Give it time." Damon sauntered over to them, noticing Elena's irritated expression. "Enzo's endearing accent can get a teeny bit annoying after a while."
"He's grumpy too," Enzo whispered to Caroline.
Elena let out an angry breath. Why did Damon have to look so handsome tonight? "I need another drink."
Damon sipped his Manhattan calmly. "From the looks of it, you might need to start slowing down on the champagne."
"Are you keeping count?" she snapped at him. The vibes rolling off of both of them were so tense that she was sure the rest of the room could feel it too.
"And, that's our cue to disappear," Enzo said as he took Caroline's hand and led her to the dance floor.
Damon offered his hand to her. "Do you want to join them?"
She shook her head no, not verbally responding to him.
"Elena, I'm still a man. I need to have sex. You cannot actually be angry with me about this," Damon lectured her quietly so that no passersby could hear their conversation.
"Oh, I am. Trust me. I am." She crossed her arms and faced away from him.
He stepped up behind her and push her hair to the side then held his mouth next to her ear. "If you're mad that it wasn't with you, we can work out an arrangement. If you want to have sex with me, just say so," he rasped. She could feel his warm breathe tickling her neck and it wasn't making things any easier on her.
"That isn't the point," Elena explained. "The point is that I don't want you to have sex with other women. It upsets me because I have feelings for you. And if we start to sleep together, my feelings will only grow and you won't be able to return them. I'll just be setting myself up to get my heart broken. I'm still piecing it back together from the last guy."
She dashed out of the ballroom and into the fresh evening air outside. It was too much. Tonight was too much. Being so close to him but not being able to call him hers was too much. She took off her shoes and let them dangle in her hand, not caring that she was barefoot on the dirty city streets. Then she leaned up against the side of the building, closed her eyes, and just focused on sounds of the busy traffic in front of her. It was the first time she'd allowed herself to shut down completely since Kai had been released from jail.
"Elena, you can't be out here by yourself. It isn't safe," Damon's voice interrupted her peace.
"I'm fine. Please go away." She kept her eyes closed and her head pressed against the brick behind her.
"I'm sorry if this is too hard on you. I can have the driver bring you home. Just come inside so I can call him," he encouraged, placing his hand on hers.
For the first time since she'd met him, Elena didn't want Damon to touch her. It was actually painful so she winced and pulled away.
"Will you at least look at me?" he desperately asked her.
"I can't."
"Please?"
She sighed, opening her eyes and looking over at him. Yeah, that was painful too. "I'll play nice this evening. I'm not going to mess up anything to do with your business or your charity, but after tonight I need a little space. I need to not have these feelings for you anymore so I need some space."
Damon looked down at the ground and cleared his throat. "I understand. For what it's worth, I do really care about you. I do. I just can't be who you need me to be right now and I'm sorry for that."
"Let's just go inside so I can help you clench this deal with Bruce then I'll be out of your hair so you can find someone else to warm your bed tonight," she said as she slipped her heels back onto her feet.
"Don't be like that," he softly murmured.
"I'm not being like anything. Let's go." Elena took a deep breath, held it in for a couple of seconds, then let it back out. She smoothed her hands over the fabric of her dress before opening the door to the building. Plastering a smile on her face, she grabbed a glass of champagne from a tray and looked around the room for Mr. Roman.
If she could get through the next twenty minute conversation without crying, then she knew there would be a comfy bed and a pint of ice cream waiting for her when she got home.
So she said all the right things and made all the right jokes to impress Bruce until he was eating out of the palm of Damon's hand and when she looked over at Damon is his tuxedo with his blue eyes sparkling underneath the glow of the chandeliers, she no longer felt angry because she was doing exactly what he'd told her to do. She was saving herself.
Elena read the email over and over again.
From: Alaric Saltzman
Subject: The plan for next week
Hello everyone,
I'm sure you've all missed me terribly during my leave. Jo and baby Olivia are doing great. Thank you for all of your caring emails to check on us. While I still have one week left before I'm due to return back, Mr. Salvatore has had an international business trip come up next week so there will be no classes. Instead, please see the attached reading assignments and be prepared for a test on this material when I return a week from tomorrow. I'm excited to see all of your smiling faces in my classroom again.
P.S. Do the reading.
P.P.S. Seriously, do the reading.
After making her way home in an empty limousine on Friday night, she'd passed directly out into her bed. When she woke up on Saturday, she alternated her time between a bottle of Merlot and a research paper. Writing while intoxicated wasn't usually her style, but studying was the only other thing that could get her mind off of Damon. Otherwise, she'd drive herself crazy thinking about who he might have ended up going home with after she left the gala.
When she woke up Sunday morning to the email from Professor Saltzman, she'd sort of just laid in her bed and stared at the screen. She'd read it a million times and she couldn't help but think that Damon pulling out of teaching the class was because of her. After all, she'd asked him for space. Maybe this was his way of giving it to her and the business trip was just an excuse.
"I hate this," she mumbled to herself as a knock sounded on her door. "Come in," she called.
Bonnie poked her head in through the cracked doorway. "Are you planning to hide up here all weekend? Last weekend you were clamoring to burst out of this room and now you're refusing to talk to any of us."
"He's fleeing the country to get away from me," she said, throwing her phone onto the floor and covering her head with a pillow.
"Because you told him you needed space," Bonnie added as she down next to Elena.
Elena peeked her head out from underneath the warmth of her pillow and quirked an eyebrow. "How do you know that?"
"Damon told Enzo, Enzo told Caroline, Caroline told me. Not that you're asking for my opinion, but I think you did the right thing. You need to get all of this Kai stuff behind you before you can even think about being with someone else and when you do decide to be with someone else, I'm hoping he's less of a project than Damon. You tend to like the men you feel like you need to fix."
"I know," Elena groaned, sitting up in her bed and hugging her knees. "I'm working on that."
"Eventually being alone won't feel so lonely," Bonnie advised.
"I'm not afraid of being alone."
"Are you sure about that?" Bonnie asked her.
Elena could always count on Bonnie to never sugarcoat anything. She was always loving, but she never felt the need to mask what she had to say with pleasantries. It was one of the things they'd connected on during freshman year of college. She appreciated a good sass mouth. Hell, sometimes her own lack of a filter got her in trouble. Times like this though, she just wished Bonnie was more afraid to call her out and even more than that, she wished that Bonnie wasn't absolutely right.
Elena rested her chin on her knee. "Don't make me admit it."
"I'm not saying it because I want to hear that I'm right."
"I know, but I just don't want to admit it out loud."
Bonnie leaned her head on Elena's shoulder. "Then you don't have to."
Once Bonnie left to take her Grams to church, Elena had the house to herself. Caroline had basically spent the entire weekend at Enzo's apartment, which was much better than the alternative of him staying at their house. Like she'd told them on Friday night, happy couples made her nauseous.
It only took two bottles of wine before she was hovering her finger over Damon's contact in her phone. Yeah, she had asked for space but putting oceans between them was more than she'd asked for. The fact that he'd just up and left the country kept rubbing her the wrong way the more she thought about it. She just wanted a couple of days away from him. That's all. She didn't want him to hop on a plane to Europe or Asia or wherever in the world he'd decided to go.
Under the influence of plenty of alcohol and full of attitude, she pressed his name on the screen and held the phone up to her ear. If he thought he was just going to leave the country without so much as a word, he was sorely mistaken. It rang a couple of times and she was just about to change her mind and hang up when he answered.
"Elena?" he asked, probably bewildered that she was calling him.
"You know, you cannot just flee the country whenever I push you away. That's not how this works," she slurred, swirling her red wine around in her glass and taking a large gulp. "You push me away all of the time and I just stick around. I just stick around for some reason."
"Are you drunk?" He seemed a little concerned.
"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not." She hiccupped. "You wouldn't know because you're in Africa."
"I'm in Vancouver," he corrected.
"Whatever. Well wherever you are, you aren't here," she said defiantly.
"You asked me to give you space."
"Yeah, as in don't call me for a couple days kind of space! Not fly far away from me kind of space!"
"Is there someone there to take care of you?" Damon asked, completely avoiding the confrontation she was trying to have with him.
"Nope."
"Elena, you can't be left alone with Kai out there. Call someone to come home, please."
Elena rolled her eyes. "You don't get to worry about me. I'm not allowed to ask you about your ex-fiancé or your brother so you don't get to worry about me. You won't just admit that you have feelings for me so you don't get to worry about me."
"Hey, calm down. You're getting really upset," Damon tried to soothe her to no avail.
"I am calm and things are very clear. I can't fix you because you don't want to be fixed. Goodbye Damon." Elena ended the call and tossed her phone onto the floor across the room. If he called back, she wasn't planning on answering.
She refilled her almost empty wine glass, grabbed the bottle, and padded downstairs. One perk of being alone in the house was that she could watch whatever she wanted on TV without judgment. She was just about to turn on Netflix when someone started pounding on her front door.
A/N: I know this is a shorter chapter than usual, but this was a good place to end it for flow purposes.
I also know that there will be some people who are upset that I've separated DE. Just trust me that this will lead to really great plots and character development.