Elena POV

I let the tears fall when I was safely in my bed. I told my mom I wasn't feeling good so I knew she wouldn't come up to check on me unless I missed dinner. I intended to be done crying by that time. I was relieved Damon didn't follow me home, I couldn't deal with him right now, maybe eventually I could but not now. There was a knock at my door and I wiped away the tears quickly before calling to whoever it was.

"Honey, are you alright? Mothers intuition tells me that you're not sick." She asked me gently.

"How did you know?" I asked her. I thought I had hidden it well.

"Number one, you've never went home early from school just because you weren't feeling good. Also if you were really that sick, you would have called for a ride. Number two, I could see traces of tears on your face when you walked in the front door and I can still see them now. You don't cry when you're sick, aside from when you were a child. So what's really wrong sweetheart?" She asked and I swallowed deeply.

"I broke up with Damon." I told her going for the easiest explanation. I wasn't sure if I actually broke up with him or not. I was too devastated to decipher our conversation at the moment.

"Why? This morning you were so in love with him." My mom asked not expecting that.

"I don't want to talk about it? Let's just say you were right and I regret everything that happened with him. I regret losing my virginity. I can't get it back now." I told her lowering my gaze.

"What happened sweetheart? Did he cheat on you?" She asked me and I shook my head.

"No. Despite everything I don't think he would cheat on me. Part of me feels that he feels something for me. But he betrayed me nonetheless." I told her.

"What did he do? Sometimes it helps talking about these things." My mom asked.

"A while back, I'm not entirely sure when. I guess when we first started seeing each other. But he made a bet with Mason Lockwood for twenty bucks to whichever of them slept with me first. If it didn't mean anything anymore he would have told me don't you think? If he would have told me that he made a bet with Mason before we got serious things would have been entirely different. But he didn't and I found out today at lunch. It was so humiliating." I explained.

"Oh sweetheart. Do you think he was only with you for the sex?" She asked me and I didn't answer for a moment. I knew what I wanted the answer to be but right now I wasn't too sure.

"I don't know. I vacillate from thinking we were more than just sex to the pessimistic side saying he got what he wanted and was planning on dumping me anyway." I admitted.

"I personally think he was there for more than sex. I saw the way he looked at you and it wasn't purely physical." Mom told me and I nodded. I really hoped she was right, but the evidence was pointing away from that. He made the bet and he wasn't here right now trying to make things right. I wasn't too sure what to believe right now. Before she left my room she pulled the flowers from their place in my trash can and put them back in the exact spot I had them.

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Damon POV

After school when I was walking to my car with Klaus trailing me. As always his Charger was parked next to my Camaro. It was an unspoken rule in our school that no one took those spots. Not even the seniors. We had senior clout as juniors. It was great.
"So what are you doing now?" Klaus asked.

"I'm not sure." I answered as a blonde in quite the tizzy marched up to us and started jabbing her finger into my chest. Klaus's mouth had dropped and his eyes took on a different quality as Caroline Forbes started threatening me for hurting her best friend.

"I swear to God if you don't un-break her heart I am going to break you. You understand me? I will make it so you can't ever get someone else under you ever again. I am quite vindictive and I am not adverse to cutting off your balls and feeding them to you." She hissed at me and I found myself slightly frightened.

"So Elena told you what happened?" I clarified.

"She told me enough, now I don't know why, maybe it's my belief in true love but I think that you have real feelings for her. I think it was a misunderstanding, not you just have to convince her." Caroline told me her voice back to normal after her threat.

"I think I'll give her a little while to cool down. Besides Klaus's mom is expecting me to come over for dinner tonight." I don't know why I felt the need to explain my plans to Caroline Forbes but I was.

"No, you go to her right now." She ordered me and I looked to Klaus for help but he had the dazed expression that comes from being in a five foot radius of Caroline Forbes. Clearly I wasn't going to get any help from him.

"She's probably pissed. I'd much rather not get yelled at." I told her. I couldn't believe I couldn't stand up to a nearly sixteen year old girl.

"Believe me when I say that getting yelled at is better than not when it comes to girls. When we yell or cry it means we still care. It's when we don't share any emotions at all that means we don't care anymore and it's over for you. The longer you wait the more numb she's going to get. If you want to lose her forever keep wasting time." She told me and I sighed.

"Alright, fine. You win." I told her giving in. I was beginning to think it was impossible to win an argument with her. Especially if my balls were on the line.

"So you're not coming over?" Klaus asked me.

"I'll try to make it for dinner, it depends on how long this takes with Elena. Tell Mama Mikealson that I'll come over tomorrow for sure." I told him. Monday evening dinners at the Mikealson house were a bit of a tradition and I hated ending it for a week. But I needed to talk to Elena or else I could lose a very important appendage.

"You better get going. You're wasting precious time." Caroline told me before walking over to the police cruiser with her mom waiting in it.

I said goodbye to Klaus and got into my car. With a sigh I started it up and peeled out of my parking spot with Klaus behind me. When I got to her house I parked outside and walked up the flower lined front path. Elena's mom did and excellent job landscaping her yard. It looked like it came out of a magazine. When I got to the door I knocked softly, hoping it would be Elena that answered. I was disappointed when her mom opened the door. She had a polite smile on her face but I could still tell that she didn't particularly want me on her doorstep. That just meant that Elena told her mom everything about what happened between us.

"Is Elena home? I really need to talk to her." I asked.

"She's here but she doesn't want to speak to you." Her mom told me and I nodded.

"Can I please just talk to her then? She doesn't need to say anything if she doesn't want to?" I asked.

"No, Elena doesn't want to see or hear from you. She's very upset and I'm sure you know why. Somehow that first boy that breaks your heart is the one that hurts the worst."She told me and my gut churned. I hated knowing that I hurt her.

"Just give me a chance to fix it." I pleaded.

"I can't do that. That's entirely up to Elena and right now she doesn't want to see or hear from you. You should just leave." She told me not unkindly.

"I'm not leaving. I'm not going to leave until she comes down or you let me up to see her. I'll stay here all night if I have to." I told Elena's mom.

"I'm not going to stop you, but it will be Elena's choice when she comes to talk to you." She told me before walking back inside and shutting the door. I did what I told her I would and sat down on the steps hoping eventually she would come out. The sky was a dark gloomy colour and I really didn't want to get rained on.

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Elena POV

I had my computer in my lap when my mom walked into my bedroom.

"Damon is outside if you want to talk to him." She told me.

"No." I answered. He was the last person I wanted to talk to or see right now. I couldn't believe he had the nerve to show up here right now.

"He's vowed to stay out there all night until you go talk to him. I can't see him backing down." She told me.

"One quick call to Sheriff Forbes and he would be gone."I shrugged.

"Elena, the boy loves you. He just wants to talk to you." She told me and I shook my head.

"I'm not ready to talk to him." I insisted.

"I know sweetheart. But aren't you just a little bit impressed that he's willing to wait all night for you if he has to? I know I am." She told me and I sighed. It wasn't enough for me to forgive him, not by a long shot but it was something at least.

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Damon POV

This was taking far longer than I thought it would and the sky just kept getting darker. After about two hours of sitting out on her front porch her dad got home.

"What are you doing out here?" He asked when he walked up the front steps where I was sitting.

"Waiting for Elena to feel I'm worth talking to." I admitted. I already knew her dad wasn't too fond of me.

"Why? Did you hurt my little girl?" He asked.

"Not intentionally. It was a complete misunderstanding and now I just need to explain it to her." I told him.

"Right. You can sit out there all night for all I care. When and if my daughter decides to talk to you it's going to be on her terms." He told me and I nodded. I'd already heard that once today. It resulted in my waiting out here for two hours with the clouds darkening. I peered over my shoulder into the open window and I saw her entire family sitting down at the dinner table. I could be at Klaus's right now eating a delicious meal, but no, I had to go and fall in love. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse the sky opened up and I was soaked to the bone in an instant.

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Elena POV

"Sweetheart he's been out there for more than two hours already and it's raining. He's not wearing a jacket." My mom told me.

"I know that he has a leather jacket in the car. If he gets cold he can go put that on." I told her.

"That's not the point and you know it Elena. He's been out there for more than two hours waiting for you to go out and see him. He just wants to talk." My mom insisted.

"You're supposed to be on my side." I exclaimed.

"What happened? I want to know what this boy did before I take your moms side. It takes a certain amount of devotion to sit outside in the rain waiting for someone to come out for two hours." My dad asked.

"I don't want to think about it and I really don't want to talk about it with you." I told him. Having any sort of conversation with the word sex in it with my father was a fate worse than death.

"Did he pressure you to have sex with him?" He asked.

"No, that part was more than mutual." I admitted. To his credit my dad's expression didn't change at all when I admitted that I had sex with Damon.

"So what happened?" He asked.

"He made a bet with Mason Lockwood that he could sleep with me before Mason could. But he made this bet when we first started seeing each other. He insists that he forgot all about it." I admitted. I decided to tell him the whole story, because half of it made Damon look far worse than he was.

"The bet was bad but doesn't it make it better that you made him forget all about it?" My dad asked.

"A little bit, but he should have told me about. I was completely blindsided by it. I was in love with him and then to find out that our entire relationship was so he could win twenty bucks. That hurt." I told him.

"I'm sure that's not all your relationship meant to him." My mom interjected.

"That's what it feels like." I said. I pushed my food around my plate not really having an appetite anymore. I didn't expect both of my parents to be on Damon's side through this. I didn't want to believe he was sorry. I wanted to believe that Damon Salvatore was an asshole that I would be better off without. But I was pretty sure that wasn't true. I was still in love with him and it would be far more painful to be away from him than it would be to be with him.

"You should grab a jacket and go out there and talk to him." My mom decided.

"I don't know what to say." I admitted.

"When you get out there I'm sure he'll do all the talking." My dad told me.

"You think I should go out there too?" I asked my dad.

"Yes. I can't begrudge a relationship in which my daughter is in love. Especially since he hasn't done anything to lose my trust yet." He told me. Jeremy had his ear buds in and was listening to music which he usually didn't get away with at the dinner table. They were too focused on my relationship woes right now.

"Alright." I sighed. I pushed my plate away and walked to where my jacket was hanging. Once I had it on and zipped up with my hood covering my head I walked outside into the torrential downpour. I had to admit seeing him outside like that made my heart flutter.

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Damon POV

When I heard the door open I stood up and faced her. The entire speech I had written in my head disappearing. All that preparation for nothing. I was soaked to the bone and my teeth were chattering. I wouldn't even care about the cold I was inevitably going to get if she forgave me.

"So why are you here?" She asked me.

"I'm here because I'm an asshole and I should have told you about the bet a long time ago." I told her.

"Why didn't you?" She asked.

"Honestly, I forgot all about it. I was having far too much fun with you and I was falling in love with you. Nothing else mattered." I told her. It was the first time I'd ever used the words falling in love in the same sentence to her before. It was easier than I expected.

"The whole thing made me feel that everything we shared was only worth that twenty bucks. You discounted our relationship and it hurt." She told me.

"I didn't discount it. There isn't enough money in the world to pay for our relationship. It means more to me than anything." He admitted.

"My parents are on your side." She told me and I smiled in spite of myself.

"Why is that?" I asked her.

"They think you love me and that it was all a misunderstanding. They also know that I love you." She told me.

"Do you still love me?" I asked her.

"I don't think I can ever stop." She admitted.

"That's good because I'm crazily, insanely and stupidly in love with you. It's the only thing that explains me sitting out here on your porch in the rain for two hours." I told her.

"You could have moved further onto the porch to stay out of the rain." She told me.

"Yeah but I told your mom I would sit on the stairs and once the rain started I hoped that would mean you would come out to rescue me at least." I admitted.

"You're soaked and you're shivering. I don't want you to get sick." She told me stepping closer but not touching me.

"It's a little cold." I admitted before leaning down and kissed her. She didn't push me away so I figured I would good. Her hands went to my sides and her touch warmed up my body from the inside out. Now that I was kissing her, I was no longer cold. When we broke the kiss she hugged me tightly.

"I love you." She whispered into my chest.

"I know, I love you too, more than you know." I told her kissing the top of her head.