Last chapter before the epilogue! Thank you all for sticking with me and this story. My life has just been so...I can't even describe it. Let's just say it's been hard to feel like getting out of bed for a long while now.
"Damon?"
Damon's eyes snapped open as he heard the familiar voice behind him.
That voice had been the voice of his dreams and nightmares. It had sent him to Hell, but had also brought him back. He wasn't sure if him hearing it at this moment meant he was in Heaven or Hell, but he knew for sure that whichever place he was, knowing she was there, even in spirit, gave him the hope he needed to endure whatever would be thrown at him.
"Bonnie…" Her name trailed from his lips, and it was then that he realized he hadn't even pulled the trigger. His mouth opened slightly, but fell short on the words he couldn't find it in him to say.
"Damon, I'm coming toward you. Don't move." Damon felt Bonnie's body heat invade his space, and he tightly closed his eyes again. As he felt the gun being removed from his hand, and eased down onto the grass beside of him, Damon felt the fresh, hot tears begin their descent down his face. Without thinking, he quickly reached out for Bonnie, and felt her arms squeeze around him tightly as he realized she was now on her knees right in front of him. He buried his face deep into the crook of her neck, and felt his body almost shake from the sobs he tried his best to silence.
Bonnie felt her own tears slide down her cheeks as she stared up at the sky; trying to ignore the man falling apart in her arms.
"Is everything all right?" A British accent invaded the bubble around the two ex-lovers as Bonnie felt someone walking toward them. She felt Damon go still in her arms, then quickly reach for the gun and tuck it back on his person.
"Uh, yes. Everything is fine. We just…got caught up in the visit." Damon heard Bonnie's shaky voice answer in the affirmative. For a long moment, he didn't hear a response from the intruder.
"…Damon? Damon Salvatore? Is that you, mate?"
Damon quickly let go of Bonnie and scrubbed at his face to make sure it was now clear. His eyes immediately went wide as he took in the sight of the man before him.
"Lorenzo?" He felt a foreign smile spread across his face as he hurriedly stood up. Bonnie followed his movements, and she turned her back a little to give the two old friends some space.
Lorenzo St. James was born in London, England and had moved to the United States when he was five years old. Damon Salvatore had the pleasure of sharing his Kindergarten table with him since no other kid in class wanted to hang out with the scrawny boy that had the weird voice. The two remained close friends until nine years later when Lorenzo's dad was fatally shot in an altercation, and with no other source of income, his mother moved back to London to live with her sister.
Without another word, Lorenzo tightly hugged his old friend. He had been back in the States managing the maintenance and care of the cemetery, but hadn't see Damon in over five years.
"How've you been? It's been, what, five years?"
"Yeah. I guess it has been." Damon quietly responded. He immediately felt the guilt wash over him as he realized he had been dodging Lorenzo's efforts to see one other. He also seemed to remember how Lorenzo would've been the one to find his lifeless body if Bonnie had been a second too late.
Bonnie.
"Oh!" Damon spun around, and as soon as she was in his line of sight, he felt his whole body go calm. He felt like he was on a beach watching the wave pass him; not minutes away from committing suicide. She was here by his side. She was all he needed.
"Lor, this is Bonnie Bennett; the love of my life."
..
"The love of your life, huh?"
Lorenzo popped a marshmallow into his mouth and leaned on the counter that was facing Damon.
"I did—I did say that, didn't I? She's my everything, Lor."
"Did I ever mention how much I hate you calling me Lor? Most people call me Enzo, and have been for a while I might add."
"You know I'm not most people."
Lorenzo shrugged his shoulders, but didn't deny anything. He had to admit Damon Salvatore was a friend to him when no one else had been, and he would never forget that.
"So, where's Lexi?"
Damon suddenly remembered Lor's vivacious, eccentric wife whom he had married last year after dating her for several years beforehand.
"Well, Alexia has decided to pursue more…adventurous endeavors."
"Which means?"
"Apparently running a cemetery and living in a newly renovated house wasn't enough for her. She's now married to a doctor who has several vacation homes littered throughout the Caribbean, Western Europe, and Australia."
Silence filled the kitchen as Lorenzo's face seemed to drop. Damon's voice was clear as he slowly cracked a smile.
"That damned Australia."
Lorenzo couldn't stop the smile that tugged at his lips as he realized his best friend was back.
..
The love of my life.
Damon's words echoed repeatedly in Bonnie's head as she shakily took a sip out of the mug of hot chocolate Lorenzo had offered her.
She felt the buzzing of her phone vibrating in her pocket, but it didn't matter. She could only imagine the frigid look in Caroline's eyes once she faced her friend again. It took everything in her not to imagine the sad look in Matt's eyes as he realized he'd been stood up.
Bonnie had to fight the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks. In her heart, she knew she had made the right choice. Caroline didn't matter, and, ignoring the dull tug at her heart, neither did Matt.
She had known it for a while now, and lived to deny it, but the only one who had truly mattered to her was Damon Salvatore. It wasn't until the moment she saw him with tears streaming down his face and a gun to his head that she had decided she couldn't, wouldn't, live without him.
The sound of Lorenzo and Damon entering the room made Bonnie look up at the two men. Lorenzo made his way down the hallway to another part of the house as he mumbled something about some elementary school pictures, while Damon sat down on the couch beside of Bonnie; keeping a reasonable amount of space between them.
"How did you know where to find me?"
Damon kept his eyes straight ahead and Bonnie did the same.
"I—I knew you were hurting, so I put myself in your shoes. I knew this was the last place you'd come. I knew your parents' graves were your saving grace…"
Bonnie trailed off, and she felt Damon's eyes as he started to stare at the side of her face; silently begging for her to look at him. She turned toward him, and those seas of blue were almost enough to drown her. She felt herself taking ragged breaths as she tried to stay above the surface.
"I had no doubt in my mind about where'd you be because…I've thought about it a lot myself."
Damon let his eyes question Bonnie. He needed to know more.
"Damon," Bonnie paused for a second as his name seemed to caress her lips as she practically exhaled it. "You don't think I've ever considered doing what you were about to do today?"
She couldn't possibly mean what he thought. Before he stopped himself, he found himself asking the words that he knew didn't even deserve to be uttered into reality.
"You've considered killing yourself, Bonnie?"
"Yes. Although, I had a different weapon of choice. For a few months, I went to the E.R. complaining about headaches, backaches, joint pain…anything that would've led to me getting more pain pills. Finally, when I had figured I had gathered enough, I started to complain about insomnia so they'd give me sleep aids. It was surprisingly easy to get what I needed, but putting those things to use was what was hard."
Bonnie turned to look straight ahead again, and Damon noticed her closing her eyes.
"When you want to die, dying seems so easy. You have nothing left in you, and the days that you do try to live, those are the days that seem to hurt the most." Damon could see tears fall down Bonnie's cheeks as she opened her eyes. "But then when the time comes to finally end it…to finally set yourself free, it's like everything that matters, and everything that doesn't hurt, hits you all at once. It's like you remember the feel of the sun on the back of your eyelids, or you remember the huge birthday cake your mom got you for your fifth birthday.
"When the end is about to come, you start to think of everything that hasn't happened. The wedding dress you'll never wear, the kids you'll never have…"
Bonnie's shoulders slightly shook from the sobs she was trying to hold back as she paused for a long minute before talking again.
"And then when the end is about to come, you realize that you have to wait for a more natural ending. You realize that you have to be strong and keep living on because you have so much life left to live. So every November, you have to constantly tell yourself that in thirty days…it'll be December."