All this money can't buy me a time machine, no
It can't replace you with a million rings, no
I shoulda told you what you meant to me
Cause now I paid the price
-Katy Perry, The One That Got Away
Elena sat in her desk reading over all that she had written for Parker's assignment. Kelly and Rebecca were talking about the double date they had gone on with Joseph and Thomas. Stefan had walked in a couple of minutes before and said hello to Elena to be polite. She waved back, still feeling horrible about hurting him.
"Elena you shouldn't care," Kelly had told her the other night. "He'll get over it."
Maybe he would get over it, but Elena still felt bad.
Soon the professor was strolling in, greeting his students. He clapped his hands together. "How are those writing assignments coming along?"
No one in class responded, making him laugh. "It's one of those days, huh?" he asked. Parker's eyes roamed the class before landing on Elena. "Elena, how's the writing assignment? Better than the last time I checked up on you?"
She nodded. "Yes, sir. I've been writing a lot more lately."
Parker smiled. "That's excellent!" he exclaimed. "You all need to find your inspiration. You're in New York City. There's inspiration all around you. Just find it. Elena could you read us a couple of paragraphs, please?"
Elena frowned. She didn't want to read what she had written down, especially not in front of Stefan. "I really don't want to-" she began to reject his request.
He stopped her midsentence and grinned. "Almost everyone has read what they have, Elena. It's your turn. I'll pick on someone else some other day. I want to hear what you have written."
She slid the notebook off of her desk and into her hands. She felt awkward as she stood up and felt all eyes on her. She took her place in front of the podium like she had seen a number of other students do in the previous weeks.
"Love," she read the first word she had written down. As she read that first word, she made sure to avoid Stefan's gaze. She looked back down at her notebook and continued to read. "It's something we've all felt in our lives at one point. I can tell you now that I've definitely felt it. I come from a small town called Mystic Falls. It's the type of the town where everyone knows everything there is to know about each other. It's filled with historical facts, secrets, and mysteries. I fell in love in Mystic Falls.
"Him and I, we had the type of romance you saw in movies. I couldn't think straight whenever he was around and with him next to me, I felt that I could fight off any sort of evil. As soon as I laid eyes on him in a room, I felt safe. I felt comfortable. He had saved me from the darkest time in my life and I like to believe that I saved him. All good things come to an end, though. He left the small town where we had saved each other," Elena paused for a brief moment to take a deep breath. She had grabbed the attention of her professor and every student in the room, especially her friends and Stefan. She cleared her throat before starting to read again. "A year passed and I decided it was time to move on. It was time to leave Mystic Falls. Now here I am, in the city that never sleeps. I came here to escape the secrets that were everywhere in Mystic Falls. I came here to start a new life and work on becoming a writer. I didn't expect to come here and realize that all this time, I've been in love with someone else."
Kelly and Rebecca scrunched their faces up and looked at each other in confusion. They had never heard of anyone else. They looked back at Stefan simultaneously to see him looking at Elena with a sad expression.
"I had left someone behind in Mystic Falls, someone who never did anything but care for me and look out for me. This man was the epitome of a beautiful tragedy. He was hard on the outside, but soft on the inside. He walked around acting like he had no heart, but I saw right through him just like he saw right through me. He did things that drove me crazy and made me want to hate him so badly. At the end of the day when I would look at him, I would find it hard to hate him. This man stuck with me through thick and thin. I always thought of him as a great friend.
"By coming here to New York, I hurt him. I was the only reason he had stayed in Mystic Falls and I left him abruptly. Now he's gone and I'd be lying if I said I knew where he had ran to. I find myself thinking of him every day and every night, wishing that he was here with me or that I was with him, wherever he may be. I love being in New York. It's such a change from living my entire life in that small town, and it's a change that I welcome with open arms. I'm happy here, but at the same time, I'm not. I don't feel like I'm home. My eyes have been opened after being shut, too afraid to see the truth glaring at me. I now know why I feel the way I feel." Elena looked up at the class, feeling light headed. Reading what she had written was taking a lot out of her. She felt all of the emotions she had felt while writing it, realizing all of it was true as she read each word. She had one more sentence to read and she grimaced, knowing it would take so much more emotion from her. She opened her mouth and read, with a slightly cracking voice, "I left my heart in Mystic Falls."
The class erupted into applause as Elena slowly walked back to her desk, trying her best not to cry. Kelly leaned over and rubbed her hand gently while Rebecca smiled at her. Elena smiled weakly at them both before turning around to look at Stefan. He smiled at her, happy that she had finally realized her true feelings. It hurt that he wasn't the one she loved, but he knew that there was nothing he could do about that. He was happy to have her as a friend because she would still be in his life that way.
Elena turned back around in her desk and managed to relax herself. She knew the truth now. All that was left for her to do was to do something with that truth.