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Here is the next chapter, please read and review!
Disclaimer: I do not own the Vampire Diaries, because if I did; Alaric would never have suffered in all the ways he has.
Atheris xo.
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"Elena, I am waiting for an explanation here…Tell me it isn't true. Give me the smallest of excuses and I will believe you. Please," Damon pleads with her as Guiseppe looks on.
Elena wants to run to him. To tell him everything, the whole truth about Stefan and Katherine. She almost does. But as she takes a deep breath to confess all the horrible details, she sees the pictures Katherine showed her, but in her head it's Jenna's with the hole through her neck. Jeremy with his head in his lap like a present. Bonnie and Caroline bleeding out on the ground like Brian did. She resolves to no longer be selfish, and so she instead puts on her best bitch face.
"Nothing to explain Damon. What you see is what you get," she says coolly, willing her eyes not to betray her as Damon sputters in utter disbelief.
"Elena what changed? I know you love me. We are engaged for God's sake! He bellows, standing to his feet in anger.
Good, let him yell. The anger is easier for me to handle, and the hatred will help him get over me, she thinks as she watches him try to handle his rage.
"Nothing changed Damon. I don't love you. I never did. I loved the idea of you," she says calmly. This stops him dead in his tracks as she knew it would.
"Wh…what?" he asks incredulously.
"Oh come on Damon! You had to sense it. Do you really think I'm capable of loving you? Do you truly believe that there is anything worthy inside you to love? Ohhh how lovable, the poor, tortured, rich boy who is only ever good for one night," she mocks, hating herself with every passing word. "I had hoped to actually get married and lock you into a profitable pre-nuptial agreement, but oh well. C'est la vie I suppose," she says as she picks at her nails, appearing bored.
"A pre-nup? This is about money?" Guiseppe asks quietly from the head of the table.
"Of course silly. Oh, and the family fame of course. Elena Salvatore had a nice ring to it, don't ya think?" she smiles wickedly. "I just got so sick of being around you all the time and pretending so much. I guess I let that make me careless yesterday," she says.
"Wait…yesterday? When?" Damon asks grimly.
"When I went to "get supplies for Jenna and Jeremy". Instead of getting stuff for them, I got a little somethin' somethin' for mself, if you know what I mean…" she winks at him audaciously.
"While your aunt and brother were in the hospital…and then you came back here…and you…you…." He sputters off.
"…slept with you? HAHA. Yes I did. I was still a tad frisky and it is the one thing you are useful for…" she sneers.
"Enough Elena…what you have done is bad enough. The cruelty is unnecessary and beneath even you…I do have a question though. Why Damon?" he asks calmly, though she can see the anger boiling beneath his surface.
"As opposed to other famous people? As opposed to Stefan even?" she asks to clarify, and proceeds when he nods solemnly.
"Damon was easy," she says as she turns to face Damon once more. "I wasn't lying that I had studied your expressions and thought you were miserable. That was all true, I could see it. I just lied about why I cared. Your need to have someone fix you, and more importantly love you, made you an easy target. I hoped it would mean you forgoing your common sense and listening to your heart, which made you easily manipulated."
"Do Jenna and Jeremy know? Are they in on this? Or Bonnie and Caroline?"
Elena jumped to quickly defend her friends and family. "No, they all fell for it as easily as you did. So gullible.
At this point she can see that Damon has had enough. "Go pack your stuff Elena, I can't even stand to look at you. I want you out of this house…out of my life, immediately."
Elena shrugs and walks out with her head held high. As she is finishing packing, Anna and Alaric come into her room.
"You promised Elena. I though I could trust you. I thought I could trust you with Damon…." Anna starts before Elena cuts her off rudely.
"Yeah well, maybe you shouldn't be so pathetically naïve and trusting," she quips. Elena barely has time to raise her eyes to Anna's as she feels the cold sting of Anna's open palm as she slaps her across the face. The sound is spectacularly loud in the small room, but Elena can barely register it over the ringing in her ears.
"You bitch! Don't ever come near any of us. Ever again," she spits venomously as she storms out of the room with Alaric at her heels.
Elena sits on her bed and pulls the bracelet out of her pocket, she had secretly picked it up whole Guiseppe escorted everyone from the dining room. She puts it in her bag and takes a deep breath as she prepares to go back downstairs.
At the foot of the stairs, the entire clan glares at her while she descends. As she reaches the bottom, Stefan steps into the foyer and speaks.
"I have arranged a car to take you back to Mystic Falls. This is the last kindness you will personally ever receive from us."
"And it's a kindness you don't deserve…" Damon says as he walks off in tears.
Elena turns away from them all, and walks out the door of the Salvatore Mansion for the last time. She manages down the stairs. She manages across the sidewalk. She excels at opening the door and ducking into the car. Once the door closes behind her and she is no longer on display, she feels the sob crawl up her throat and explode in a messy outpour of gut wrenching sobs and tears.
Elena thought she had felt heartbreak before, but it was different this time, she realized. It was a different kind of fall. Before it was falling suddenly and unexpectedly from a high cliff of blissful love, and now it was a knowing descent into the firey pits of despair as she threw hand grenades at everyone she loves. This second fall, made all the worse by her participation in its cruelty, had rendered her unequivocally broken. This fall allowed her to realize in that small beat of time as the door closed and encased her silence, that she would never have it in her to climb again.
As she wiped her eyes and prepared to settle into her near catatonic state, the dividing glass of the limo rolled down, only to reveal Katherine as the driver.
"Time to leave the ball Cinderalla, and this time no one will be looking for you!"
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Ugh poor everyone. I hate this
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Love to you all Atheris xo.