In My Veins
Dear Diary,
I've always liked to believe that the universe is maintained with a certain sense of order. When one door closes, another one opens. When life gives you lemons, there's always someone around willing to buy lemonade. But lately, as I think about getting older, I wonder if that's true. If everything happens on the role of a dice, balancing on a knife edge, hurtling us into the unknown with no map, and certainly no parachute to cushion our landing.
This time next week, I'll be eighteen. And I was hoping, with the extra metaphorical candle on my metaphorical cake, the new-found maturity that is supposed to accompany the reaching of that milestone will lend me some much-needed insight.
You see, I'm having a problem. My problem is that I had one door open, and that door was fine. It was amazing and perfect, but then that door left, but it was still open. But at the same time, another door opened, this one different, darker and colder at first, yet warmer and inviting as time did it usual march forward. I'm stuck in-between both door, and like both doors very much, and each one makes me happy.
But if I go through one door, I'll be closing myself off to the other, forever. These door don't get along, both made from oak but different types, built for different things in different times.
Okay, enough with the doors! I like two vampires -again- and it sucks! Again. Why do I keep doing this? Am I ever going to fall in (nope, not that word) like a guy when I'm not with someone else? Is it always going to be this way?
I'm sorry, diary, for putting this all on you. It's late, and I'm tired, but my brain refuses to switch off until I come up with some sort of resolution to my current dilemma.
I'm not so logic-driven that I'm gonna make a Pro-Con list for the both of them, but neither am I going to spin the bottle and accept whoever fate picks for me. I didn't think growing up would be this hard. I didn't think love would be this hard.
My parents made it look so easy, as natural as breathing. They hardly ever thought, and they always looked at each other with such love, like they were the center of each other's worlds, helplessly pulled into their orbit. It was like that with Stefan, this magnetic attraction pulling me inextricably towards him, and I didn't even try to fight it, didn't want to fight it.
But with Elijah...with Elijah, it was like a wave. Like when you're at the beach, and you don't realize you're in the water until it's lapping at your toes, but it's warm and exhilarating and thrilling and different and...and I really need to stop listing adjectives when it's getting me nowhere.
What would my parents tell me to do? My mom would likely say to follow my heart, while my dad would make a joke about picking the one that offers me the most financial stability...and has the better hair. So, not exactly helpful at this very moment in time.
Do you know the saying, 'You only know you love something when you let it go?' Well, I knew I loved Stefan before he left, and absence may make the heart grow fonder, but it also makes it more confused when someone else enters the picture. Someone who I'm looking at right now, and I can't help but smile, because Elijah doesn't wear a suit to bed -shocker, I know- and he looks so soft and innocent in his grey t-shirt, like the weight of his family isn't resting on his shoulders. I like him like this. I like him any way, all the time. I didn't think I ever would, that he'd become such a part of my life, part of me, seeping into my veins with every second we spent together, becoming as important and natural and vital to me as it is writing in you, giving me the strength to go on, whilst also the strength to stand on my own, but I know he's always there behind me.
I feel like I really know him, in a way I don't think he's ever let anyone else know him, at least not since Katherine broke his heart. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong (I get the feeling I'm wrong, that there was someone else, more recently, but not super recent, someone who got hurt, maybe because of Klaus?)
Is that how you know you lo-
I'm not going to finish that sentence. I think you know why I can't, diary.
Thank you for listening.
Always, your friend Elena.
Author's Note: Hello, everyone! Wanted to try something different for the penultimate chapter...of this part. Yep, part one is nearing it's end. But I'm not planning on going anywhere, and I hope neither are you! So, enjoy these two chapters, the quiet before the storm. Because a storm is coming...and it has birthday candles on it?
All my love, Temperance Cain.
