Self-loathing was something Damon was all too familiar with, and as he shrugged a white tee over his sculpted shoulders he found himself all but drowning in the feeling.
But damn it, he was helpless, eternally helpless, when it came to all things Elena.
And denying a naked Elena? That was a thought nearly beyond comprehension.
But not thoroughly beyond comprehension - which was exactly why he felt none of the postcoital glow that had accompanied the night before. Instead, he ached, the wounds Elena constantly, albeit unknowingly, inflicted on him forever throbbing with pain and unending frustration.
Stefan, Stefan, it will always be Stefan.
Why had he ever tried to convince himself differently? Why allow that seed of hope, that tiny but ever present seed, germinate, take root, dare to blossom?
It made everything so much worse, to taste the light before being cast into shadow - and then to reach for that light again even knowing he'd soon be abandoned, alone in shadow? It was unbearable. Yet that's exactly what he'd done under the hot spray of the shower; taken, desperately taken what he now knew he'd never truly have.
Fuck it, fuck that. Hadn't he simply turned from crazed love for one woman - one woman who scorned him, tossed him aside, laughed while doing so - to fiery, consuming love for another?
She would never laugh at him for his love. No - she would feel sorry for him. She would look up into his eyes with depths of pity reflected in her own, and in her attempt to remove the knife buried in his heart she'd simply twist it deeper.
Tt will always be Stefan.
Conviction settled like a steel cloak over his shoulders. He was done. He was done hurting and hoping, done enabling himself by turning to Elena even when he knew she'd never turn back to him. Perhaps in passion; last night and the morning proved that. But never in love. Never in love.
"Hurry up, Elena," he called out in a deceptively casual voice. "We've gotta hit the road."
And then they'd go to the place that she called home - the same place he'd once called home. Not anymore. From the moment he dropped her off at her door, he was leaving mystic, leaving heartbreak, leaving hope.
Damon's voice snapped Elena out of her reverie. She wished he'd stayed with her longer, let her enjoy the intimate closeness of this daily ritual spiced with the exciting heat of lust, the soft warmth of love.
She wanted to wash his back. She wanted to stand in his arms under the shower and listen to his heartbeat. She wanted her to hold him, she wanted him to hold her.
She rinsed the last of the conditioner from her hair and stepped out of the shower stall, absently towel-drying her hair. She swept the towel up like a turban and wrapped it around her head only to realize it was the single towel at her disposal.
It was incredibly silly to blush, but the idea of going out into the brightness of the motel room naked seemed sharply different from going bare and vulnerable into the fogged heat of the little bathroom.
She shook her head at herself and called for Damon. "Hey, Damon? Could I, um - are you done with your towel?"
Silence greeted the question, and Elena shook her head with a small smile. "If you think you can lure me out there by ignoring me," she said through a crack in the door, "I guess you're right."
But when she walked out of the bathroom, Damon's wet towel was tossed on the rumpled bedsheets. The room was empty.
Rushing now, and suddenly filled with worry, Elena dried off and grabbed a shirt from her duffel, threw on a pair of shorts, then rooted through her purse for her cell.
She dialed, heart racing, fear mounting. Klaus had a long reach. It wouldn't surprise her in the least if those murderous hands had somehow managed to wrap themselves around Damon's throat.
When he answered with an easy, "Yeah?" Elena's breath came easier.
"Where are you?"
"In the car," he told her in a voice that said, 'where else would I be?'
"Oh." She frowned, confused and trying to repress the strange, uneasy feeling unfurling in her gut.
"Told you to hurry up," he said. "We've gotta head out."
"Okay," she answered, trying to censor the baffled hurt from her tone. "I'll be out in a sec. Just let me grab my stuff."
He didn't respond.
He'd already hung up.
From an outsider's perspective, everything seemed to be going okay. Going well, even. On the outside, all was easy, breezy, fine-just-fine.
Inside, all was tumult and pain and confusion.
Damon continued to steel himself against his greatest weakness, which was particularly hard when he could still smell her, taste her, feel her. Hear her scream and whimper and whisper his name.
Hear her whisper his brother's.
Elena's heart sobbed in pain, sheer willpower keeping the tears from her eyes.
What happened? What changed in the ten minutes after he'd left her alone in the shower? What had she done - what had he done?
She was scared to ask. Because a part of her was terrified she already knew the answer.
What if she'd completely misread the previous night? If their coming together had just been the mad passion of bodies joining - not hearts, not souls? Had it just been sex?
Had she been nothing more than a one night stand? A challenge, a conquest, a fun little game?
God, he'd played brilliantly. So well that she'd truly never questioned his love for her. So well that she'd truly believed it was real, it was pure - that the love of this beautiful, tortured man was hers to hold close.
But his offhand manner belied all those convictions of his love, all the certainties she'd come to believe over the past year. All those times he'd looked at her soulfully, heartbreakingly, all those times he'd come for her, saved her, made her believe there was good in him. And he'd made her wonder, made her heart yearn, broken that heart in two. She hadn't wanted this. She'd had Stefan, steady, loving Stefan. But everything had changed that past summer, and she'd begun to want something else entirely. Someone else. And not only with her body - god knew she'd always felt the spark between them, wanted to explore it - but with her heart.
Her brain had been the ultimate barrier. Her brain told her it would never work, refusing to let her trust the naive hope of a wayward heart.
And now she knew she should've listened to that brain. Instead, she'd betrayed her heart.
Because now he had that heart, had the love of his brother's girl. And now that he had it, he didn't want it.
The hurt was unbelievable in its potency. Elena wanted nothing more than to get away from him, this man whose smile came so easily, the man who was apparently oblivious to the fact that he held her heart in is hands. And she was left with a gaping, aching hole in her chest.
He didn't want her. Had never truly wanted her. Later she'd find the energy to hate him for that, but now she could only lick her wounds silently. She refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing how he'd devastated her this way. Refused to let him know that she'd allowed herself to dream of more lazy kisses and feverish nights - and so much more. She wanted to be with him, really be with him, not in the shadows of a dingy motel bed but in the light, where everyone could see. She wanted dates and hand holding and all the stupid things a stupid girl longed for so foolishly.
No, he absolutely could not know how badly his absent rejection hurt her, his casual, offhand attitude so contrary to her hopes of open tenderness and affection. In the late night hours, Elena's world had been remade into something amazing, something full of delicious, exciting possibilities. Everything had changed. For her, anyway.
For Damon, only one thing was any different. He'd finally bedded his brother's girl. Bravo, Salvatore.
In the quiet of the car, Elena chanced a glance at Damon. He was fiddling with the radio, oblivious to her pain, and damn him, he was smiling, looking for all the world like... well, like what he was. A smug guy wearing the smug expression of a man who'd spent his night getting laid.
She matched him smile for smile, perfectly reflecting his nonchalant attitude, like she didn't have a care in the world, like her heart hadn't been ripped from her chest.
And as she wore her supposed casualness around her like some sort of armor, it never once crossed Elena's mind that even as she told herself Damon had never truly loved her, he was telling himself that she would never truly love him.