CHAPTER 15

Stefan was relieved that by the time they got home, Caroline seemed to have calmed down some and was no longer crying.
They got into the house and he walked her up the stairs and into his room to have her lie down. He pulled the blanket over her body and went to turn to go into the bathroom and get her a warm washcloth but her hand caught his and it stopped him.
He looked down at her at her and felt his heart clench at the look on her face. She looked so sad and broken, it broke his heart.
Stefan kissed the back of her hand and gently let go and went into the bathroom. He decided now would be a good time to clean and wash his bloodied and bruised knuckles; he didn't want Caroline to see how back they actually were.
When he came back out, he sat next to her on the bed and softly patted the warm washcloth over her red, puffy eyes. He heard her let out a long sigh and took that as a good sign to continue.
He stopped when he felt the washcloth become cold and went to get up to warm it when she stopped him again.
"I'm so sorry, Stefan."
"Caroline, you have absolutely nothing to apologize for. I'm the one who is sorry, I should have been there to protect you, this is my fault."
"It's not your fault, please don't say that. You can't be with me all the time."
"If that's what I have to do to protect you, then I WILL be with you every second of every day." he told her with determination in his voice. He would do anything he needed to do in order to keep her safe.
She looked at him with soft eyes, "Stefan, this isn't your fault. It's mine."
"How could you even say that?" he asked her with a hint of annoyance in his voice. He couldn't understand how she could even believe that.
"Because, I wasn't honest with you about everything. And because I knew that he would never stop looking until he found me, but I left anyways and put myself and the rest of you in danger by doing that."
Stefan looked at her confused now. "What weren't you honest with me about?"
Caroline took a huge breath in, she didn't know how he was going to react to this new information.
"I didn't just leave him…I left a marriage."
She saw the shocked expression on his face and felt her heart break a little more when he took a step away from her.
"You…you married him?" he asked with a devastated voice.
All Caroline could do was nod her head, she'd begun to cry again and was afraid she wouldn't be able to speak right now even if she tried.

Stefan ran his hands through his hair, and finally felt the pain of the damage to his knuckles. He was feeling every emotion possible running through him, except one: anger. He could never be angry with her, not ever.
"Why?" was the only thing he could get out.

She let out a bitter laugh and shook her head, "I thought it would make things better. Not long after my mom died, I decided to go see a therapist, try to work through some of the grief I was feeling. And to my surprise, Tyler agreed to see someone too when I asked. I'd expected there to be yelling or a few punches thrown my way for even asking him such a thing, but when I did, he simply said "okay" and that was that. We went three times a week. Well, I went three times a week. Truth is, I don't know if he ever went. We never did any sessions together, he said he didn't think that it was a good idea and I didn't bother to argue with him about it. After a month or two, I finally started feeling a little bit better, I could feel the weight of the grief slowly starting to lift and I could breathe a little more" she said with a sad smile and Stefan knew she was thinking about her mom.
"One night, he came home and it was like I'd gone back in time, to the very beginning. He had flowers and a bottle of wine, and he walked in with the biggest smile on his face and kissed me. I hadn't seen him in that good of a mood in at least a year. We actually had a nice dinner, like a normal couple. We talked in a way that I didn't even think was possible for us anymore. And after we were done, he simply got up and walked over to me, took my hand, got down on one knee, told me he loved me more than anything and asked me to marry him." She was crying now and Stefan made his way back to the bed to sit next to her and took her hands into his and rubbed his thumbs on the back of her hands, waiting for her to finish her story.

"I was dumb enough to believe that he actually did love me, and that maybe, just maybe, he'd had some miracle breakthrough at therapy and that everything was going to be better after that. So, two weeks later, we went down to the courthouse, signed a piece of paper and that was that. No family, no friends, no dress, no cake, not even any rings, nothing." She was crying even harder now and was struggling to get her words out.
Stefan brushed a piece of hair from her eyes and cupped her cheek, letting her know that he was there, that it was okay. She gave him a sad smile before she took another breath to continue.

"It didn't take long for me to realize that the only reason he wanted to get married was for financial gain."

Stefan tilted his head and gave her another confused look but she just smiled slightly and continued.

"My mom's family was pretty wealthy and when she passed away, I became the only Forbes left, so I inherited everything. Tyler knew that and as soon as I signed that marriage certificate, my money became his money. It wasn't even three weeks before my inheritance check hit our bank account and everything went back to the exact same as before. And now we were married, so it was going to be even harder for me to leave, so I didn't. Like a stupid little girl, I stayed and just let the abuse continue."

She began sobbing and threw her face into her hands. Stefan pulled her into a tight embrace and rocked her back and forth to calm her down as he felt her tears seeping into his shirt.

"I'm so sorry I didn't tell you sooner, Stefan. I was so ashamed and I wanted to just forget about everything so I pretended it didn't even happen. I'm just so sorry. I had divorce papers delivered to him a couple of months ago, but he refuses to sign them."

Stefan pulled back and placed both hands on the sides of her face, making sure she was looking him in the eye.

"You have nothing to be sorry for and nothing to be ashamed about, you did absolutely nothing wrong. I'm not mad Caroline, not even a little bit. And I don't care about the past. All I care about is that you're here, you're safe, and you're with me. Everything else we will figure out, together."

Caroline stared into his eyes and knew he was telling the truth. God this man was amazing. Even with all of the craziness that just happened with them, she still felt so unbelievably lucky to have found someone like Stefan.

She leaned in and pressed a long, loving kiss to his lips.

They broke apart and Stefan laid back and pulled Caroline onto his chest and wrapped him arms around her.

She let out a content sigh at being in his arms.

"I love you, Stefan."
"I love you too, beautiful."

After laying there for a while, Stefan could hear her even breathing and knew she'd finally fallen asleep, and before long, he did the same.

Stefan woke up three hours later and smiled down at the beautiful girl still sleeping peacefully on his chest. He looked at the clock and noticed it was getting close to dinner time and decided it would be a good idea to get Caroline some food for when she woke up.

He carefully and quietly made his way out of the bedroom, making sure to not wake her up, and was met by all of their friends when he walked into the living room.
He suddenly felt a little guilty, in all of the madness of the day and then the intense conversation he'd had with Caroline when they got back home, he'd didn't even think to talk to their friends and let them know she was okay.

"Hey brother, it's about time you got up." Damon said when they all saw him.
"Guys I'm really sorry! Things got even crazier when Caroline and I got home and we were both just so exhausted from the day, we passed out." He told them, still feeling terrible. He knew they were all so worried about her.
"Is she okay, Stefan?" Elena asked, her and Bonnie both with worried looks on their faces.
"Physically, yes, she's fine. But emotionally…" he trailed off, not sure how to finish.
"She feels guilty." Elena responded. It wasn't a question, she knew her friend, she knew Caroline would feel guilty about all of this even when none of it was her fault.
Stefan nodded his head.

He wasn't sure if he should bring it up, or if Caroline had even told anyone else, but he wanted to know if any of them knew.

"Did uh…did she tell any of you about the uh…status of her relationship with him?" he asked them all.

They all looked around at each other and then back at Stefan with confused looks on their faces.

"What do you mean the status?" Bonnie asked.

If none of them knew, he pretty much had to tell them now after asking that.

"Well, it's a long story of when and why that I'll let Caroline explain, if she wants to, to you guys, but…" he didn't even want to finish the sentence. It made him sick to his stomach that the piece of shit had basically tricked Caroline into a marriage that neither of them truly wanted.

"What is it Stefan?" Elena asked.

He ran his hand over his face, wincing at the pain of his busted up knuckles again.

"They're married."

They were all stunned in silence. None of them had known.

"Married!?" Bonnie practically shouted.

Stefan just nodded his head. "Yes, married." He hated even saying it.

After she'd picked her jaw off of the floor, Elena asked, "How did that even happen?"
"Like I said, it's a long story and if Caroline wants to talk about it, I'm sure she'll tell you guys. But truthfully, it's not something that I really want to keep talking about." He told them as he flopped down on the couch.

They all nodded their heads and gave him a sad look.

He rolled his eyes. "Guys, I'm fine, seriously. Right now we need to be focused on Caroline and figuring out a way to get her out of this bullshit mess."

"I'm assuming she's already filed for the divorce?" Jeremy said, asking the obvious question.
"Yeah, but he won't sign them." He replied, rubbing his temples because of the headache he was getting.

They all started talking among themselves, trying to find a solution but it was all making Stefan's head spin. He just wanted to take care of his girl and make sure she was safe.

"Alright, well you all continue to talk this out." He said as he got up.
"Where are you going? Damon asked.
"We don't have any food in the house right now, and everyone is going to need dinner pretty soon, so I'm going to run out and just grab us some pizza or something."
"Do you want company?" Damon asked.
Stefan shook his head. "No, it's okay. I need to clear my head anyways, thanks though."
He grabbed his keys and made his way outside, still hearing everyone talking about just how insane today had really been.

Ten minutes later, Stefan made it to the pizzeria. He got out of his car and began making his way across the street, and then everything was dark.

He didn't even see it coming. It was literally out of nowhere.

He could feel pain in every single part of his body. He couldn't open his eyes, he couldn't speak, all he could feel was pain.

He could hear footsteps getting closer.
And then he could feel hot breath on his face.

"You shouldn't get involved with things that don't concern you, Stefan. You might end up getting hurt."

The sound of footsteps were now further away. He heard a car door shut and then heard the car take off in a hurry.

He lay in the middle of the road, bloodied and in excruciating pain and only had one thing on his mind: Caroline.

He had to get back to her. He needed to protect her. He couldn't let Tyler hurt her again.

And yet, he couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't do anything. And then the darkness took over.

Hello beautiful people! I hope everyone is doing great this Wednesday afternoon. I'm pretty happy with this chapter for the most part, I hope you all are too! I'm finally back on a bit of a roll in writing again, so I'm already working on Chapter 16 which I'm hoping to have posted by tomorrow night! Hope you guys liked the chapter and the drama. Reviews and comments always appreciated and thank you again to whoever is reading this story. It means so much!