CHAPTER-3
It's been fifteen minutes since they had been on the road, and Caroline was suspiciously silent. Stefan was worried for her. She never stayed so quiet for more than one minute. Caroline was looking out of her window, ignoring the eye contact with him as much as possible. There was a war going on in her brain, struggling on propositions of the ways she can stay away from Stefan.
"So… have you decided on what classes you are going to take?" asked Stefan to break the silence.
"Not yet." Said Caroline keeping her eyes on the road.
"Um… So how was slumber last night?" asked Stefan
"Good." She decided to keep the talk to a minimum so by answering in one syllable was what she was going to do. She hoped that they reach Whitmore soon.
Stefan peeked at her and saw how sad she looked at that time. It was killing him. He wanted her to talk endlessly and laugh and smile the way she used to do, but she was not giving in for that.
"Um, why are we going in the wrong direction? Whitmore is on that side." Said Caroline looking at the change of route.
"I know, we will be taking the other route. That one is under construction." He lied and was relieved when she didn't argued. She bought it!
"So, the weather is good." He said after a while.
"Stefan." She called his name and he immediately looked at her as it was a long time since he heard his name from her voice, well the real Caroline's voice. It was so soothing to hear the name from her.
"You suck at small talks, so why even try." She said and scoffed at herself after the words came out of her mouth for breaking her rules of talking less.
He grinned before answering. "Well, you are not helping so I thought I will become Caroline for one day, and do the talking." He said smiling towards her.
"You shouldn't want to be me." She mumbled to herself occupied in her own thoughts.
"What do you mean?" asked Stefan confused with her reply.
"Nothing. Pretend I never said anything." She was so not in a mood of talking right now.
"I don't think I have to, you are doing your part." Stefan said a little irritated as how much he was trying she was not willing to break the walls.
"Yeah I totally deserve that tone." Said Caroline feeling that he is suppressing his anger for past actions and now it is coming out.
"Deserve? What are you talking about Caroline?" He asked Caroline impatiently. He had the impression that she hates him for the way he treated her on the funeral day but now, the way she was acting felt as if something else was going on in her mind.
Caroline was unable to react on the fact about how someone can be so nice to her even after trying to ruin his life.
She remembers the day when her humanity came back. Caroline forced Stefan to shut his humanity off and since Stefan has no choice since Sarah's life was on stake, he did it helplessly. And after that all he wanted was to ruin her life for doing this to her.
"Let it go, Caroline." Said Stefan with a smile playing around his lips.
"You are not my boss. You can't tell me what should I do." Said Caroline casually.
"Well, I won't tell you… I will see that you lose that so- called control of yours. You don't have humanity so act like that… or else" he stopped to give her time to think about how dangerous he could be to her right. She looked at him and raised her eyebrows.
"I am getting bored. I think I will just kill you." Said Stefan challengingly and then he threw a stake pointing on her ribs. Caroline remove the same piece of wood and aimed at him. They were playing a dangerous game. Anyone could have ended other's life. He grabbed Caroline and threw her on the floor. She agonized in pain but didn't give in. She found one of the gun Stefan brought with him and aimed directly at him.
"You have messed up with a wrong girl, Stefan." She said pointing the gun at him. Stefan gave him a devilish smile and took a step forward towards her.
"Do you really think that you can shoot me? You would have done it already if you had the guts to pull the trigger. But, you didn't, and that's because you are weak. You are weak for me." Said Stefan taking more steps toward her. "Admit it, you want this." Said Stefan giving her a smirk look. And the next thing was almost a blur in Caroline's head when Stefan's lips collided with her. The gun in her hands was replaced by Stefan. Heartbeat started to raise like a maniac, and then it was all there. Tears started to fall out of her eyes because she wanted this for so long. When Stefan felt the drops on his cheek his movement became slow, and they both pulled away. Stefan saw that there was a softness in her look and was confirmed that she was back. He gave her a relieved smile. Seeing him smile proved to Caroline that he was back too. They both turned it on at the same time.
Well, at least that's what Caroline thought what happened that day. She was unaware of the other part of the truth. It was all Stefan's plan and being the human- less ripper was the only way to keep an eye on her and bring her back. Stefan was losing her, and she was ready to go on any extent to get free from emotions. So, he decided to play it in her way.
When Caroline think about that day she feels sick about herself that she jumped into a make out session with him with no emotions. It wasn't right to do it in that way. Stefan would have never kissed her if he had his emotions on. He kissed her once and it was epic for her, but for him, all it did was to create confusions in his mind. He did said that he liked her, but she is unsure if she heard it right, or if he was saying it just to bring her humanity back, so she blocked out that memory from her mind. Only if she can block all other memories too.
Stefan's plan worked. He decided it in the blink of an eye to go for the root cause and pluck it out. Nobody other than him knew about his plan though. All he wanted was to flick the switch, but then he never knew how and when he started kissing her. He felt guilty for doing it the wrong way, but what haunted him the most was how to tell her the truth about this.
"How can you be so nice to me after all of this Stefan? I tried to kill Sarah. Don't say that you have already forgotten about that?" yelled Caroline. She couldn't take it anymore. She doesn't want to deserve the kindness he was showing towards her.
And then it clicked in Stefan mind why she was acting in this way. She was feeling guilty for the things she did to him. He has to tell her the truth about everything.
"Caroline listen…." He started but Caroline cut him in the middle.
"No, you listen. When I look in the mirror I see a monster, and I feel I have lost the power of controlling things. That was the only quality I had and that's why I was able to resist and move on with my life. I have hurt so many people, and mostly you. I tried to kill your only family Stefan." She started crying but didn't but kept on saying her mind out. "I… I made you the person you hate the most. Now look at me and tell me that you don't feel anger for me." She stopped. He looked at her intensely and replied "I don't feel any anger for you. I can never hate you Caroline, because you didn't do anything."
Caroline was confused at his reply. "Don't you dare say that it was not me? I was a monster."
"By that definition I should be the boss of monster, as I killed my own father." He tried to reason with her.
"That…. That was different. You were in transition and you didn't knew what was happening to you. But, once you got the control you never wanted to be that person and I turned you into one. I love you Stefan and the person who loves someone never harm their love ones. I love you so much that it hurts to see what I did to you." She said mostly talking to herself.
"Caroline you never did anything. You are…." After a second the words she spit out sink into his brain. "Did you just said you love me?" He asked her thinking how even without even thinking she still keeps her heart out in front of him.
Her eyes went wide when she heard what she said. "That's the only part you got from what I told you? What you should feel for me right now is, let me give you the list – hate, anger, disgust, and well you can check the thesaurus for that." She said breathlessly.
Stefan took a deep breath and was glad that she didn't hate him. But, he knew the moment he will the truth, she won't see his face again.
"Caroline, I can never feel all those things you listed out to me for you, because, you haven't done anything." He said but still was looking for a ray of courage to tell her the truth.
"You never turned it off, didn't you?" She figured it out after observing his facial expressions. He just nodded on that. She didn't know how to react on that. She was happy that she didn't pushed him off the rails, but there was a little bit of anger that he didn't said it sooner, so that she might have escaped the haunted nightmares she was having for past few days.
"Well, one thing to take out from my list of "Mistakes of my life". But, you cannot deny the fact that I did tried to kill Sarah. And if Elena wouldn't have reached on time, her murder would have been on my hands." She said crossing her arms in front of her.
Stefan sighed and closed his eyes for a second. It's now or never.
"About that… Liam was never going to kill her. When I met Liam before coming to the rave, I have compelled him to do as you say but never go for the final act. So, he wouldn't have killed her." He told her with a guilt of keeping it to himself for so long now.
She just looked at him in shock, unable to speak. And then, the anger that didn't surfaced before started to boil and burst the dam.
"Stop the car." She said gritting her teeth.
"Caroline we are in the middle of the road." This wasn't supposed to happen. It was not the part of his plan today.
She couldn't take it anymore. She wanted to calm herself down and wanted to run away from everything.
"Stop the car, or I will jump out of it." She said in a calm tone, but by the looks Stefan was sure that he messed it up big time by not telling her the truth the moment she turned it on.