Author's Note: I normally don't do the same character two chapters in a row, but Damon's POV was the only one that felt right for this chapter. It all seemed to flow from the beginning. It's a lengthy chapter, as I know you all have come to expect from me, but think of it as an early Christmas present. I really wanted to get this up for you all before Christmas, so I hope you enjoy it. I know these past few chapters have been rough, but things will calm down soon, I promise. Thank you to my amazing beta, Anna. She helps talk me through all of my confusions with chapters and tells me if things are off or disjointed. She's a lot of the reason you all don't get something crappy from me. She helps make sense of my madness. Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone, or Happy Holidays, if you participate in another amazing celebration. I can't wait to read your reviews for this chapter, it will be my own little Christmas present. lol
Chapter 20
Who will bring me flowers when it's over?
And who will give me comfort when it's gone?
Who will I belong to when the day just won't give in?
And who will tell me how it ends, and how it all begins?
Stefan stared at Damon after he'd ended the call with Andie and handed the phone back. "What?" he finally asked, when his brother continued to stare at him.
"Nothing." He quickly shook his head. "Nothing."
"Just give it up, Stefan. We both know you're dying to say whatever it is going through your head."
"You don't want to hear what I have to say. You're just going to do whatever it is you want, no matter what. Might as well keep my mouth shut."
"When has that ever stopped you before?"
"I just, I hope you know what you're doing. That's all I'm going to say."
Damon wished he had an answer for him. Truthfully, he didn't know what he was doing. He hadn't really known what he was doing for years now. Sometimes it felt like he did, but mostly he was just flying blind.
"Andie's the right choice for me. I love her." He really did love Andie. She'd been in his life on and off for over ten years. She had never let him down or abandoned him. She had never left him alone when he needed her, and that counted for something. It counted for a lot.
It was why he'd proposed to her. There was no crippling fear that came along with dating Andie. Katherine had laid a crushing blow to him with the end of their marriage, and Elena had delivered the near fatal one when they'd ended. He didn't have to worry about that with Andie. Their love was mature and simple.
If he kept repeating the words to himself, everything would be fine. He'd be fine.
Damon sighed tiredly while he rode the elevator up to his floor. Nothing had gotten better in the past two weeks since he told Elena he loved her. She'd laid silently beneath him for several minutes before she finally repeated the words back to him. They hadn't been filled with warmth or love though. She had sounded so dejected and broken. He knew she was being honest; she loved him. He'd known this for a long time, but there was no happiness about what she felt for him. It was acceptance for what her life had become at that moment.
There had been no more fighting since then, but they weren't communicating either. They existed, orbiting around each other like two planets in the solar system, passing briefly, but never on the same path. Everyone around them was becoming increasingly worried, but they'd learned to keep their mouths shut. Damon and Elena were being left to their own devices for now, and they weren't good.
There hadn't even been a celebration of her birthday last week. Her transition to 23 had been uneventful and quiet. The only think that had even been done for it was a lunch that Caroline and Bonnie took her to. He hadn't bought her a gift; there was nothing that she would have liked. He wished her a happy birthday and let that be that.
The penthouse was oddly quiet when he entered. Normally the television was on or music would be coming from somewhere. Elena hated the silence now, could barely stand it. Nervous, he set his things down in the entryway and made his way back toward the bedroom. The light was on, indicating that she was, in fact, home. He entered to find her standing by the bed, two suitcases open by her feet on the floor and a pile of clothes on the bed.
He froze in the doorway, taking in the sight before him. She was too busy sorting through her clothes to notice him, occasionally dropping an item into the filling suitcases. The realization of what was going on had his heart racing. "Elena?" he questioned, desperate for some answer for what was happening.
She jumped at the sound of his voice and if he'd had any doubt before that she wasn't doing what he thought she was, it was all erased now. She was a woman caught red handed, doing something she didn't want anyone to know she was doing. After the quiet gasp fell from her lips, she turned to face him, eyes wide and filled with fear. "What are you doing here?"
"I live here," he told her slowly. "I think the better question is what are you doing?"
Nervous, she looked down at the bags and then clothes on the bed, swallowing thickly as she too took in the sight of the bedroom. "You weren't supposed to find out like this," she whispered.
"Find out what, Elena?" He was getting angry now. Why was she in their room packing her bags? Where was she going? Why was he not supposed to know? How could he fix this?
All of those thoughts ran through his head as he tried to process everything in this moment, but it was all so jumbled. She was leaving him. There was no way to deny it. No matter what she said, he knew she was. She'd stuck around this disaster long enough and now she was done.
"I'm leaving." Her voice was timid and quiet, like a school child's who had just been scolded for doing something wrong. She wasn't a school child though, she was a 23-year-old woman. She owed him a real explanation.
"I can see that. What I want to know is why."
"You know exactly why."
"But why like this? Were you just going to let me come home and find that all of your things were gone? How exactly did you plan on this going?"
"I don't know." He could tell that she was being honest. She was running blind right now, no idea of how she would proceed with each passing minute. This wasn't something that had been planned out. Maybe in theory it had been, but not in reality.
"Seeing as you don't have much of an answer for anything. Let's start with the basics. Where are you going?" Her face paled at the question and he knew he hadn't asked as basic of a question as he'd thought. She hadn't wanted him to ask this, and that made him more suspicious. Fear sliding through his veins, he stepped further into the room. "Where are you going Elena?"
"I need you to stay calm."
"Tell me where you're going and I'll stay calm." Scared, she shook her head and her eyes darted throughout the room. She gnawed on her bottom lip, unable to form concise words. "Tell me where you're going!" he shouted.
She looked at him then, tears glistening in her eyes. "I'm sorry."
He rushed forward, his hands clawing at the bed, tossing everything away that didn't give him a clue as to what she had to be so sorry for. Finally, at the bottom of a pile, he found a white sheet of paper – a plane ticket for three hours from now, to Chicago. She wasn't just moving out. "You're leaving me." It wasn't a question, just a statement of fact. In his hands, he had the proof of a one-way ticket to Chicago that told him she was.
"I know this must look bad," she began, her words choppy and blending together all at once.
"Look bad?" He dropped the ticket back to the bed and stared up at her incredulously. "This is bad." He shook his head and backed away, trying to find clarity in everything, but two feet of distance from her wasn't going to really give him that. He knew it, but he still tried. "I know that things are bad. I'd understand if you wanted to move out, but this? Moving to Chicago at the drop of a dime? I can't understand that. What are you doing?"
Her hands were shaking as she picked her way through another pile on the bed, only to come up with a stack of papers. She swallowed thickly and handed them over to him. "I got accepted to Northwestern to get my Masters."
He slapped the papers from her hands. "You got accepted to NYU too! Why Chicago?"
Her face pale and drawn tight with fear, she shook her head. "I wanted to talk to you about this."
"Really? Cause what I'm looking at right now tells me otherwise. What I'm seeing is that you were planning to run out while I was at work. Were you going to leave me a note? Is that what you planned to do?"
"No!" she exclaimed, moving to step toward him, but then quickly rethought her decision and stayed in place. "Everything happened so quickly."
"Okay then," he said slowly, "You said you wanted to talk, so talk." He waved his hand in front of him. "The floor is yours."
"You knew that I'd applied to several schools when I was still with Matt. I was confused and thought maybe time away from the city would do me good. Then we happened and I got pregnant, so I let it go, because there was so much else to think about. Once I lost the baby, I started getting my acceptance letters, most of them you knew about. I didn't plan on enrolling anywhere, but after your birthday, I just," she stopped, her voice choking, and he watched the tears fill her eyes. After a few moments, she looked back up at him, her eyes glistening. "I can't do this anymore."
"But what does that have to do with you moving to Chicago? Why can't you stay here?"
"If you could just listen—"
"Listen?" he shouted, cutting her off in the middle of her sentence, not caring where it was going. He knew he'd told her that he'd give her the chance to speak, but he couldn't stay silent as he listened to her. "What is there to listen to? I already know what you're going to say. You're leaving. It's too hard. You just can't handle it anymore. How am I doing? Am I warm yet?"
"It is hard," she cried out. "I wake up every day and I can't breathe. I don't know how to be here anymore."
He shook his head in disgust. She said these things to him like he didn't get it. For months, she'd talked to him like he didn't understand – like he wasn't in pain too. She walked around like she was the only one that was hurting because it hadn't actually happened to him. But it did happen to him. She hadn't been the only one to lose someone that night.
"You know how you be here, Elena?" He slid his hands under her chin, to keep her face firmly in front of his. "You be here. You talk about it and you deal with it. You lean on me. You lean on your friends. That's how you be here."
"It's not that simple," she whispered softly, tears falling silently down her cheeks.
"It is that simple."
"Not for me." She reached up and removed his hands from her neck and lowered them softly to his side. "I start at Northwestern in a few weeks. We both knew this was the plan."
"The plan was for you to get your Masters at NYU, at some point, where they also offer the same program. You moving all the way across the country was not the plan."
"It is for me."
"I know that things are hard right now. I know these last few months have been hell, but you don't run away, Elena. You stay and you fight." He forced himself to push the anger down, knowing that if he was going to save this, he had to be calm and rational.
"I can't stay here anymore," she whispered. "I just, I need to get away. I need to be somewhere that…"
"Somewhere that you'll be alone," he pointed out desolately. "All of your friends are here, Elena. Caroline and Bonnie aren't going to be in Chicago. They're going to be here, in New York."
"I know."
"So what exactly do you think that Chicago is going to accomplish? Do you think if you run far enough away that your problems won't catch up with you?"
Something in her eyes faded and she reached up to wipe the tears from her face. Her voice was detached as she spoke, "I don't know. All I know is that I can't stay here. I can't stay in this house. You keep telling me I need to move on; well this is how I do it. Maybe if I'm not surrounded by everything, I can figure things out. Things aren't getting better; we can both see that. This is the only choice I have." She went back to packing her clothes then, turning away from him. Her body was rigid as she sorted through her clothes, tension radiating from her, but she continued on.
"Don't you get it?" he yelled, desperation clawing at his vocal cords. She was shutting down and he was getting more extreme with each passing moment. "Being alone isn't going to help anything. You need people around you. If that person isn't me, then it's not me, I can handle that, but you need your friends. You need Bonnie and Caroline to help you."
"Using them as crutches isn't going to help anything. I need to figure this out for myself. I need to figure out how to be okay again. I can't do that in New York."
"So go home." He threw out the suggestion with a shred of hope that she'd choose Virginia instead of Chicago. If she went there for school, she'd be gone for years. She'd be lost to him. "Go see Jenna. She asks you to come home every week."
"You don't get it," she told him, an edge creeping into her voice. "Nobody can help me. I have to do this on my own."
"You're wrong." He ran a hand over his worn face, wishing that he could get her to see some logic, but she just continued to pack her suitcases. Her mind was made up, and he was helpless to do anything about it. "What happens when you get out there and you realize that you made a mistake?"
Her voice calm and even, she said, "I don't know what you want me to say, Damon. I've given you my reasons. I can't change your mind if you don't agree with it."
"What is there to agree with? You're abandoning everything you know on the hopes that things will get better."
"I have to do something with my life." She wrung her hands in front of her. "I keep running into the same problems. I couldn't commit to Matt because I didn't know what I wanted. I started sleeping with you because we were both confused and looking for answers. I can't find my answers with a guy. I have to find them in myself."
"I'm not just a guy, Elena," he pointed out sadly. "I'm the man you live with. I'm the man you were planning to raise a child with. You love me." His voice fell as he emotionally said, "I love you."
She closed her eyes at his words and turned away from him. Her attempt to close him out faltered and he could see her walls shaking on their foundation. "Please don't say that right now," she pleaded quietly. "I just need you to let me do this."
"No," he grabbed her arm and forced her around to face him, "I'm not going to make this easy on you. I'm not letting you walk out that door without a fight. So, you want to leave? You're going to have to go through me."
"Don't do this to yourself."
"Do what? Fight for you?"
"There's nothing to fight for. Don't you get it?" She sighed and ran her hands through her long tresses. He could see her brain searching for the right words, any words to make him understand, but she wouldn't find them. Nothing would make him understand her running away. "You're right, I do love you, but there's something wrong with me. I'm not me anymore. I'm lost in this darkness and I don't know how to let you help me. And I know you need me, but I don't know how to be there for you right now. I can't do anything with us, if I can't do anything for myself."
As one last ditch effort, he captured her face in his hands. He could feel the tears swimming in his eyes when he looked at her. "Please don't leave New York," he begged her. "If you want to move out, I'll help you find someplace. I'll give you space if that's what you want, but don't go to Chicago. Please don't leave me like this."
A cry struggled to break free from the back of her throat and she was shaking her head in his hands. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice almost too quiet to here. "I love you."
"Oh god," he groaned. His chest constricted painfully in his chest and he dropped his hands from her face like she'd burned him. He stumbled back, struggling to see straight. Everything was collapsing around him and he found it hard to stay on his feet.
"Damon," she called his name, worry ringing through her voice. "Damon?"
A hollow laugh finally fell from his lips, sounding slightly maniacal to his ears. "You have got to be kidding me," he laughed, and then he snapped. Something in him broke as he stared at her, knowing that it was all over after how hard he'd fought to hang on until things could get better. "How the hell have I wound up here twice?" His arm swept out and swung over the dresser, sending everything flying to the floor. "I must have pathetic bastard written on my forehead, because this is, god, this is just unbelievable."
"Damon, you need to calm down," she held her hands in front of her and slowly came toward him.
"Calm down?" He pushed her away from him. "All I've been is calm for three months. I'm done being the good guy. I'm done trying to help you. I'm done trying to fix things. We're over. You want to leave, then leave. I don't want to ever see you again."
"You don't mean that," she reasoned, but he shook his head, through listening to reason.
"I do. You and me? We're done. You walk out that door, don't bother coming back, because I'm through with you."
"Chicago isn't forever," she cried, her voice sounding panicked and scared. "It's just to help me figure things out."
"I don't care how long you're in Chicago." He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't care where the fuck you spend your life, Elena, because it doesn't affect me anymore. That's the beauty of all of this. The second you walk out that door, I don't ever have to deal with you again."
"Damon, please don't say things like that."
"Jesus, Elena! What did you expect? That I'd help you pack and take you to the airport? Maybe send you off with a romantic kiss and a promise that I'd wait forever for you? Newsflash, Elena! That's not how this works. I'm not going to wait for you. I'm not going to pretend like I'm okay with this. And I'm not going to make you feel better about being a coward. You want to ruin your life? Do it yourself. I'm done helping you." She looked like he'd physically struck her, but he didn't waver in his anger. "Get out," he told her coldly. "I want you out. Now."
Her eyes widened. "I haven't even finished packing."
"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Well, let me help you." He stormed over to the bed and threw the pile of clothes in the suitcases. She came behind him, begging him to calm down and stop, but he didn't listen. He was done doing anything she wanted him to do. He didn't care that her suitcases wouldn't fully close, simply gathered them in his arms, letting stray clothes fall to the floor as he walked through the penthouse, Elena crying out behind him.
"Damon, stop!" she shouted. "What are you doing?"
"Getting you out of my house," he sneered. With a haphazard throw he tossed her bags into the hallway, watching the clothes fly through the air before everything came tumbling to the floor. He turned to her, a deadly look in his eyes. "Get the rest of your stuff and get out."
"Don't end things like this. It doesn't have to be this way."
"Fine, I'll do it." He pushed her out of his way and went back to the bedroom, where he turned and entered the bathroom. He grabbed as many products of hers as he could get and made his way back to the living room. "There," he told her after he'd thrown everything into the hallway and taken his key from her purse, only to send it flying out the front door as well. "Now get out." He held the door and motioned for her to leave, but she stayed firm in her spot. "Leave, Elena, before I make you."
"I know you're upset, but don't end it like this. You know you don't want to."
His jaw clenched tightly in rising anger. "What I want is for you to get out of my house and my life."
"I love you. I didn't want it to happen this way," she cried distraughtly.
The words felt like a knife to his heart and he couldn't stand to lay eyes on her for a moment longer. With more force than he ever thought he'd use on a woman, he grabbed her by her arms and shoved her into the hallway. "Have fun finding someone else to deal with your fucked up life, Elena."
And with that, he slammed the door on her and everything they'd ever shared together.
"Damon!" she shouted through the door as she pounded her fists against it, but without her key, she was locked on the other side, away from him forever.
He listened to her screams for twenty minutes before they finally stopped, and he was left in startling silence. Her clothing was strewn through the penthouse, littering the normally pristine floor. Caroline could send those to her later. He wasn't going to ever let her come back to get them, and he wasn't going to bother getting them to her.
"Son of a bitch!" he roared, kicking over the coffee table. There was a battle waging inside of him, every emotion fighting to become the victor. This war carried on well into the night, until everything grew hazy. He didn't know when he started drinking, but somehow, one drink turned into two drinks, which turned into drinking straight from the bottle, which turned into absolute nothingness.
Next thing he knew, there were panicked hands on him, forcefully shaking him, and calling out his name. "Damon! Damon, wake up!" He groaned and tried to shove the hands away, but they quickly returned. "Open your eyes. Look at me!"
"Leave me alone," he mumbled, trying to twist his body away, but it was of no use. The arms wrapped around him and he was floating on air through his penthouse, unable to respond or react in any way. He landed unceremoniously on the hard floor, his head bouncing off the wall, but it made no difference to him. He simply moved into as comfortable a position as he could, ready to fall back into a glorious state of unconsciousness.
A wave of ice-cold water rained down on him, shocking him into semi-awareness. He sputtered as the water fell into his mouth and struggled to reach up and remove himself from this cruel torture chamber he'd found himself in, but hands only slapped his arms back down. Those same hands gripped his face and jerked his head forward. "Damon!"
With more strength than normally needed, he forced his eyes open as far as he could, to find Stefan's scared face staring back at him. His green eyes searched Damon's, looking for what, he didn't know. "Let go." He pulled his head away, but Stefan's grip was stronger. "Stop."
"How much did you drink?" Stefan demanded. Unsure, Damon groaned and let his eyes fall shut again. "Dammit, Damon! How much did you drink?"
"Go away, Stefan." The cold water seemed to no longer have an affect, and Damon went thankfully into the darkness.
The next time he opened his eyes, there was a pounding in his head, gnawing it in half. He was also met with a blinding light that only intensified the horrific pain in his head. There were hushed voices coming from somewhere nearby. "Why don't you go home and get some rest? I can stay here and watch him." Caroline's voice was quiet and worried.
"You know I can't do that." It was Stefan's voice he heard next, but he couldn't figure out what they were talking about.
Though his body screamed out in protest, he turned his head to see where he was. It was far too bright for his liking, but it was clear that he was in his bedroom. So, what were Caroline and Stefan doing here? "He's fine, Stefan," Caroline reassured him. "You need a break."
"I'm not leaving him. End of story." There were shuffling footsteps and then Stefan appeared in the doorway. When he saw Damon was awake he released a visible sigh of relief. "You're awake." He came across the room and stood over the bed to stare down at Damon. "You're up." He brushed his hand along Damon's forehead and back into his hair. "How do you feel?"
"Like I -," his mouth was so dry he needed to swallow before he could continue on. The simple act had him coughing and gripping at his burning throat. Suddenly, he turned confused eyes on his brother. "What happened?"
"I couldn't keep you conscious enough to find out how much you'd had to drink. I had to call the doctor. You had alcohol poisoning."
"Oh god," he groaned, trying to push himself into a seated position. "Did you take me to the hospital?"
"No, no!" Stefan quickly debunked his belief and pushed Damon back onto the bed. "I had the doctor come here. We had to pump your stomach and give you some fluids. No hospital."
"You're lucky Stefan found you when he did," Caroline spoke up from just outside of his bedroom. She hovered nervously, looking unsure of whether she should cross the threshold or not. "It was bad."
"Yeah, thanks," he mumbled, unsure of what to say.
The night came back to him in bits and pieces: finding Elena packing her bags, begging her not to leave, throwing her out when he couldn't take it anymore, tearing apart as much of the penthouse as he could get his hands on, consuming all the alcohol in sight. He could even vaguely remember Stefan trying to wake him up after he'd passed out in a drunken stupor, but he didn't remember many details. It was so much of a blur.
He turned to the clock on his bedside table to try and get an idea of how long he'd been passed out. When he saw the time reflected as just past noon he jumped out of bed. "Oh shit," he cursed, but it came out as more of a rasp. He had a meeting a 1:00 that he could not miss. Not to mention, he'd already missed two meetings this morning. His father was going to murder him.
Elena couldn't have picked a night to leave him when he didn't have a million and one meetings the next day?
"What are you doing?" Stefan pushed his hands on Damon's shoulders, shoving him back onto the bed. "Damon, stop! You should be in bed."
"I have a meeting in less than an hour." He pushed his brother's hands from his arms. "I don't have time to stay in bed."
"Damon, you're not going into work today." Stefan kept his hands firmly on Damon's chest. "I already talked to dad. You're not going to work."
"You talked to dad!" he shouted. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"You couldn't go to work today. He rescheduled the meeting for tomorrow. It's fine."
Damon grimaced and shoved Stefan away from him. "You had no right to make that decision for me. I would have been fine."
"Fine?" Stefan asked incredulously. "I found you passed out on the living room floor last night, barely breathing. You were not fine. You couldn't even stay conscious long enough to tell me how much you'd had to drink."
"So, I got a little carried away," he brushed off his brother's worries and fear. He'd gotten a little too drunk before and he'd get a little too drunk again. "It's not the first time it's happened."
"We had to pump your stomach, Damon! What part of alcohol poisoning don't you get?"
The stomach pumping would explain why his throat was on fire. He didn't realize he'd had that much to drink last night. Granted, he could barely remember when he'd started drinking, so it wasn't that surprising that he couldn't remember how much. He wished that Stefan hadn't had to see him like that.
"I'm sorry, okay?" he asked quietly. "You've done your good deed. You can go home now."
Stefan shook his head, a determined look on his face. "I'm not going to do that."
"Just go, Stefan."
"You know I didn't show up here by accident, Damon," Stefan told him quietly. "I know what happened."
"Don't," Damon snapped, pointing a finger in his brother's direction. "Shut your mouth."
"Elena showed up at our front door last night with her suitcases, sobbing. It took me twenty minutes to get her to calm down enough to talk." Damon tensed at Caroline's voice. She'd now made the step to cross into his room, but she still awkwardly swayed on her feet. Her voice caught as she said, "We know she's gone."
Damon looked away from Caroline and kept his gaze away from Stefan. He stared ahead, trying to block out the pain her words caused him. "I don't care. Elena and I, we're done."
"You drank so much, you blacked out, because you didn't care?" Stefan questioned.
"It was a mistake. It won't happen again." He didn't want to talk about this. He didn't want to think about it. He just wanted it over.
"Don't do this. You can't shut it out. You have to deal with it."
"There's nothing to deal with, Stefan. We were together. Now we're not. I got through my divorce, and I'll get through this."
Stefan sighed and rolled his eyes. "Sometimes I think you're determined to ruin your life." He turned and left Damon's bedroom, throwing his hands up in frustration as he walked down the hallway. "I'm not gonna watch you kill yourself, Damon."
Caroline watched after him for a moment, biting her lip as she seemed to decide whether she should follow him or not. With a sigh and a shrug of her shoulders she looked back to Damon. "He loves you, you know."
"Well, maybe it wouldn't kill him to love from a distance every now and then." He was perfectly aware of how hypocritical he sounded. He made it his business to insert himself in Stefan's life on a consistent basis. Before Stefan could ask for help, he was usually already hard at work on cleaning up his mess. Yet, he never responded well when Stefan tried to do the same. He didn't like his brother trying to fix things for him. He wanted to handle his problems on his own.
"But it might kill you," she pointed out. She glanced over her shoulder and then moved to Damon's side of the bed. "Look, I'm not going to defend Elena or try to pretend that I understand why she's done what she has, but I know what I saw last night. I saw a girl who was scared and devastated because of what happened. She knows that she didn't do things right, but she also knows you wouldn't have listened to her long enough to understand that."
"Forgive me for not being in the listening mood after I'd found her packing all of her things, so she could be gone when I got home."
Caroline flinched at the tone in his voice, but then reached into her back pocket. "Stefan will be furious when he finds out I'm giving this to you, but I figure you might at least want the option to read it." She pulled out an envelope and held it out to him. "Elena wrote this before she left. She asked me to give it to you."
He stared at the envelope as if it might burn him, unsure of whether to accept it from Caroline or not. What could Elena have possibly said in that letter that would change anything about last night? She would still be gone. He would still be alone. They would still be over.
"What does it say?"
"I don't know." She shook her head. "I didn't read it."
With great reluctance he grabbed the envelope from her. "I'm not saying I'll read it, but thanks."
"You're welcome." She stood next to the bed for a few more moments before shrugging and backing away. "I should probably go see how Stefan is. I'll try to make sure he doesn't stay for too long." When she got to the door she stopped and looked at him. There was a pained expression on her face when she said, "For what it's worth, I think Elena made a really big mistake last night."
He smiled softly, but looked away from her. Even if he had grown fond of Caroline, they were not at a level where he could be open with her, especially about Elena. "Go take care of my brother."
She disappeared down the hallway, leaving him alone with the heavy envelope in his hands. The envelope held every thought and explanation that Elena had tried to say to him last night. He didn't know what she could possibly have written that would make any of her actions make sense. She gave up on them. How would a letter change that?
It wouldn't. That was the conclusion he came to. Nothing that was in this letter would make him believe she hadn't given up on them at a time when he needed her more than anything. He'd begged her not to go, and she'd thrown it all back in his face. Everything he'd ever done for her and given her, she'd poured it all down the drain.
That wasn't what hurt the most though. What killed him was that he'd given her everything he had and it hadn't been enough. His actions and love for her hadn't been enough to pull her back from the edge. He hadn't been able to save her from herself, and now he never would. She was gone, and he'd lost her forever. Even if she came back tomorrow, insisting that she'd made a mistake and wanted to be with him, he didn't think he could do it anymore.
Elena made him feel things he thought he'd never be able to feel after Katherine, and so much more. She made everything real again. She'd fought her way into his heart, forcing him to fall in love with her, only to leave him all alone, able to feel every moment of pain. He didn't want to feel anything anymore. He wanted to be numb.
It was that driving desire that got Damon through the next three months. Each day he woke up, determined to shut out everything he felt and forget about everything he'd lost. He threw himself into work, resigned to distract his mind with clients and advertising campaigns for most of his day. Then, when he left work, he went straight to the bar. He'd sit, completely alone with a bottle of scotch, until some poor, unsuspecting girl hit on him. They'd inevitably end up back at his place or hers – the locale didn't so much matter, as long as he got a few hours free of Elena from his mind.
"Damon!" his father snapped, grabbing his attention from where he was staring out the window, the sight lulling him to sleep. He hadn't gotten more than two hours of sleep a night since Elena left, and it was beginning to catch up with him. He could barely keep his eyes open. "You need to pay attention."
He slowly twisted the chair around to face his father. "Don't you mean I need to pretend like I care?"
"No, I need you to care. I need you to wake up and start doing your job."
"I have been doing my job. I'm here twelve hours a day, dad. My work is getting done." Maybe it wasn't his most inspired work, but nobody had complained yet.
His father sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I know that things have been hard, but this isn't how you fix things."
"You! That's it!" Damon snapped his fingers and pointed them toward his father. "For months I've been telling Stefan that he sounds exactly like some annoying little bastard, but I just couldn't place it. It's you! He sounds exactly like you!" He smiled at this connection that he'd finally made. How had he not been able to connect the dots until just now? Of course it was their father that Stefan sounded just like.
His father reeled back at Damon's words. "Are you drunk?"
He shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. "Maybe." He'd had so much to drink the night before it was very well possible that he was still drunk.
"Dammit, Damon." His father stood up and began pacing the office. "You've pulled a lot of crap over the years, but showing up drunk at work has to be a new one."
"Are you talking to me as my father or as my boss?"
"I'm always talking to you as your father."
"Whatever, dad. Nothing is wrong with me. I'm truly single for the first time in years. I'm just enjoying that."
"And killing yourself is enjoyable?" he questioned. "Is that fun?"
"Yeah, it is."
His father's face paled and he froze mid-step on the other side of the office. "Don't say things like that."
"Oh, relax, dad. I'm not really killing myself, just having some fun."
"I accept a lot from you, but do not lie to me." Giuseppe rested his hands on his waist. He seemed to consider his next words carefully before he spoke. "I'm not blind. I know what's been going on the past few months. I know about the alcohol poisoning." When Damon opened his mouth to fire off a quick retort, Giuseppe held up his hand to quiet him. "Before you blame your brother, he wasn't the one who told me. No, he's lied very convincingly about it since day one. I play golf with the doctor that came to pump your stomach. So, don't try to tell me that this has all just been you having a little fun."
"Okay, fine," Damon relented. "You know my dirty little secret. Get on with the lecture or get out of my office."
Sorrow passed over his father's features as he shook his head. "I know I've made a lot of mistakes with you – that I still make mistakes with you. Yes, I intervene in your life when you don't want me to, like with Elena. I do it because I want what's best for you. That's all I've ever wanted for you."
Damon rolled his eyes and swiveled the chair around to face out the window again. His father's words were all well and grand, but they wouldn't last. He'd never truly be just his son. He would always be the one that everything would be left to when his father stepped down, which made him like a puppet in his father's eyes. "Very touching, dad. Your fatherly moments quota of the year has been filled."
"I'm talking to you, Damon!" his father shouted, angry at Damon's nonchalance and unwillingness to look at him. "You owe me the respect to listen to what I have to say."
"I don't owe you shit." Damon stood up from his chair and turned to look at his father. "You've done nothing but try to control me my entire life. As a boss, you maybe earn some respect. You run a good company, I'll give you that. As a father though? You suck!"
"That doesn't mean you don't owe me some respect. I raised you and gave you the chance to have all of this."
"I didn't have a chance for anything!" Damon yelled. "This was my destiny from the day I was born. You never entertained the idea of another plan in life for me. This was it! Well, congratulations, you got me here, and I'm damn good at what I do. You've groomed me well for your job, but you failed in every aspect of being a father. You're lucky Stefan got out as sane as he is."
"I did the best I could. It wasn't exactly an easy time for me either."
"You were a parent! You had a responsibility to me and Stefan and you left us to fend for ourselves."
"I prepared you for the real world."
"No! You prepared me for your world! This isn't how normal people live, dad. Our problems aren't how are we going to be able to pay our bills, they're which stock we should let go of on any given day, and what projects to invest in. This isn't the real world."
"If I've been so horrible and done such a terrible job as your father, why are you still here? Your trust fund is yours, no clause. You have the credentials to be hired by just about anyone, I'm sure. So, if this is so below you, why are you still here?"
"You know what?" Damon grabbed his phone from his desk and walked toward his office door. "You're right. You're absolutely right."
"Damon, what are you doing?"
"Leaving."
"I wasn't done talking."
"Well, I am." He threw a wave over his shoulder and slammed the door in his father's face.
"Damon!" his father followed him down the hallway, weighing him down again. Didn't this man ever give up?
"Go away, dad. We're done."
"We are not done until I say we're done!"
People slowly began to peek out from their offices and down the hall to see the commotion between the most important men in the company.
"There's nothing left to discuss, dad." He turned around and shouted down the hallway, "You're not going to agree with my decisions no matter what I do, so I'm done. I quit." He spun around slowly, his arms raised above his head. "Goodbye, everyone. It's been fun these past few years, but it's time for me to go have fun with my trust fund. Have fun being stuck in this hell hole with him."
When he stopped, he saw his father's face hard as stone, his blue eyes burning with fury. "You are a disgrace," he spat.
"I don't care."
He turned to continue toward the elevator when his father called out, "Son, have the common decency to stay away from the bartenders when you go out."
Damon froze and slowly twisted to face his dad. "What did you say?" he asked, blind rage bubbling up in the back of his throat.
His father took step forward, shoulders high; eyes level with Damon's. "You heard me."
"You son of a bitch!" He went after his father then, fist raised and poised to land a crushing blow, but before he could reach him, arms blocked him off, pushing him back. "She wasn't just another girl, and you know it!" he shouted, straining against the pairs of arms holding him back. "She was carrying my child!" He could dimly hear a collective gasp travel through the hallway, but he didn't acknowledge it. All of his attention was focused on the man in front of him. "She was supposed to be the mother of my child and I loved her, but congratulations! You got your wish dad, it's dead and she's gone! You got just what you wanted!"
"Damon!" Ava appeared in front of him, a distraught look on her face. "Calm down," she whispered to him. "You need to calm down."
"No!" he shoved the arms that were gripping at him, pushing himself away from the crowd that had gathered. "Fuck him! I'll be calm when he's dead!" He pinned his father with one last gaze as he said, "You should have died instead of mom."
Leaving those as his parting words, he turned on his heel and fled to the elevator. He couldn't get out of this place fast enough. Today, like every other day, had been a disaster. He needed to find alcohol, and he needed to forget. It would require more than what he'd been doing these past few months, but it could be done.
Maybe it was that wish that sent him straight into the arms of his past. He didn't know if it was a conscious decision or an act of pure fate, but when he saw those brown eyes across the bar, he knew he'd been granted his wish. She smiled and sashayed over to him, the same swing in her hips as always. She was poured into a tight dress and looked as gorgeous as she always had. He'd never be able to deny her beauty, no matter what terms they were on.
"Look who came out of hibernation."
He smirked and lifted one eyebrow. "I've been committed for long enough. It's time to celebrate being single again."
Her lip tugged upward, and he saw a glimmer in her eyes. "Finally ditch the cheap imitation you were carting around town?"
"Careful, Katherine," Damon warned lightly, "Green isn't a good color on you."
"Every color is a good color on me."
"Really?" he questioned skeptically. "Cause I seem to remember wearing absolutely nothing being your best look."
And that was how he found himself stumbling into his room with Katherine in his arms. They fell into bed, limbs entangled and lips locked. The clothes soon relocated to the floor, leaving room for familiarizing himself again with a body he once had memorized better than he'd known his own. It didn't take much; the sex had always been their strongest bond – a fact Katherine knew as well.
"We might have sucked at marriage, but we were always good with this," she whispered against the slick skin of his neck.
He roughly grabbed her arms and flipped her over onto her back, and pinned her arms above her head. "No talking." Her head snapped up and her teeth nipped at his bottom lip. "Better."
They came together easily, falling seamlessly into their old rhythm. It was a night filled with remembrance and a comfort that they'd once only been able to receive from the other. It wasn't love or a desire to be together again, but a need to take what the other could give them tonight, and when it was over, they repeated it again and again, until they could no longer keep their eyes open. It was only when the morning sun was beginning to shine through the window that they fell to sleep, retreating to their designated sides of the bed.
The alcohol flowing through his veins and the presence of his ex-wife next to him in bed provided him with a night devoid of haunted dreams. It wouldn't last forever, but he'd be thankful for the time it lasted.
The sun was dimly filtering through the window when he awoke, primarily blocked by rain clouds that threatened to burst open at any time. His head cried out desperately for aide and his muscles ached as he rolled onto his side. Slowly, he opened his eyes to find Katherine sitting in front of the window, swimming in his shirt from the night before. Her eyes were fixed curiously on an object in her hands.
"What are you doing?" he asked, his voice deep and thick with the sound of sleep.
She raised her head until her eyes were level with his. A confused and dark expression swirled in her gaze and she held up a piece of jewelry that sparkled in the soft light. "Why do you have an engagement ring?"
His eyes bounced between her and the piece of jewelry, weighing his answers. He couldn't come up with much of one. "The better question is why do you have it?" He pushed down on the mattress until he'd moved into a seated position.
"Why do you have a ring, Damon?"
"You have two brain cells, Katherine. Figure it out." In the end he decided there really wasn't much of an answer to give. The reality of it was obvious. She knew who that ring was meant for the second she found it when she went snooping through his things. There was no need to say it aloud.
"You were going to ask her to marry you." She sounded hollow when she said the words, but he tried not to focus on what the underlying reason was.
"Give the lady a prize." He threw the covers from his body and slid out of bed. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to shower." He strode naked to the bathroom, smirking to himself when he felt Katherine's eyes following his every step.
"Is that an invitation?" she called out to him.
"Not like it would stop you if it wasn't."
This remained their routine for over three months, coming together every night and getting lost in what they once were, shutting out the world around them, except for the rare dinner with a few people. He didn't know what she was running from, but it had to be something bad if she was turning to him. While under normal circumstances he'd question her motives, he couldn't find himself caring enough to ask. They weren't doing what they were doing for the conversations. This was simply about being as numb as possible.
At least he'd thought it was.
She was sitting in what had become her chair by the window, staring at the engagement ring like she so often did after sex. He never asked her why and she never offered an explanation. His eyes were trained on her when she looked up from rolling the ring over in her fingers. "Why did you and Elena break up?"
With that one question she'd broken their unspoken agreement to keep all things personal out of their affair, and she'd also broken the cardinal rule of mentioning her name. It was a name banned around him, and nobody dared to say it. Until now.
He didn't know what brought the words out, or why he even allowed himself to speak them, but he soon heard them tumbling from his mouth. "One day she was pregnant, and the next, she wasn't."
Something flickered through her eyes and she dropped the ring as if it had burned her. The reaction was unexpected, not that he'd really thought she'd have much of one, but he certainly hadn't predicted the pained look in her eyes. He certainly couldn't have predicted the tortured laugh that came afterward. "Oh my god."
"What?" he questioned, thoroughly confused by her behavior.
"Nothing," she laughed, "Just admiring the irony or symbolism or whatever in all of it."
"I don't get it."
A tortured smile spread across her lips when the laughter died out. "You wouldn't, I never told you."
The temperature seemed to drop a few degrees in the room as he stared at the woman that had once been his reason for living, but was now little more than a distraction from the other woman that consumed every thought he had on a daily basis. "Didn't tell me what, Katherine?"
She raised her eyebrows and shook her head. "I can't have kids, Damon." She dropped the bomb like it was nothing, and maybe it really wasn't where he was concerned, but something told him differently. Something told him that it had everything to do with him. "After we decided that we wanted to try, I went to my doctor, so I could make sure everything was fine. Turns out, the years of starvation I'd put my body through for a chance at modeling, all but destroyed my chance to have kids."
He sat up straighter in the bed. "Are you telling me what I think you're telling me?"
"Yup," she sighed. "I didn't know how to tell you, so I figured if I made things bad enough, you'd end it without having to know the truth."
"You purposely pushed me to end our marriage because you were told you couldn't have kids?" He asked the question, trying to make sure he'd understood her correctly, because from where he was sitting, it sounded absurd. "Are you out of your mind?"
"Oh, spare me the indignation, Damon!" she snapped. "Let's not forget that you went out and found yourself someone else to propose to in less than a year." She snatched the ring from off the floor and threw it at him. He easily dodged out of the way of it, but she wasn't finished giving him a piece of her mind. "How long did you even wait to move her in, huh? When exactly were you planning on proposing? Tell me that."
"She was pregnant!" he shouted.
"That's a bullshit reason and you know it! We both know you wouldn't have bought that ring if you didn't love her. You obviously weren't sitting at home, pining over me."
"We were divorced, Katherine. So yeah, I found someone else. I'd built my entire future around you, and then it was gone. You were gone. I needed someone that was easy to be with. Elena gave me that for a while, but then she was pregnant, and suddenly the rebound girl was the forever girl, until she wasn't. She lost the baby and she left me in the same position you had, alone and broken."
"Well," she threw her hands in the air, "Guess the joke is on me."
"I think the joke is on both of us," he told her. With a groan he buried his head in his hands. "God, what have we done with our lives?"
"Nothing good, that's for sure." She slowly stood from the chair and came over to join him on the bed. She sat in front of him and gently lifted his head so she could look into his eyes. "This is the end, isn't it?"
Unfortunately, it would be. She'd provided a nice distraction for the past several weeks, but they couldn't continue on like this, not with everything out in the open. "I think it is."
"You know I'm always going to love you, right?"
"You were my wife, Katherine. I'd be a little hurt if you didn't." He didn't feel the need to tell her that he'd always love her too. She knew it, they both did.
"But it's Elena now, I know," she said quietly. And there was the other truth they both knew. No matter what they'd done over these past few weeks, it hadn't truly changed anything. He still loved Elena, even if he wished he didn't.
And those were the last words she said to him before she left his bed and his life for good.
Somehow, his using Katherine as a distraction, had just ended with the real closure he'd never gotten with their marriage. In an effort to forget everything about Elena, he'd fixed the small void that had been left from his divorce. Somehow, it only made the emptiness left by Elena feel that much bigger. There would be no casual fling for them, nor would he ever find closure for their relationship. She had been gone for months and she wasn't coming back.
The silence that was left in Katherine's wake reminded him of this. It twisted the knife that had been embedded in his gut for the past seven months. He'd find a distraction, get a small reprieve from Elena's haunting memory, and then it would all come flooding back. It never stayed gone, no matter how much he drank, but he kept trying. Tonight would be no different. He might not be able to use Katherine as his distraction anymore, but he'd find another. He always did.