Chapter 34
Your mind is swollen
From months of thought without release
They've taken their toll on you
And this very moment of timid and fragile honesty
Is precious and rare and fleeting
By the time the plane finally departed from the gate, Elena had stopped crying and was now simply second-guessing so many of the things she'd done in the past six months. Everything had felt right at the time. She'd believed she was doing what she had to do, but now she wondered if she'd just been lying to herself. She thought she was doing the right thing and being mature. Her decisions didn't feel so mature right now. No, they felt stupid, and like maybe if she'd been more selfish or fought for him, something would be different.
How did she really expect him to act when she asked him to not get married on his wedding day? She'd had six months to say something, but she'd only said the opposite of what she really wanted. She'd wanted him, and yet she'd told him to go. She'd wanted him as far away from her as she could get him. The pain had all been so fresh then, though. There had still been moments where it hurt to merely breathe because it was so painful. She thought the way to put herself on the path of healing was to push him away. She wanted him gone.
"Do you think I made a mistake?" Elena asked Bonnie after several moments of silence.
"I think I probably need some clarification on this one, Elena."
Elena sighed and turned her head to face her best friend. "With Damon, do you think I made a mistake? Should I have fought for him when I got back? Should I have done something differently?"
"I think you know my thoughts on Damon, and my thoughts on the decisions you tend to make in regards to him. I also think you know that I believe you did what you felt was right at the time. No matter what the decision, if you thought it was right at that moment, it's not a mistake. You can't predict how you'll feel two hours after the fact, much less four, five, or six months later. You just have to believe that you were trying to do the right thing, and that it will pay off."
Elena eyed her friend curiously, almost unsure of where this advice was coming from. Bonnie was a caring and thoughtful girl, but she wasn't usually this sensitive. She tended to be harsh with her opinions and refuse to hold back.
"Where is this coming from?"
Bonnie's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
"When did you become this nice? That's what I mean."
"I've always been nice!" Bonnie gently slapped Elena's arm. "Maybe I've mellowed a bit, but I was never mean."
"But you weren't saying this stuff?"
A blush crept over Bonnie's cheeks and she looked down at her hands. "Owen may be rubbing off on me. I'm a woman in love."
Elena smiled in spite of her own heart crying out in agony. "It looks good on you Bonnie."
"Good, because I've put too much effort into this relationship for it to not fit me well."
"I'm glad you're happy, Bonnie," Elena said, and she meant it. No matter how much of a disaster her life was right now, she truly did want her friend to be happy.
"It won't be like this forever," Bonnie assured her. "You're gonna be happy too. It's going to take some time, but you'll be happy. It probably wouldn't hurt to change your taste in men, because it kind of sucks right now."
"There's the Bonnie I'm familiar with," she giggled.
"I'm in love, not dead. The judgmental bitch in me will never completely go away, which means I'm also going to give you this advice. You're right back where you were six months ago, telling yourself that you have to move on, but you need to do some serious thinking during this process. You have to make a decision and stick with it. You need to decide whether you really do want to move on from Damon, because I think you've thought it was the right thing to do for a long time, but you've never truly wanted to do it. If you don't want it, you and Damon will stay in this viciously destructive cycle for however many years it takes someone to break it. Because I can tell you right now, he may be marrying Andie today, but he's not going to be the one to break the cycle."
Elena inhaled a deep breath, something that was supposed to be comforting and calming for her nerves. Nearly two weeks ago, she'd been nearly carried from her best friend's living room in the midst of a nervous breakdown. She had been swept away in the dead of the night back to her home of Mystic Falls, Virginia, with little choice in the matter. When she'd woken up in that car on Christmas Day to find that she was not in her home, but somewhere in Maryland, she'd been livid.
In the backseat of that car she'd kicked, screamed, and yelled until she was finally forced to admit that she was going back home whether she liked it or not. Her aunt had told her she had a choice between staying willingly, or she'd call up the nearest psychiatrist and see what they would have to say about Elena's behavior the night before.
She had begrudgingly gone along with her aunt's wishes and stayed in Mystic Falls for almost two weeks. She saw a therapist and had breakfast and dinner with the family each and every night. Between Jeremy and Jenna, there was little time for her to spend any time by herself. She was surprised she got to sleep by herself. Granted, she hadn't slept alone the first two nights, seeing as Jenna too scared to leave her side. She'd scared her family with her words and behavior on Christmas Eve, and they had reacted to that fear.
The last two weeks had been hard. She'd been forced to evaluate a lot of things that she'd done since returning from Chicago. She'd come back wanting to make amends and move forward, but she'd moved so far backwards she couldn't see where she had even been before. What she could see was that she didn't like the person she'd become. No matter her feelings for Damon, he was in a relationship, and a serious one from what she was told. It had been immature and selfish of her to sleep with him. Her behavior afterward had been nothing she was proud of earlier.
In the therapy sessions her aunt had convinced her to go to, she'd been faced with the decisions she'd made and how she'd brought some of her heartache on herself. She placed some blame on Damon, but she mostly placed it on herself. He hadn't forced her to sleep with him. He hadn't forced her to still be in love with him. He hadn't forced her to doanything. She still had some lingering beliefs that she had been manipulated a bit by him, but it didn't erase her of any blame. She was still to blame for a lot, and she had to accept that.
Accepting it meant that she couldn't stay in Mystic Falls, no matter how much her aunt begged her to. She'd stayed for two weeks and done some much need soul-searching, but it was time for her to come back home, and that was New York City. So, barely off the plane, here she was in front of one of Caroline's favorite restaurants, her nerves fraying with each breath she took. This would be the first time she would see Caroline or Bonnie since Christmas Eve, and she was nervous.
She had spoken with them during her time away, but the conversations had remained brief, not wanting to burden them more than she already had. She understood the pain she had put them through on that night, and she didn't want to do that anymore. She wanted their friendships to be equal and simple, like they had been before Damon ever came into the picture. Though she knew she had no hope of most things in her life ever being simple again, she had hope with Caroline and Bonnie.
"I hear this place is known for their pomegranate martinis. You know, if you're into that kind of thing."
Elena's head whipped to the side at the sound of a voice as familiar as her own. Sparkling green eyes stared up at her, and immediately felt her brown eyes tear up at the site. "Bonnie!" she exclaimed as she quickly threw her arms around her best friend.
"Oomph," her friend grunted at the impact. "Have you been lifting weights down in Virginia?"
"Sorry!" Elena apologized and pulled back enough to look Bonnie in the eyes again. "Oh my god, I've missed you!"
"It's been two weeks," Bonnie reminded her. "We've done worse."
"I know, but still. I'm just glad to see you again. I have spent two weeks running into every single friend from high school I never wanted to see again. It's nice to see the friends I always want to see, no matter what."
"Does that mean you're actually going to go into that restaurant, or are we going to stand on the sidewalk with a pregnant Caroline complaining the entire time for our mini-reunion?"
"Dang, is she still pregnant?" Elena joked. "I was hoping I'd come back to find out the baby was already here and miss the drama of her giving birth."
"Like I'd let you make me do this all by myself." Bonnie looped her arm through Elena's and began to drag her toward the entrance of the restaurant. "Let's go, Gilbert. I've been forced to handle Caroline all by myself these past two weeks. I need a buffer again."
"How has she been?" Elena questioned as they entered the restaurant.
"I think I'm just going to throw you in blind."
"How sweet of you."
Elena inhaled her last breath of strength as she and Bonnie searched the restaurant for their blonde friend. In a corner booth that seemed distant from most of the other tables, she spotted her, staring down at her stomach, speaking rapidly to it. All Elena could do was laugh at the site, and feel her nerves completely disappear. There was nothing to be scared of. Caroline was still Caroline, and she needed that.
As she watched her blonde friend try to slide herself out of the booth, she had to admit that she may not be the exact Caroline she'd left behind. In the two weeks she'd been gone Caroline's belly had grown
"Oh my god, look at you!" Elena exclaimed as she excitedly rubbed Caroline's stomach. "You've grown!"
"Uh oh," Bonnie mumbled from beside Elena.
Before she could question what her friend meant, Caroline slapped her hands and backed away. "You know, I expect this stuff from Stefan, because he's a boy and stupid, but I expected more from you!"
Elena blanched and backed away from Caroline. "I don't get it."
"She thinks you called her fat," Bonnie explained with an eye roll.
"I did no such thing!" Elena shouted, earning herself a few annoyed glares from other patrons of the restaurant.
"Yes you did," Caroline whined as she threw herself back down into the booth. "It's okay, though." She wiped at the tears that were gathering in her eyes. "Everyone thinks it. You and Stefan are just the only ones brave enough to say it."
"He did not." Elena might not be very fond of Stefan right now, seeing as he tended to take up for his brother at the expense of all others around him, but she knew he wasn't stupid enough to call Caroline fat.
Bonnie and Elena slid into the booth across from Caroline; both feeling it would be best to not be sitting right next to her during this emotional state. Apparently, Caroline's take on rationality had been lost while she was away in Mystic Falls.
"Don't bother," Bonnie told her. "Caroline doesn't understand common sense anymore. That thing inside of her has taken over her brain."
"I'm growing a person, Bonnie, not an inanimate object!"
"With the way you've been acting, I wouldn't be too sure about that."
"Nice to see some things haven't changed since I've been gone." Elena gave Bonnie a pointed look.
"You haven't been around in two weeks, which means you haven't been subjected to the level of crazy that our best friend has reached. You'd be questioning what she had inside of her if you'd been here, trust me."
Caroline slapped her hand on the table and then pointed her finger in Bonnie's direction. "I am as big as a house. I can't sleep. I'm hot all the time, even though it's the middle of freaking winter in New York. I can't wear my heels anymore because my feet are swollen. Then, to top it all off, my husband thinks I'm fat. You'd be a pretty crappy person to be around too if you were in my shoes, so I don't even want to hear it."
Bonnie looked over at Elena and motioned in Caroline's direction, a bright and fake smile on her face. "Aren't you happy you're back?"
"With behavior like this, I don't know how I ever left," Elena deadpanned.
"So," Caroline drummed her fingers on the table and looked between Bonnie and Elena, obviously ready to move on from the current topic, "Is this the kind of lunch where we pretend like your aunt didn't force you back to Mystic Falls because Damon is a raging asshole, or can we cut the crap? Damon sucks and he's the reason you left. I don't think we should avoid that."
Elena blinked at the blonde in shock, stunned by how quickly she'd just switched gears. The heavy tension settled over them and they all fell silent. Elena was trying to come up with what to say. Bonnie and Caroline were just waiting for what she would say, cautiously watching her, and looking for a sign of where her head was.
"I was a willing participant, Caroline," she finally acknowledged, albeit quietly.
"Maybe in the sex, but not the proposal. It was a crappy thing to do, and you know it. You wouldn't have left otherwise. Don't sit here and defend him to me."
"You don't mean that," Elena tried to insist, but Caroline just shook her head. "Caroline, he's your brother-in-law and you love him."
"And look how well that's worked out for me."
"About as well as it's worked out for every other woman that's loved him," Bonnie murmured.
"Is this really what you want to talk about after I've been away for two weeks?"
Bonnie and Caroline looked at each other before looking back to Elena and simultaneously shrugging. "Pretty much," Caroline confirmed. "He didn't just tell you I'm pregnant or yell at you for Chicago. He slept with you and proposed to Andie. That's a big thing, Elena."
"Kind of aware of that."
"Then tell us how it happened, because we know nothing."
"Ask Damon," Elena told Caroline, crossing her arms over her chest in some false sense of defiance.
"I don't want to hear it from Damon. I want to hear it from you."
Elena sighed and made a silent plea to some unknown power above for the waitress to come over and distract Caroline and Bonnie, but seeing as she was currently taking orders from a large group, and Caroline and Bonnie were staring at her expectantly, she knew she was out of luck. She didn't want to get into the Damon story today. She wanted to have a fun lunch talking about Bonnie's boyfriend, and all the crazy things Caroline had gotten into in the past two weeks. She just wanted to have some fun with her friends.
"I don't know what to tell you."
"Tell me how you went from storming out of Alaric's bathroom that night, to sleeping with Damon. You looked like you didn't want anything to do with him."
"At that moment, I didn't." She could still remember how mad she'd been at him after their confrontation in the bathroom. She was mad and hurt that he was treating her that way because she kissed another guy. He had a girlfriend that he would then go propose to the next day, but because she kissed a guy, she was horrible. "He saw me kiss Colin, so he waited for me in Ric's bathroom to yell at me. That was what you interrupted that night, and that was why I stormed out."
"Wait a minute," Caroline interrupted her. "Rewind this back for me. You kissed Colin? How did I not know this?"
"Probably because you had your mouth fused to Stefan's most of the night? Also, I told you I kissed him. You know this."
"I'm pregnant and we had bigger fish to fry at the time. So, I forgot, sue me!"
"Well, now you remember. I kissed Colin."
"What was it like? Is he a good kisser? Have you talked to him? Tell me everything!"
"No, I haven't really talked to him, Caroline. I've had a few other things on my mind." She'd spoken to Colin twice since the night they kissed, but they were very brief conversations. Everything was fine with them, and she was sure she'd have dinner with him soon, but he knew that Damon was engaged and that something had happened between them to result in that engagement. So, like the stand up guy he was, he was giving her space.
Colin was everything she should want in a man. He was everything she needed in her life, but she knew they'd never take that step. He was a good friend, and she suspected that they'd remain friends for a long time, but that would be all. They both had a bad track record of relationships in their past that bonded them, and would probably keep them from ever doing anything beyond kissing after a few drinks.
"Does he know that you slept with Damon?" Bonnie wondered.
"No, but he knows that something happened that night. He said we'd talk about it whenever we saw each other next."
"So you two are fine?"
Elena nodded. "Yup, we're just sticking with the friends thing, and we're both okay with that."
"Then let's get back to Damon," Caroline insisted. "How did you go from making out with Colin to sleeping with Damon?"
"Damon did what he does best." She shrugged her shoulders. "He waited for me at my apartment and basically forced his way in when I told him to go home. We fought, I told him he was jealous, and then he kissed me. I tried to fight it, but with the way he looked at me, I wasn't strong enough. I love him, and because of that, I do stupid things."
"I won't argue with that," Bonnie mumbled.
"Really supportive there, Bonnie," Caroline griped. "Good job."
"I'm not saying anything she doesn't know. Elena doesn't exactly make good decisions where Damon is concerned. It's why I think she needs to drop the whole idea of being friends with him."
"Bonnie!" Caroline snapped.
"What?" Bonnie twisted her head to look at the glaring blonde.
"Remember what we talked about," she said through gritted teeth.
Elena watched the looks that passed between her best friends in growing confusion. Talked about what? What was Caroline getting at?
"I know what we talked about, but Elena's an adult. She doesn't need us to just sit here and listen. She needs advice from outside of her little bubble of confusion that Damon wraps her up in."
"What are you two talking about? Did you plan this conversation?"
"Caroline called me this morning to prep me on how this lunch should go. I think her plan is stupid, so I'm going with my own. You're an adult, you can hear the truth, and I don't think it's anything you don't know. You make stupid decisions where Damon is concerned."
"Okay, she gets it, Bonnie!" Caroline snapped.
Elena glanced nervously between her friends, finally piecing together what exactly was going on. Bonnie and Caroline were like night and day on most things, so it was only natural that they'd both want to approach this differently. Caroline always wanted to hear details and then bash the guy in question. She was the classic girlfriend that would hand you a bowl of ice cream and tell you that he'd made the biggest mistake of his life. Bonnie, on the other hand, would be quick to point out the part you played in it, never scared to put a mirror in front of you. She was brutally honest at times, but she knew that Bonnie was always on her team, no matter how judgmental her words might sound sometimes. She was just blunt because she hated seeing her friends hurt, and wanted to try to make sure she wouldn't see it again.
"Hey, stop it." Elena reached both of her hands out in opposite directions to grab hold of their hands. "I don't need either of you to plan out how to talk to me. I just want you to be my best friends. Bonnie, I want you to be so honest it makes me cringe, and Caroline, I want to be able to cry over a bag of crazy unhealthy food, while you tell me that I'm amazing and every other corny line you can come up with."
Caroline sniffed and tried to blink back tears while she squeezed Elena's hand. "You are amazing, and Damon is an idiot for what he did. You're the best girl I know."
"She's right," Bonnie agreed. "You are amazing, and Damon is a jackass. No matter what I say, you know I'm on your side. You didn't deserve what he did to you."
The tears flooded Elena's eyes and she knew in this moment, that this was why she'd come back to New York. No matter how masochistic it might feel to put herself in the same area as Damon, she knew she couldn't really leave. Bonnie and Caroline were a part of her soul, and without them she wasn't really a person, and she knew the same was true for them. They all balanced each other out. They needed the others to really stay grounded. No matter who they would end up marrying, their lives wouldn't be complete if they didn't have each other.
"I love you guys," Elena choked out. "These two weeks without you have been horrible. I needed the time away to make sure I wouldn't run into Damon, and to try and get my head together, but I needed you both two. I always need you, and I won't push you away like I did before."
"We'd never let that happen again," Bonnie assured her, her voice now thick with tears. "You're stuck with us."
"Good." Elena didn't care that she was in the middle of a restaurant and that people were probably sending her questionable looks, wondering who the crazy lady was that was crying in the booth. "Because I have a broken heart and I just need my friends."
"And you have us." Caroline slid out of the booth and came over to the side with Elena and Bonnie. By some miracle, they all managed to squeeze in so Caroline could wrap Elena in her arms. "You'll always have us, no matter what."
Bonnie enveloped her from the other side and now all three women were huddled together in the booth, crying and also relishing in the fact that they were all together again. She knew that Bonnie and Caroline loved her, and though that was never in doubt, it never hurt to be reminded of the fact. She did have a broken heart right now, and it hurt like hell, but knowing she had her friends made it not seem quite so scary anymore.
They remained wrapped together until the waitress finally came over and asked them what they wanted to eat, quickly snapping them out of their tearful reunion. So, with the tears out of the way, they easily fell into their usual playful banter, picking on each other, and catching up on everything that had been happening since they'd last spoken.
Elena got updated on everything that was going on with Bonnie and her boyfriend. She found herself unable to keep from teasing her about being head over heels in love with Owen. Bonnie had never been focused on boyfriends before. She was a girl that focused on what she thought she needed to do, but Owen had crept in taken her by surprise. For the first time in her life, she was in love, and it was a magical thing to see.
Caroline really had seemed to reach new levels of crazy though. She was more than ready to get that baby out of her and into the world of the living. She felt miserably huge and she wanted everyone to know. She also shared that she and Stefan were still on shaky ground after Christmas, and she hadn't even seen Damon since that night.
It made Elena feel bad to know that she was the cause of this rift in their family, but she knew that she couldn't fix it. She also knew that they'd be fine soon enough. Despite Caroline's anger toward Damon, she did love him, and she wouldn't be able to stay mad at him forever. And Elena suspected that Caroline was just mad at Stefan about everything in general right now, because she was pregnant and he was not. She also suspected that this fight had been brewing for a long time between Stefan and Caroline. Stefan's loyalty laid Damon, while Caroline's was with Elena. She knew the topic of her relationship with Damon was something that had not been allowed in their house for a long time. They'd ignored the elephant in the room, but Christmas Eve had shone a light on it that couldn't be ignored anymore.
That was one of the big reasons both Caroline and Stefan had been so apprehensive of her dating Damon in the first place, but she hadn't listened. She'd allowed herself to get lost in him and this was ultimately where it got her. She wasn't proud of it, and she certainly didn't want things to continue on as they were. Too many people had gotten dragged into this, and she didn't want that to happen anymore. Not to mention, she just couldn't do it anymore. She couldn't continue on this path with Damon. It had to be over. She wouldn't survive otherwise.
At some point, she'd have to talk to Damon and let him know that they had to cut all ties for good this time. There was no room for friendship or anything that would blur the lines right now. She needed him out of her life as much as she could get him out of it. The only problem would be getting him to actually do it. She had no idea where his head was at, but he probably wouldn't be okay with having nothing to do with her. Even when he'd been furious with her, he'd still wanted something to do with her. Damon was just a complicated man that wanted what he wanted no matter what anyone else wanted or thought.
It was a conversation she was dreading, and she didn't know how she'd build the courage to make herself go through with it. There was something about being in the same room with Damon that seemed to turn her universe on its ear and mess up everything inside of her head. He knew all of her weak spots and he wasn't scared to go for them. Whenever they had it, it would be rough.
She tried to focus her mind elsewhere though as she went home. It was only her first day back in New York, and there was no reason to bombard her brain with him if she could help it. Maybe tonight she would curl up with some manuscripts and takeout food. She just needed to try and keep her mind focused on healthy things right now. Work would be a nice distraction that she needed.
By the time she got off the elevator on her floor, she was anxious to put on her pajamas and curl up under a pile of blankets. This would be her first time being truly alone since Christmas Eve, and she wanted to take it easy. However, she came to a sudden halt as she rounded the corner in her hallway outside of her apartment. Leaning against her door, with his arms crossed loosely over his chest, was Damon. His eyes immediately swung to her frozen form, and widened as he pushed himself off the door and stepped toward her.
When she backed away from him he stopped in his place and released a quiet sigh, "Hey."
In the two weeks she'd been away, she had played every scenario in her head of how her first run-in with Damon would go once she was back in New York, but she had not prepared herself for this. She had planned for it to be at Caroline's house or when she had the baby. She hadn't once thought that he would be waiting for her at her door the day she got back.
"Damon," she whispered. Her chest constricted in anxiety and fear, but her hands ached to reach out and touch him, leaving her feeling betrayed by her own body. Her mind screamed at her to turn and run. Her body screamed for her to grab hold of him and haul him into her cold and lonely arms. Her heart merely shattered at the sheer pain of it all. She was not prepared for this.
His eyes raked over her body, from her loose jeans to her coat that seemed to bury her, but his eyes finally came to rest on her face once more. His eyes darkened and swirled with something she thought might be pain and confusion, but she did not think she could trust her own thoughts. They hadn't led her anywhere worthwhile in a long time.
The silence stretched on to the point where it became agonizing to remain frozen in front of him, but her vocal cords were paralyzed. She knew she could not speak even if her life depended on it in this moment. She was stuck and at his mercy, like she always seemed to be lately.
"You look good," he finally said. She continued to wordlessly stare at him, unsure of what to say or how to act. The last time she'd seen him she'd gone crazy in a roomful of their closest loved ones and told him he'd ruined her life. "How was Mystic Falls?"
Elena flinched at the question, put off by the mention of it. "How can you even ask me that?" she questioned. She hadn't been on vacation for two weeks, having a relaxing time with her family. She had been there because she was heartbroken and devastated over what he'd done to her. "In fact, how can you even have the guts to be here right now?"
Damon looked caught off guard at her newfound voice and apparent anger. "I wanted to see you."
"You wanted to see me?" she repeated, dumbfounded by his answer. Two weeks away from everything in New York City and she still had just as little understanding for why Damon did what he did as before she left. There were so many different reasons that filtered through her head on a daily basis that she just couldn't settle on any of them.
When she first found out that he'd proposed, she'd believed he did it to hurt her. She truly believed that he had set out with the intention to manipulate her into believing they were moving toward something good again, only to rip the rug out from under her and crush her in the way she'd crushed him. After a few days back in Mystic Falls, she'd begun wondering if he'd been scared of what had happened, so he proposed to Andie to cling to the sense of safety she gave him.
Elena wasn't stupid. She knew a big part of Damon's relationship with Andie was about him wanting something different than he had with her, or even different than he had with Katherine. He'd had his heart broken by the last two women that he loved, so it would only be natural to gravitate toward a woman that didn't make him feel as out of control as Elena or Katherine had. However, she also didn't doubt that Damon loved Andie, and that was what led her to another reason for his behavior.
She wondered if maybe his relationship wasn't as based on safety as Elena thought, and that he maybe was truly over her, and it took sleeping with her again to understand he was done loving her. That belief often left her wondering why he had gotten so angry about the possibility of her moving on, and she would be forced to admit that Damon was jut a selfish man. He'd be the man that wouldn't want her anymore, but wouldn't want anyone else to have her either. He liked to have his cake and eat it too.
Every scenario often left her staring into space for extended periods of time, lost in a whirlwind of thoughts until someone would pull her out of them. It was actually how she had spent a lot of her therapy sessions, running through things in her head until her therapist would ask her if she was ready to elaborate on her thoughts. No matter how hard she tried, she found she never could elaborate on them very well, because at the end of it all, she'd never be able to figure it out on her own. Unfortunately, the truth would have to come from Damon. She just didn't think he'd ever give it to her, whether out of spite, denial, or simply not knowing the truth himself, she doubted that she'd ever get her answer.
Believing that, she said, "If you wanted to see me, you have, so you can go now." She stepped to the side and motioned down the hallway for him to leave.
He sighed and slowly nodded his head. "Okay, if that's what you want."
"I think that would be best."
She averted her eyes to the floor as he walked past her, unable to look at him when he was so close to her. His arm brushed against hers and she couldn't help but flinch at the contact.
With slow steps she approached her door and pulled her keys from her pocket. She had the key in the lock when Damon's voice softly behind her. "Elena, can we please just talk?"
"Damon," she whispered, "Why are you doing this?"
She heard his footsteps as he walked toward her, and his soft voice drifted to her ears. "I needed to see you."
"Please," she quietly began, but he grabbed her arm and gently turned her around to face him. "Damon."
She had to crane her neck to peer into his clear blue eyes. "I know I shouldn't be here," he acknowledged. "And I know about 10 people who would beat the crap out of me if they knew I were, but I had to come. I've tried to call you or ask Caroline about you, but you won't answer and she's not in a sharing mood. Please just talk to me."
Elena sadly shook her head. "We don't have anything to talk about."
"We have everything to talk about. Please," he begged, "Talk to me. Just give me this one thing and if you still hate me when it's all said and done, I'll leave you alone. If you want nothing to do with me, I'll give you that, but please just talk to me."
Elena looked down at his hand on her arm, resting softly against her like it belonged there, and somehow it still felt like it did. It still felt right in some part of her. She slowly nodded her head before she turned and unlocked her door. "Come in." She opened her door and walked inside. Damon silently followed her into the apartment.
The door closed a moment later and it ignited a new sense of fear and anxiety inside of her. It was hard to be in this apartment with him, when the last time she'd been in here with him they'd had sex, only for him to abandon her with no warning. Was there a protocol for having a conversation with your ex-boyfriend in the place you'd last had sex?
"Are you going to move home?"
She twisted around to face him. "You had to come speak to me the moment you knew I was back to make sure I was going to stay? That's what's so important?"
"It is important," he insisted. "I know what I did was wrong, but don't move back home because of me. Caroline needs you in New York."
"Don't you dare bring Caroline into this!" she snapped. "You have no right to talk to me about my friendship with Caroline. I talked to her every single day while I was away. If you think we haven't talked about this, you're delusional. And if you really expect me to believe that you came here to only talk about me moving here, you must think I'm delusional."
"I'm sorry," he quickly apologized, holding his hands up in an act of surrender.
"You've said that to me a lot since you proposed, but you never actually follow it with much of anything. I don't want to hear that you're sorry, Damon. That doesn't do anything. So if this is all you have to talk about, just do us both a favor and leave."
"I just want to make it better."
With a quiet and sad voice, she said, "It's not going to get better."
Damon's face fell at her words and she knew he didn't want to hear that. He probably wouldn't want to hear anything that she had to say to him for a very long time, but she had to say it. Things had to finally be different with them.
"Are we still going to be friends?"
"We can't be friends, Damon. It doesn't work."
He stepped toward her. "We can make it work."
"We can't," she insisted. "It won't work, because we'll sleep together and then you'll go propose to someone who isn't me. I can't be your friend."
"It wasn't like that!" Damon exclaimed. "God, I said I was sorry, and I just want to talk to you to make this better. What do I have to do to accomplish that?"
"You can't, Damon! That's what I'm trying to tell you!" Elena exclaimed. "Because I can't understand how you can propose to Andie after what happened with us and then have such a hard time understanding that I want nothing to do with you. I may have said some things I shouldn't have that night, but I said a lot of true things too, Damon. You broke my heart!"
Elena stumbled back, shocked by the words that had poured from her mouth.
"Tell me how to fix this. Just tell me what to do, and I'll do it." He sounded so sincere and desperate that Elena wished she had an answer for him, but there wasn't one. At least, not one that he'd like. He wanted things better right this moment, but she couldn't give him that. She didn't know if she ever would be able to. She just knew that she needed time and she needed space away from him.
"I can't," she choked out, sadness bubbling up in her throat. "That's the problem, Damon. The second you proposed to Andie, you made sure that it wouldn't get better. You think you can apologize or find some magical words to fix all of this, but it's not that easy." Elena inhaled a shaky breath, trying to hold her composure for as long as possible. "Do you know what it felt like to wake up alone? I searched the apartment desperate to find you here, and when you weren't I spent hours convincing myself that it didn't mean anything bad. I told myself that you'd come back and tell me that you'd ended things with Andie. I thought that night meant something. Then, Caroline showed up and told me you'd proposed, and everything shattered. Every step forward I'd taken since I moved to Chicago was demolished with two words from my best friend, and you did that, Damon. You."
"I made a mistake."
"By sleeping with me or proposing to Andie?" she quickly countered, her voice soft and scared to hear what his answer would be.
She could see the hesitation in his eyes, and the quick rush of doubt that soon followed it. He didn't have an answer, just like she'd predicted. She didn't think he knew what his mistake was. He knew he'd made one, he just didn't know whether choosing Andie was the mistake, or if sleeping with her was.
"I'm sorry," he breathed out, his head slowly shaking from side to side.
"I know." Her throat clenched tightly as she fought back the sob struggling to break free, but she couldn't keep the tears at bay any longer. She tried to blink them away until one finally slipped down her cheek.
Her heart pounded against her chest as he stepped forward, his hands reaching up for her face. She didn't turn away from him or try to stop him. As his hands softly cupped her damp cheeks, something broke and healed inside of her all at the same time. Her eyes fell shut and she tried to memorize this moment, burn it into her brain forever. She wanted to remember the feel of his hands on her skin, and the intoxicating scent of his cologne that wafted into her nose. She wanted to remember what it was like to have him so close she could feel him breathing. This might not ever happen again, and though he had broken her heart, she couldn't stop loving him yet, and there was simply something about this moment that she wanted to remember.
It was simple and complicated all at once, much like their relationship had been. He would leave her apartment and go back to his fiancé, this could be their final memory in her tiny apartment that was barely a step above the one she'd had when she as twenty-two. Though the pain would haunt her of how cold and broken she'd felt to find herself alone on that morning after the night they'd shared, she could hold onto this moment and tell herself that they weren't all bad. They were over and broken beyond repair, but there were still innately good parts to who they were together, and this moment spoke to that.
"I don't want to hurt you."
With eyes still closed, she whispered, "So let me go."
"How?"
Scared, she pried her damp eyes open to be faced with his crystal blue orbs. Though his face was blurry before her, his eyes still shone brightly through her tears. "I need you to not wait for me in bathrooms or follow me into bedrooms anymore. You can't show up at my apartment. You have to stop calling me. You have to stop coming to the bar. You can't get mad at me when I go on a date." She choked on her final words and a small whimper fell from her lips. "Just let me go."
He only held her face tighter in his hands as she finished speaking, while his own shook back and forth with jerky movements. "I don't know how to do that."
With shaky hands, she grabbed his hands on her face and pulled them away, but before she could let go, he twisted his fingers with hers, holding on tightly. She allowed him this for several moments before she forced herself to pull her hands free as she told him, "If you care about me like you say you do, you'll do this for me. Staying here is going to be nearly impossible if you don't."
He looked shell-shocked and worn, like she'd just dragged him through a war. His face fell and his eyes grew hollow as he stumbled backwards toward her door. "I'll leave you alone. If this is what you want, I'll do it."
"It's not what I want," she told him desolately, "But it's all I can get."
It was the last thing she wanted, and she suspected that they both knew that. She couldn't get what she wanted. She wanted him, and was no longer hers. For however long Andie was in the picture, and it looked like he was betting on forever, she'd never get what she wanted. The only other way she could get it would be to stop loving him, and that was where this request came in. To have a shot at ever loving anyone else, he had to be out of her life as much as she could get him out of it. She knew he'd never be completely gone, but she'd have to make do with what she had.
"I guess I'll see you around," he finally said as he got to the door. "Take care of yourself, Elena."
With that, he was gone, from her life and from her apartment. It would be hard and she would be lonely, but she had to do it. As much as she told him that he needed to let her go, she needed to let him go as well. They stopped working a long time ago, and she needed to let it all go.