Author's Note: Well, here we are with another chapter. A HUGE thanks has to go out to my beta, who makes my midnight writing make sense. She has been so great through these last few chapters. I bombard her all the time with emails. So, thank you, Sandra! You rock! This chapter is another one that's a bit different, but not in the way I'm sure you all think. I don't know...we'll see. So, enjoy!
Chapter 38
Like ships in the night
You keep passing me by
We're just wasting time
Trying to prove who's right
Bonnie sighed as she tossed her suitcase on one of the queen size beds in the hotel room. "Well, here we are." She walked over to the window and looked out at the bright city. "This is certainly no New York." After what felt like one epically long day, they were finally in Nashville.
The mention of the city she'd just fled was a cruel reminder of why she was here to begin with. It wasn't for a fun girl's trip. She was here because she'd been humiliated and had her heart broken. She'd put it all on the line one last time, and had it shoved back in her face just like before.
A part of her wished she could be mad at Damon, but she had lost that ability long ago. This felt like their twisted cycle. She started it when she ran off to Chicago two years ago. Today, he ended it. For two years, this push and pull with Damon was what she'd known. Though it caused her immense amounts of pain, she never truly stopped feeling the love. She never stopped loving him. But now it was all over. She had to find a way to move on, how to live her life without this dynamic that they'd formed, always hoping that it would end in the way she had wanted it to. It was over, and she didn't know where to go.
"What am I gonna do, Bonnie?" Her friend twisted in front of the window to look back at Elena's tear-filled eyes. "I don't know what to do anymore."
Bonnie's brows furrowed in confusion. "I thought you came to talk to Matt."
"Because I didn't know where else to go, Bonnie. I'm almost 26 and my life is in shambles. The man I love is married to someone else now. I've left nothing but brokenhearted men in my past. And, for some reason, standing in that airport, this seemed like a good idea. I spent a year apologizing to Damon, but I never really gave Matt one, and he deserved one too."
"Have you thought this out beyond tomorrow?"
Elena shook her head. "No."
Bonnie slowly came toward her, a sad look on her face. "Did you think anything out today?"
"No." She sniffled and shook her head. "I think I just thought it would work. Everything points to the fact that Damon loves me. I thought he just needed me to tell him how I felt."
"I'm not trying to be mean or say you're wrong, but I just have to ask. Why did you suddenly decide to go to him again today? The last time we talked, you weren't even talking to him, let alone thinking about asking him to not get married."
"Oh my goodness, why are you so cute?" Elena asked Sawyer, squeezing his chubby tummy from her place hovering above him. He was laid out on the couch, and had just sneezed the most adorable sneeze she'd ever heard in her life. "I could eat you up!" She leaned over and littered his face with kisses.
At just a few months old, Sawyer Damon Salvatore had totally and completely captured her heart, and just about every other heart of every person he'd met since he came into this world. The night of his birth had been a painful and joyous time for her, but now she was utterly in love with him. There was no longer sadness that crept up on her when she was around him, no pain lingering in her heart. He seemed to heal everything wrong in her world with one little gurgle or kick of his feet. It was only when she would return home to a quiet, empty apartment that reality would sink back in and rest heavily on her chest, but when she was with him, she felt none of it. He was the perfect medicine.
"Let's see how adorable he is when he wakes you up at one in the morning and refuses to go back to sleep." Eventhough she was already dressed up in a nice dress and had her hair curled nicely, Caroline was sprawled out at the other end of the couch, a pillow over her face and a blanket pulled up to her chin. She was a far cry from the Caroline she'd been a few years ago. That Caroline would have died before she risked getting one hair out of place, but this Caroline really didn't seem to care.
Though she didn't look it at the moment, she'd taken to motherhood the moment Sawyer had been placed in her arms. She absolutely loved it, and she loved him. However, as she'd told Elena when she got here twenty minutes ago, last night had been a rough one. Caroline's perfect baby boy had transformed into a cranky mess last night, leaving both parents exhausted. While Caroline at least got to stay home, Stefan was already back in school, working to get his doctorate.
"Aw," Elena cooed down at Sawyer, "I could never think you are anything but adorable."
"Well, I know that I can. I don't even know how I found the energy to shower and get ready for this stupid dinner." Elena could see her head shaking back and forth from beneath the pillow. "I almost talked myself out of it, but then I realized I was probably starting to smell. Oh, and he peed on me today. Did you know that boys did that?"
With every ounce of willpower she had in her, Elena fought to contain her laughter, grateful for the pillow covering Caroline's face. "I've heard something like that."
Caroline shot up like a pistol, causing the pillow to fall with a soft thud to the floor. "Well, you could've told me. I was giving him a bath, and then bam, he nailed me right in my face. It was horrible, and all Stefan could do was laugh. He didn't hand me a towel or anything." A small snort slipped through her tightly sealed lips and Caroline glared at her. "Oh, let's see how much you're laughing when he pees on you."
Elena looked down at Sawyer, who was kicking his little feet and squirming around on the couch. She tickled his stomach and cooed, "This precious baby would never do that to me, would you?" Despite Caroline's small rant, Elena took none of it seriously. Her friend was exhausted and had gone without some of her favorite things for god knows how long, and she was getting a little testy. She didn't mean what she said. Elena knew she still thought her son was the most adorable baby to ever exist on this planet, and no amount of pee in her face could change that.
"Traitor," Caroline mumbled.
"Okay, let's go, we're gonna be late." Stefan breezed into the room, his undone tie hanging around his neck.
Caroline, who had lain back down, lifted her head high enough to look at her husband. "I don't feel good. I don't think I should go." She put her hand over her mouth and blew out a pitiful fake cough. "I think I'm getting sick."
Stefan rolled his eyes and walked over to the couch, where he grabbed onto her hands and pulled her to her feet. "How stupid do you think I am?"
"Right now? Pretty stupid," she deadpanned. "Come on, don't make me go. Damon doesn't want me there anyway. He's not my biggest fan right now."
"I can't imagine why."
Elena curiously glanced up from Sawyer to watch the small tiff developing between Stefan and Caroline. Last she'd heard, Damon and Caroline were as good as ever. He'd been over here pretty much every day since Sawyer was born. And she'd know, seeing as she'd been successfully avoiding him for the past few weeks.
"Because for a man that demands honesty, he can't freaking handle it," she whispered harshly. "I don't want to go support this farce. I'd rather spend an evening with my son."
"Caroline," Stefan said warningly, "Don't start."
"Don't give me that tone," his wife snapped.
"Do you two need me to leave?" she spoke up quietly from a few feet away, not really in the mood to watch this lovers' quarrel.
Stefan turned to look at her and held his hand up, signaling for her to stay put. "No, Elena, you're going to stay and we're going to leave." He retrieved Caroline's purse from the table and pushed it into her chest. "Let's go, Care."
"I don't want to go."
"Too bad." Stefan grabbed her arm and began to drag her toward the door. "We'll be back in a few hours, Elena. We left instructions about his routine in the kitchen. Have fun, but don't get my son drunk or hooked on cigars."
She twisted her head around and watched her best friend unsuccessfully try to pull away from Stefan's grasp, but within moments, he had her out of the door and slammed it shut behind them.
"Well, kid," she said, turning back to look at Sawyer. "Looks like it's just you and me. Your dad kind of just killed my plans for us for the night, but I'm sure we can still have fun." He gurgled in response and she smiled down at him. "Thanks, I think you're pretty good company too." She sighed and looked around the empty living room. "So, what should we do to pass the time? You know of any good movies?" Sawyer stared up at her silently, of course. "Yeah, that sounded stupid to me too."
This was officially her first time alone with Sawyer. Caroline had decided to take more time off work, not ready to go back last month, and she had barely left his side for more than an hour since he'd been born. So, Sawyer was basically totally attached to his mother, and she really hoped he wouldn't freak out. She was great with him most of the time, but she did not know what she'd do if he got fussy.
Maybe she should have spent more time this week watching Caroline with Sawyer instead of watching the door. She and Damon were knee-deep in their "normal" pattern once again. Every time he walked through that front door, she walked out of it minutes later. Since her talk with Andie a few weeks ago, she'd been avoiding Damon, something she was sure he'd caught onto. There had been nothing that either of them had done to result in her pulling away yet again, so she knew it had to be a confusing thing for him, but she had no idea how to explain it.
Right after Sawyer was born, things changed with them yet again, just like they always did. There was something about having a baby around that pulled them together in a way she hadn't realized could happen. There was just something about Sawyer. Whenever they were around him, things seemed almost simple. When she watched him with his nephew, it was so hard not to see the man she'd fallen in love with, and remember what they were once supposed to have. It was all so natural, and she'd allowed herself to lose sight of reality during that time.
So, when Andie came back to prepare for the wedding, it had been a brutal reminder that it hadn't been reality. They'd almost been playing pretend with Sawyer. Damon was engaged to another woman and she shouldn't have allowed herself to overlook that so easily. When Andie tracked her down in that guest bedroom that day, she had just been recovering from yet another conversation there with Damon.
There had been no kissing or talk of feelings in that room, but it still probably wasn't very appropriate. He'd followed her in to apologize to her about Andie unexpectedly showing up. It had been awkward and confusing. She had no idea what to even say in response to his apology. She didn't even know what to think about it, and before she'd been able to really process any of it, she'd turned around and found Andie in the doorway.
It had been the first conversation she'd had with the woman since the weekend of Stefan's birthday last year, and so many things had changed since then. She hadn't been face to face with Andie very much since she slept with Damon, but when she was forced to stand in front of her, she was hit with an overwhelming amount of guilt for the pain she'd inadvertently caused this other woman.
So much became clear in that room, and she had to finally realize that Andie had seen far more than she had originally thought. As she looked into her glassy brown eyes, she saw a woman who was simply in love with a man who held tremendous power over her, just like Elena was. They were alike in far more ways than she ever knew, and that somehow made it hard to watch the other woman cry and beg her to stay away from Damon.
When things were good with Damon, it was so easy to ignore the fact that he had another woman in his life, and she'd allowed herself to do that after Sawyer was born. As Andie so tearfully pointed out to her though, he hadn't chosen her. He proposed to Andie, and for some reason he was still continuing to choose her. No matter what conversations they may find themselves in, or how nice it might have been to watch him with Sawyer, he was still going through with the wedding, and she needed to live with it.
It was the very last thing she wanted to accept most days, but she needed to. She'd put it all on the line for him before and he had chosen differently. Would it really change anything if she did that again?
Sawyer began to fuss below her, kicking his feet in the air as he squirmed and cried. "Aw, buddy," she picked him up and nestled him into her arms. "What's wrong?" She looked up at the clock across the room and realized it was probably time for him to eat. "You hungry? Is that why you're crying?"
She really had no idea why she bothered to even ask Sawyer any questions. Obviously, he wasn't going to answer her or give her any real response, but she still seemed to always find herself asking him things.
With him comfortable in her arms, she got up and went into the kitchen to prepare a bottle that Caroline had left in the fridge for her. Being that she'd prepared a handful of bottles since Caroline had started giving them to him, it was fairly easy to get one heated up and ready. Before he could get himself too worked up, she had him happily sucking away.
"Just like a typical Salvatore," she murmured to him. " Completely demonic when you're hungry, but totally silent once you've been given food."
Over the next few hours she managed to keep Sawyer content and quiet, but not long after his second bottle, he got fussy again, and not even his swing, which seemed to always calm him down, could soothe him. This precious child had turned into a monster in an instant and she was quickly running out of options on how to calm him down. After nearly an hour she realized that as long as she held him in her arms, he would quiet down after about fifteen minutes.
Armed with her newfound knowledge, she found a movie on television and laid down with him. Before long, he'd calmed down enough to stop crying, and soon after that, he was fast asleep on her chest, finally giving her eardrums a much needed break. However, the now serene living room combined with her comfortable position on the couch had her feeling exhausted, and some time after Kate Hudson redecorated Matthew McConaughey's apartment in a hideous shade of pink, everything faded away.
"Elena."
"Huh?" She was jolted awake as she heard her name and felt someone gently shake her shoulder. Her eyes slowly fluttered open, still heavy from sleep until she saw pristine blue eyes staring down at her. Confused, she said, "Damon?"
"Hey," he whispered. "Sorry, you were asleep."
She yawned and spread her fingers out over the soft material stretching across Sawyer's back. She must have fallen asleep sometime after he had. Slowly, she sat up, keeping a firm hold on Sawyer to try and keep him from awakening from his slumber. "What are you doing here? Where are Caroline and Stefan?"
He quickly glanced toward the door then back to her and shrugged. "I don't know, they must have gotten held up. Last I saw them, they were heading out right behind me."
"Oh, well, I guess I should go put Sawyer down before they get back." She stood up and found herself awkwardly closed in by Damon. She wobbled on her feet, the back of her knees pressing against the couch as she struggled to stay upright. Noticing that she was about to fall, he grabbed hold of her arms and steadied her as he moved out of her way. "Thank you," she said then rushed past him before anything else could happen.
She quickly escaped into Sawyer's darkened room to lay him gently in his crib. He went down without making a noise, and she was grateful that she hadn't woken him up with her shaky walking. With a smile on her face, she reached a hand into the crib again and ran her hand softly over his stomach. Sometimes it amazed her how something this innocent still existed in the world. With all of the loss and heartbreak she'd endured in her life, it was an amazing thing to see a child totally free of any concept of true pain. She hoped he'd never have to experience even a fourth of the pain she'd endured in her life.
"He's pretty amazing." Damon's quiet voice startled her and she swiftly pulled her hand away from Sawyer so she would not startle him. When she turned to him, eyes wide, his face fell and he quickly apologized, "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you."
"No," she swallowed thickly, "It's fine." She looked down at Sawyer and then sighed. "I should probably go now."
As if he hadn't heard her, he came further into the room, his hands buried deep in his pockets. "I know he's not mine, but sometimes I look at him, and I just feel horrible for the kid because he's related to me." She watched, frozen, as he approached the crib and stared down at his nephew, too stunned to say a word to him. "Whether I like it or not, he's going to look to me for some form of guidance, and what do I have to give him? My life is one series of mistakes."
His words now jolted her to attention and she moved away from him, shaking her head. "Damon," she breathed out, "I don't think –" she stumbled on her words, trying to force something from her lips, but she had nothing. She didn't know what to say. A part of her wanted to reach out and pull him into her arms, tell him how wrong he was, but another part of her told her it wasn't her job. Every time he got close to her now, all she saw was Andie's heartbroken face as she begged her to stay away from Damon, and that was a hard image to ignore.
He didn't let her get far before he threw out a question that halted her where she stood once again. "When did you know you were in over your head in Chicago?" He wasn't looking at her when he asked the question, and she so desperately wanted to grab his face and pull it around to look at her, because she had no idea what he was really asking her. Was this about him? Was it about her? Was it about them? What was it about?
"We shouldn't talk about this. Not tonight." It wasn't that she didn't want to talk about this. She'd been wanting to talk about Chicago since she got back, but he had just come from his rehearsal dinner. What was the point of even talking about it now?
He turned to her now, his blue eyes somehow shining in the room lit only by the light from the window in the room. "Just answer the question. Please."
Without thinking, the words fell from her lips before she could even stop them. "The first day I woke up in Chicago. That was when I knew."
"Hello?" The front door slammed and Elena jumped at the sound of Caroline's voice reverberating through the penthouse. Damon reached out to her, his mouth open to say something else, but before he could get the first sound out, she turned on her heel and fled the room. She rushed into the living room, grateful that her friend was home.
"Hey!" She smiled and rushed forward to hug her.
"Not that I'm not flattered, but where's my son?" Caroline asked, already pulling away and looking down the hallway. "Is he asleep?"
"Yeah, he fell asleep a little while ago, and I just put him down in his crib."
"Was he good tonight? He wasn't too fussy was he? I've never left him alone for this long, so I wasn't sure how he'd really be and –" Caroline trailed off as her eyes focused on something over Elena's shoulder again. "Damon?"
Stefan came around the corner at that precise moment and stared in wonderment at his brother too. "What are you doing here?"
"I told you guys I was coming back here after the dinner."
"Yeah, but how did you beat us?" Caroline asked.
"I don't know, guess my driver is better than a taxi." Damon was beside her now, and she could feel the heat pouring from his body.
"Okay, well, now that you guys are here, I should go. I'll talk to you tomorrow, Caroline." She gave the blonde's shoulder a friendly squeezed and slid past her to grab her purse and phone from the living room. She was quick retrieving them and before the trio realized what was happening, she was gone. And not a moment too soon it would seem, because the moment she shut the door, Colin was approaching it.
"Well, this is perfect timing."
She hadn't spent much time with Colin since she got back after the whole Christmas fiasco, and with Damon's wedding tomorrow, she'd called him up to see if he wanted to have a late night dinner. She needed a friend who wasn't involved in any of this and who understood where she was coming from. Colin was that guy for her. He'd been a good friend, and though Caroline still sometimes pushed the romance aspect, she was happy with what they were, and she suspected he was too. She needed some guy friends in her life that she didn't date and ruin.
"Caroline and Stefan just got home, so I was going to just wait for you in the lobby. Looks like it all worked out well though."
"So," he motioned her forward, "You ready to head out?"
"Yes," she nodded emphatically, "More than you know."
"Alright then, let's go."
She walked down the hallway, resisting the urge to look back at Caroline's door and run back toward it. She was doing the right thing. Damon should be with Caroline and Stefan right now, not talking to her about whatever it was he wanted to talk about.
"Elena!" They were almost to the elevator when Damon's voice called out from down the hallway. Nervous, she finally allowed herself to look over her shoulder and she saw Damon coming toward her, a confused look on his face as he stared at Colin.
Wanting to avoid anything, she turned to Colin and pointed to the elevator. "You should go get the elevator. This will only take a second." He watched her skeptically, searching her face for some signal that he shouldn't step away from her, even for a few feet, but when she nodded, he shrugged and did as she said. Once he was to the elevator she turned back in time to catch Damon before he got too close. "What are you doing?" she asked, meeting him somewhere in the middle of the distance that still separated them.
"What's he doing here?"
"It's nothing," she quickly explained, but then shook off her need to assure him about anything. "Does Caroline need something? Did I forget a book in there?"
"We weren't done back there, Elena."
"Damon," she began, but he cut her off.
"Can we just talk?"
"Elena," Colin called, "Elevator's here."
She looked over her shoulder to see him holding his arm out to block the doors from sliding shut. "I'm sorry," she apologized as she looked back at Damon. "I have to go."
"Just five minutes," he asked her. "I think this is important."
"Elena!"
Feeling torn in two completely different directions she closed her eyes and tried to figure out what she needed to do. Damon said he needed to talk to her and that it was important, but was it really, or was it just something Damon thought was important right now and wouldn't be anymore in ten minutes?
She looked at him waiting for an answer from her, and all she could hear was Andie telling her to just stay away and that he hadn't chosen her. Though it hurt and maybe didn't always feel like it, he chose Andie. He did not choose her.
"I'm sorry." She backed away from him, trying not to let it affect her as she watched the realization cross his face over the fact that she was walking away from him right now. With a final shrug of her shoulders she turned and stepped into the elevator before it could start beeping at them for having the doors open for so long. And as the doors shut, all she saw was the look of bewilderment on Damon's face turn to anger.
"I see things with you and Damon are still as simple as ever," Colin commented from beside her, and she shot him an annoyed look. "Okay, point taken."
She had no idea what had just happened in that hallway, and she didn't know if she even wanted to try and figure it out. Was there really something important that Damon wanted to discuss with her, or did he make that up because he just didn't want her to go to dinner with Colin. Knowing Damon, there was a fifty/fifty shot that it was either one.
"So, where do you want to go to dinner?"
"There's a good Italian place a few blocks away. That sound good to you?"
Anything sounded good to her. She was starving!
"Yeah, that works."
They remained quiet as they made their way to the restaurant and got a seat inside, but soon after their drinks were delivered, Colin stopped ignoring the elephant in the room and asked, "So, what is going on with you and Damon? And don't tell me nothing, cause that was not nothing."
"Colin," she sighed.
"Hey, we're supposed to be friends. This is what friends do. Spill, Gilbert."
Knowing she really wasn't left with another option, she decided to just lay it all out there. "I've been avoiding Damon since Andie asked me to stay away from him. It's something I'm sure he's noticed. Well, tonight was his rehearsal dinner and he somehow showed up at Caroline and Stefan's before they got back. He tried to talk to me, but before anything was really said, they got back, and I ran away. That's when you met up with me, and then Damon tried to get me to talk to him. Apparently he has something important to say, but I told him I was sorry, and then left with you. Now, here we are."
Letting none of the details get him down, he plowed straight ahead. "What could he possibly want to discuss with you the night before his wedding?"
"I don't know, didn't ask."
"Guys don't ask their ex-girlfriends to talk about something important the night before they get married unless it's something big. I doubt he was going to talk to you about your job."
"So, what, you think he was going to confess his undying love for me and say he was calling off the wedding?"
Colin folded his arms on the table and leaned forward. "I don't know if he was going to say that, but I think he looked scared."
Elena fell back in her seat, Colin's words weighing heavy on her mind. Had Damon really been scared, was that why he wanted to talk to her? Surely she would have picked up on it if he had been. Then again, that would have required her to pay attention to something other than her quickest escape route.
"He asked me when I knew I'd made a mistake by moving to Chicago," she revealed after several long moments of internal thought.
Colin's eyes widened slightly at her words. "Interesting."
"What?"
"Elena, the guy just asked you when you knew you'd made the biggest mistake of your life the night before he's supposed to get married. That doesn't seem at all suspicious to you?"
She groaned in frustration and rolled her eyes. He posed the question like it was all so simple, like there were no complications between her and Damon at all. Nothing with them was ever simple. She didn't even know how to do anything but overanalyze every word he said to her, because they never seemed to mean what she thought they did.
"Well, forgive me for being confused by what the hell it all means, when I can't ever seem to make sense of anything he says or does."
"You know what I think?" Colin asked. "I think everything between you and Damon makes sense to everyone but you and Damon."
"And what does that mean?"
"It means you two have an obsession with dancing around the other, pushing the other away just far enough to where the other thinks they're being let go, and then one of you pulls the other back in. There's a whole lot of talk that goes on that doesn't match up with anything you two do. If I know that, having spent the very short amount of time in the same presence as the two of you as I have, then it has to be like a neon flashing sign to every other person in your life."
"So you're telling me I refuse to let him go?"
"I'm saying neither of you will let the other go. And I don't know about Damon, but I don't think you don't let Damon go because you want to hold onto him. I think you just can't let him go."
Colin's words suddenly made so much sense in her head. In spite of the lack of time he'd spent around her and Damon, he was surprisingly spot on. She'd never thought of her dynamic with Damon to be like a dance, as he'd described it, but it seemed so obvious right now. For four years they'd been doing this to each other. They pushed the other far enough away to scare the other into thinking it was all really over, and then at the last possible moment, reeled the other back in. It was a crazy cycle. One that she'd willingly participated in over all this time, and Colin was right. She did it because she didn't know how to stop.
"How do I stop it?" Colin hadn't been in a situation too different from hers very long ago. He had his own tortured love story in his past to draw plenty of knowledge from.
"Honestly, I think you need closure."
"How do I do that?"
"You have to get to a point where you are certain that you and Damon are done. Right now, even though he's getting married tomorrow, I don't think you have that certainty. I think you still have hope that something will change, but the problem is, you're hoping that he's the one that changes it."
And shouldn't she?
"Damon is the one getting married. I can't just ask him to not go through with it. He knows how I feel about everything. The choice has to be his."
"But does he know how you feel?" Colin challenged. "Since the whole Christmas Eve debacle have you ever come right out and said how you feel, outside of telling him to stay away from you?"
She quickly tried to think back on all of her interactions with Damon over the past few months, running them all through her head just like she'd done hundreds of times before. There was the talk they had after she got back from Mystic Falls where she told him he'd broken her heart and she couldn't get what she really wanted. She thought it all seemed pretty clear – she loved him and wanted him. At the same time though, she'd told him to let her go, and that things were never going to get better with them. Was there a chance he really didn't know how she felt?
"I don't know how he wouldn't know, Colin. I feel like it's a pretty obvious thing."
"So you haven't told him?"
"Not in exact words, but pretty much."
"Elena, I hate to break it to you, but men don't understand pretty much. If you don't spell it out, odds are it gets lost in translation."
"But even if it did, I know Damon. He goes after what he wants, and if I'm what he wants, he'd come after me."
"Maybe he's tried to in his own way." He leaned back in his seat now, a serious look on his face. "You know, I think that's the problem with you two. You expect him to be the one to come to you and lay it all out there, and I think he expects you to do that. Neither of you can actually get the balls to come out and say what you mean. And frankly, I don't think you're ever going to get closure if you don't try one last time."
"Are you telling me to ask a man to call off his wedding the night before?" she balked.
"I'm telling you to tell the man you love that you love him. If you don't do that, I think you're gonna keep playing this stupid game the two of you have going on for the rest of your life. You'll never let him go, because you'll always believe, somewhere inside of you that there's a chance. If you want to get closure, you need to make sure there's not a chance. So yeah," he shrugged, "I guess I'm telling you to ask him to call off his wedding."
"I don't – I don't think I can do that, Colin."
"I guess it would make your life a bit like a Country song."
Unable to help herself, Elena burst into laughter. "I'm sorry," she apologized when she saw the understandably confused look on his face. "I can't believe I'm even talking about this, let alone thinking about it. I mean, who really thinks about crashing her ex-boyfriend's wedding? I sound crazy!"
"Well, I'm not saying to burst through the church doors right before they say 'I do'. Maybe just before the actual wedding. Although it would be interesting to see what ends up on Page Six about it."
"Oh god," she groaned.
"But if you do decide to go the church route, let me know. I'd love to see that."
"Hate to burst your bubble, but I don't think I can even ask him not to get married, much less interrupt his wedding. He's made it this far, which means he's sure. Andie was right when she told me he'd chosen her. I need to respect that."
He casually shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not here to tell you what to do with your life, Elena. So, whatever you want to do, I think you're making the right choice." The waitress finally approached their table, notepad in hand, and Colin looked at her across the table. "Shall we drop this subject and order our food?"
She nodded her head. "I think that would probably be best."
Thankfully, the rest of the dinner was filled with everything but the topic of Damon and his upcoming wedding. Even though it was still consuming pretty much every thought she had, she fought to push it away. For once in her life, she needed to take her own advice. She needed to respect the relationship that Damon had with Andie, no matter how much it hurt to do it.
They talked about some of the horrible novels she'd read during her time at her new job, laughing at some of the insane ideas some people came up with, and how horrible grammar could actually be. Sometimes she would read the most god-awful novels long after she knew that they would end up in the recycling bin. It was just astounding what some people could put out. They caught up on how his job was going and some new jobs he'd recently gotten. His career was getting better by the day, and she was happy for him.
It was nice to have a few hours with a friend that hadn't had a front row seat to everything that happened between her and Damon, because even if he had more he wanted to say, he stayed true to his word and didn't bring the subject up again. Caroline and Bonnie both had so many opinions on everything, and she knew if she had dinner with either one of them tonight she'd spend the entire time hearing each and every single one of those opinions. It was just nice to have a friend who let her avoid the topic.
Well, as much as Colin could avoid it. By the time they were leaving the restaurant and saying their goodbyes, he was staring intently at her. She could even see the thoughts forming in his head right in front of her eyes. "Can I just say one more thing?" he asked.
She didn't know if she wanted to hear that one more thing, but she nodded her head anyway. "Go for it."
He nervously shoved his hands in his pockets and looked out to the street. "When I broke up with my ex, it was horrible. I couldn't fathom the idea of wanting anyone but her, because it all ended so abruptly. There was no real ending. It took six months, and me going to her one last time to finally just put it all on the table with how I felt, to really be able to walk away. After I did that, I realized I was ready to move on. I just needed her to know how I felt, and get some form of closure. I was already over her before we even talked; I just needed that conversation to be able to close the door. I'm not saying it will be like that for you, but no matter what, you need closure, and right now you don't have it."
She stood speechless on the sidewalk, absorbing his quiet and heartfelt advice. Though they'd never discussed his ex-girlfriend much, she knew he understood how she felt. He understood her emotions in a way her other friends couldn't, and that counted for something.
"Thank you," she murmured. "Thank you for saying that."
"Hey," his eyes swung back to hers, and they sparkled under the dim streetlight, "Just trying to be a good friend." With a smile he leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. "Let me know what happens." She nodded silently as he pulled away. "Good luck with whatever you do."
Elena watched as he turned and walked in the opposite direction, disappearing into the crowd ahead of him. After he was long gone she turned and scanned the street, trying to decide her best way to get home. She was nowhere near her apartment, but she didn't particularly feel like taking a taxi or the subway back home. She didn't even feel like going home right now. And somehow, that sent her feet in a direction she didn't plan or even think about.
Before she knew it, she ended up in a bar in a, to her, completely unknown part of town, but she didn't get up and leave, not yet. She certainly had no place else she wanted to be. Her normal bar, filled with Mark and dozens of others who she'd gotten to know over the years, seemed like a bad idea. They all knew too much about her, or at least enough to know how pathetic her life had turned out and stare at her accordingly.
This place was completely foreign to her, someplace where she could sit with her thoughts and have a drink or two. Then, maybe if she were lucky, she'd begin to piece together what had really happened between her and Damon. All she knew right now was that it was confusing and painful, and even though she had Colin's advice weighing heavily on her, it wasn't enough to bring her to one decision.
Someone slid onto the stool next to her, but she didn't look up, content to remain in her own world. This wasn't a night where she would meet anyone and try to pretend like she was a normal girl with a normal life. Nothing was normal right now, and she was okay with that.
Several minutes later a voice that felt vaguely familiar but distant and unknown, spoke up beside her. "I've spent four years trying to figure out what I'd ever say to you if I got to meet you. Now that I actually have the chance, I've got nothing that doesn't sound completely stupid, rehearsed, and bitter."
Elena looked up from her drink and peered at the tan brunette sitting next to her. All she could see was the profile of her face and the long curls brushed over the back of her shoulders. Her brown eyes peered ahead and she wore a sarcastic smile on her lips. "Excuse me?"
The stranger turned to her, meeting her gaze head on, and Elena was hit with a feeling of remembrance or déjà vu, like she should know this woman. She searched her brain, trying to come up where or how she might know her, but she came up empty, and the woman knew this. "You don't know who I am, do you?"
"No." She shook her head in denial.
She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow and offered her right hand to Elena. "I'm Katherine Pierce, formerly Salvatore."
The puzzle pieces all fell together at the introduction, and she was left wondering how she didn't recognize her before. She'd seen pictures of the woman plenty of times, even seen her in person for a few fleeting moments back before she even really knew who Damon was. Yet, up close and face to face with Damon's ex-wife, she was now able to really burn the woman's image into her memory.
She didn't understand how this woman knew her though, and she voiced this. "How do you know me?"
"You started moving in on my husband before the divorce was even final. Of course I know who you are."
"Damon and you were over long before either of you signed divorce papers, and I didn't move in on anyone."
Yes, she had made some mistakes in the beginning with how she handled the situation with Damon and Matt, but she never pursued Damon. Things with them felt like a force of nature that neither of them could deny. She cheated on her boyfriend at the time and she acknowledged that, but she never went after Damon or whatever it was that Katherine was suggesting she had done. She wasn't proud of how everything had happened back then, but she played no role in anything that happened between Damon and Katherine.
Katherine shrugged her shoulders in a way that clearly showed she wasn't buying what Elena was selling, but slightly conceded, "If you say so."
"By the way, he's not your husband," Elena corrected Katherine's earlier statement, unable to let it hang in the air. Damon wasn't Katherine's anymore.
"And come tomorrow, he won't be yours either," Katherine pointed out. "He'll belong to little Miss Andie, who is oh so sweet and couldn't harm a fly." Katherine's voice carried a bitter feel to it, one that Elena understood more than she'd probably like to admit. Though she didn't really voice any negative or petty thoughts about Andie aloud, she definitely had them in her head. Who wouldn't feel some slight resentment toward the woman who was marrying the man you loved?
And that was why Katherine's reminder was correct. Damon wasn't her husband, and after tomorrow, he never would be. It was a brutal honesty pointed out to her by the woman she always feared she might one day have to fight. She'd never once believed there would be another woman in Damon's past that she would have to worry about other than Katherine. His ex-wife was her perceived threat, but it turned out her fear had been in the wrong place, because although Damon briefly reunited with Katherine after she ran off to Chicago, his ex-wife wasn't who he was marrying tomorrow.
He was marrying a woman she thought she didn't have to worry about. Even after the fight that horrible night she slapped him, Andie had never truly threatened her. She thought Andie had a thing for Damon, but that he only saw her as a friend. So, color her surprised when she returned home from Chicago two years later to find out that he was with the first woman he'd ever loved, rather than the first woman he'd ever truly been in love with. To some, it might sound delusional, but she believed it was true. She truly believed deep down to her bone that Katherine was the first woman Damon ever fell completely in love with. After all, she was the first woman that ever got him to commit to monogamy and Elena had been the last. Even this time around Damon couldn't remain faithful to Andie, the woman he said he wanted to spend his life with.
That made this entire situation she found herself in seem slightly ironic. The only two women Damon had ever been able to be faithful to, and who she believed to be the only two women he was ever truly in love with, were trading jabs at each other while the man they'd both loved was preparing to marry a woman who wasn't either one of them.
Which made her question how they had both wound up here. She'd managed to go four years without ever meeting the infamous Katherine Pierce Salvatore in the flesh, but the night before Damon's wedding, she happened to run into her? What were the odds of that? She was guessing they weren't very high.
"How'd you find me?"
"Elena," Katherine scoffed, an air of superiority rolling off of her in waves. "This bar is right next to my building. I've been coming here for years. You're the one that shouldn't be here, not me."
"Okay then, why are you talking to me?"
"How could I not?" she laughed. "I have to admit, I've always had a slight interest in the woman that captured Damon's attention, but after the state I found Damon in when you went to Chicago, I knew I had to meet you." A smile tugged at her lips, but it lacked any real happiness or sign of contentment. She just looked sad. "You did more of a number on Damon than I did, and that's saying something." Elena cringed at the words, hating the reminder of the pain she'd caused Damon. She knew what she had done and how wrong it was, but it didn't mean she wanted to be reminded of that from other people, let alone Katherine, especially in her obviously condescending voice. "What's the matter? You regret giving Damon up? Join the club, honey."
Katherine looked away then, returning her eyes back to her drink, but she didn't look away quickly enough to keep Elena from seeing the look in her eyes. It was a look Elena understood all too well. She knew it, because she often wore that same look. And in that moment, she felt like she actually learned something about the elusive Katherine that she'd only heard about for several years. Now, she wasn't just hearing about the other woman that had also broken Damon's heart, she felt like she understood her. In some twisted, delusional way, that one moment revealed more about her than she'd ever known.
"You still love him." Elena wasn't quite sure why she actually said it aloud. From all she'd heard about Katherine, and even from what she'd witnessed within the past few minutes, Katherine wasn't a warm, open person. She had probably just opened herself up to some form of ridicule from the model, but she didn't care. Somehow, on the evening before Damon's wedding, she was actually sitting next to the only woman in the world who might actually come the closest to understanding how much this all sucked, and even though she'd believed she wanted to be alone, she didn't. There was something comforting about the fact that someone else was hurting right now because of the same thing.
"I married him, didn't I?"
"And divorced him."
"Our marriage didn't end the way you think it did, so I'd be careful with my words if I were you. In fact, you should be thanking me. If it wasn't for the decision I made to actually be the better person for once in my cursed life and give Damon a shot at something he'd always wanted, he'd still be my husband."
"But he's not yours."
"He's not yours either."
"You had a chance to get him back. I know you were with him after I went to Chicago. So, if you still love him, why did you let him go again?"
Katherine sighed and shook her head. "Shouldn't you know by now that no one actually lets Damon go unless he wants to be let go?"
Elena wasn't sure what Katherine was getting at. "What does that mean?"
"It means that I wasn't the person Damon wanted to be with anymore. We reconnected and tried to pretend like we were twenty-five again, the world at our feet, and nothing holding us back. It was fun, but our ship had sailed. Damon was never mine to have again." Katherine's eyes lifted to Elena's, a knowing look in them. "I think you're already aware of that, though."
She understood what Katherine was saying now and it made her heart pound a little harder in her chest. Katherine was telling her that Damon had still been in love with her. That even though he'd effectively shut her out when she moved to Chicago, and refused to have any contact with her whatsoever, she was still very much on his mind. She was who he still wanted at that time, and no amount of history with Katherine could change that.
"I'm the reason he's with Andie and not you, aren't I?"
Katherine nodded her head in confirmation. "And god, did I hate you for it. Truthfully, I've pretty much hated you since the moment I knew you existed. I was still his wife, and suddenly he was running around with some 22-year-old cheap imitation of me. Let's face it; you could pass as my sister. At first, I thought you were just some kind of game, something to have fun with while planning his brother's bachelor party. Next thing I know, everyone's talking about how he's moved some bartender in as his girlfriend." Katherine tilted her head a bewildered look on her face. "You managed to do what only I had done before. You got him in a committed relationship and faithful, and I hated your guts. I kind of still hate them."
"Cause he fell in love with someone after you broke his heart?"
"Because he was going to have a kid with someone who wasn't me." The words knocked the breath out of Elena, and she visibly reeled back, her eyes wide and her mouth falling open. "Don't look so surprised. I was his wife once, Elena. There's still some level of trust there."
"He told you?" she whispered.
Damon hadn't even told Andie that Elena had been pregnant and lost the baby. He'd only told her after he had already been busted. Andie, whom he had known for years, hadn't even known what really went on and why Elena left for Chicago, but Katherine, who he had hated last she'd heard of, knew the truth?
"I may have pried it out of him, but yeah, he told me."
Elena suddenly didn't feel much like staying at the bar anymore. Her quiet night that she was supposed to use to figure out what Damon may have wanted to say to her in that hallway suddenly got a lot more confusing. There was now Colin's advice and this Katherine dynamic that muddled things. Before he was with Andie, he was confiding in Katherine about their relationship?
"I think I should go home." Elena gathered her things and slid from the stool. She'd always wondered how things might be if she ever met Katherine, but she hadn't expected it to go like this.
"Before you go," Katherine grabbed her arm to hold her in place, "You should know something." Elena looked up at Katherine as she felt her nerves fraying inside of her, unsure of whether she wanted to know what the woman had to say next or not. "The reason Damon and I didn't work the second time around wasn't just because he was still in love with you. He also wanted to marry you."
Elena could swear she felt her blood run cold. Katherine had to be lying. This couldn't be true. "I was pregnant, as you know. He just wanted to do the right thing."
Katherine dropped Elena's limp arm and shrugged her shoulders, appearing as if she didn't care whether Elena believed a word that came out of her mouth or not. "Baby or no baby, he wanted to marry you. And I'd bet you anything that he still has the ring, because it's not the one Andie has on her finger. In fact, your ring is probably still sitting in the same place it was two years ago, right on top of the letter you wrote him when you went to Chicago."
Elena swallowed thickly, trying to dampen her dry, scratchy throat. Ten minutes with Damon's ex-wife had set her world on its side in a way she could never have predicted. She'd never envisioned their meeting ever going like this. Sure, she had anticipated the jabs and the admittance that Katherine hated her, but she'd never expected to walk away with information like this. For all intents and purposes, it was information she wasn't supposed to know.
But according to this woman, Damon still had the letter she wrote him, despite his claims that he'd thrown it away. He had it, and he had a ring. Combining that with the fact that he'd wanted to talk to her about something important, made the feeling in Elena's gut grow tenfold. She'd never truly felt like anything with Damon and Andie was right. She believed the wedding was a mistake, but that it was something she'd just have to deal with, because it was what he wanted. If that were true, though, why did he still have her letter and lie to her about it? Why had he kept the ring?
Why had Damon done anything that he'd done?
"Thanks," she murmured as she turned and began her slow, dazed walk toward the exit, she knew that what was left of her night would be spent trying to figure out how to make sense of this whole disaster.
"Elena," Katherine called out again, pulling her attention back to the brunette, "I'd start at the Four Seasons." She rolled her eyes and scoffed, and Elena could see some level of self-loathing on the woman's face from helping the girl who she probably saw as an enemy. And with that, Katherine turned her back on her, putting a final end to what would probably be the one and only conversation they would ever have.
"You talked to Katherine?" Bonnie demanded. "How the hell have you not told me this until now?"
She'd just spilled everything to Bonnie, all of the dirty details she didn't even want to think about anymore, but her friend needed to know. She hadn't just decided to show up at his hotel room to be selfish. She'd shown up because she thought Katherine and Colin had a point. She thought she owed it to herself to give it one last shot.
"Because I was a little preoccupied with the fact that my heart just got shattered. I wasn't very concerned with Katherine earlier."
Bonnie kicked off her shoes and sat down on the bed near the window. "So, she told you he still had the letter you wrote him, and he had a ring that he was going to propose to you with?"
Her chest constricted painfully at the reminder of the bomb Katherine had dropped on her. The one that ultimately got her to that hotel room this morning. "Yeah, Damon told me he never read the letter and threw it away, but according to Katherine, he still had it, but he wasn't lying about not reading it."
"And what did Damon say about it?"
"I didn't mention it," she whispered. Thinking back, she figured that maybe she should have mentioned that information, but then she'd have to tell him how she even knew it, and she was scared to let that conversation become about Katherine. And what did it matter if he knew that she was aware of him still having the letter? He knew he had it, and her mentioning it wouldn't change anything, not really.
"You had the mother of all bombshells and you said nothing?"
"No, Bonnie, the mother of all bombshells was knowing that I'd slept with Damon the night before he proposed to Andie. That was the weapon I could have used had I wanted to."
Andie had given her the perfect opportunity that day in Caroline and Stefan's guest bedroom. She'd left an opening as wide as the Grand Canyon for Elena to come in and completely demolish her world, but Elena couldn't do it. The words had been on the tip of her tongue that day, but she couldn't let them come out. Would it really accomplish anything if she ruined Damon's engagement like that? Sure, Damon might not be married right now, but he'd probably hate her.
And because of that choice, Damon was married now. His wedding was long over by now. He was now someone else's husband, and she had to find a way to live with that. She'd taken a risk and listened to what Colin and Katherine told her. She convinced herself that she had a real shot today, that he still loved her. Hell, she still didn't even know if she stopped believing that. How could he still have those things and not love her? How was that even possible?
"I didn't want to get him by default, Bonnie. I want him to want to be with me." And according to him, he didn't want that. Her entire body began to shake as the sobs that she'd kept locked in began to break free again. She clung to the pillow she had in her arms, and let it all out. "Why doesn't he want to be with me?"
Bonnie jumped off of the other bed and rushed over to the one Elena was sitting on. She climbed up next to her and held her close. "I don't know," she whispered as she ran her hands through Elena's hair. "I don't know why he sent you away."
"Maybe if I hadn't left last night everything would be different. God, Bonnie, what if he was giving me a chance to tell him how I felt? What if I was just too late?"
"You can't think like that, Elena." Bonnie held her tighter as she tried to calm her friend down, but reality was really setting in now. Damon didn't choose her.
"Colin told me I needed closure, but this doesn't feel like closure, Bonnie. None of this feels right. I know it's all over, but it just doesn't feel right. It's not supposed to be this way. God, it wasn't supposed to end like this!"
Author's Note: Congratulations! You have officially made it to the present part of this story. See you next time!