Come on, come on
Don't leave me like this
I thought I had you figured out
Something's gone terribly wrong
You're all I wanted
Come on, come on
Don't leave me like this
I thought I had you figured out
Can't breathe whenever you're gone
Can't turn back now
I'm haunted
Haunted by Taylor Swift
Chapter Three: Haunted
"Coming!" Damon sighed as he walked down the stairs of the Boarding House, the hangover from the past week was finally hitting him since he had been constantly drinking and, after a week of dealing with his drunk ass, Stefan got rid of the liquor, he had to stay sober for an entire day to get it back, Damon was gonna kill him later for this hangover.
The bright light blinded him as in streamed in from the windows, he would have to go shut those after he saw who the hell was bothering him at 7 in the morning. He opened the door and the light was so bright, all he saw was just a blonde headed blur.
"What do you want blondie? Stefan's out" Damon grumbled and tried to block the sun from his eyes so he could see Caroline better
"I know, I'm babysitting you today" Caroline huffed and walked past him and Damon shut the door behind her
"Babysitting?" Damon asked
"Making sure you stay away from the liquor" Caroline sighed
"Whatever" Damon sighed
"So…how are you feeling today?" Caroline asked
"I already have a therapist thank you very much. In fact, I have many. But, one of them hid the rest of them from me today. He hid all the helpful ones too" Damon grumbled "I don't need another person probing my brain blondie"
"Just trying to help" Caroline said
"I don't need your help" Damon said and started walking upstairs
"Elena still says your name in her sleep" Caroline said and Damon stopped dead in his tracks, she knew that would get his attention, it was true though anyway, Caroline visited her at night and every night she asked for Damon, she even got up and asked for Damon, and when Caroline said he wasn't there, she seemed so sad, so Caroline had been erasing her memory of it every night, just to keep the pain away, but then again, she didn't know if she was helping by making her forget, or making the pain worse.
"…She does?" Damon finally piped up and interrupted Caroline's thoughts, but he still had his back turned to her
"Every night" Caroline sighed
"…Good to know" Damon tried to say as unfeeling and uncaring as he possibly could, he wanted to hate Elena, he wanted to fall out of love with her, but he couldn't even fool himself with what he just said, so he knew that it didn't fool Caroline. He started walking back up to his room again and slammed the door shut behind him.
He even hated his room lately. Even in the pitch darkness from the windows being shut, he still slept in the bed where him and Elena slept. And it killed him every single waking moment he was in that bed. He walked over to his bed and sat down on the edge of the bed and he just stayed there. It must have been ten minutes before he finally moved and opened his nightstand drawer and took out a picture of Elena he had in there. Even in the darkness, he could still see her beautiful smiling face.
"I love you" he said to the picture, even though he knew it would never say anything back, just like the real Elena. He didn't know what set him off, but all the sudden, he was just overwhelmed with anger towards her. He hated her for making him come undone like this and she just walked away. For all he knew Caroline could be lying to him to make him feel somewhat better, like she missed him in some way, while she could be actually out and about and making out with every guy she sees. Damon tried to rip the picture in half, so he wouldn't have to see her face anymore, so she couldn't torture him anymore, but, he couldn't. The picture wouldn't rip, his body wouldn't let him destroy it. Frustrated, he threw the picture down to the floor and got under the covers of his bed and rolled over so he wouldn't have the temptation to look down on the floor and see her face there. And for the first time in a week, instead of blacking out and going to sleep, he let silent tears fall and prayed that he would fall asleep so he wouldn't have to think of Elena anymore, it hurt to much to think of her, at least while he was sober.
"Coming" Elena said as she walked towards the front door to answer it
She was still half asleep, but then again, she wasn't getting much sleep lately, she knew she wasn't getting up in the middle of the night, but she couldn't remember why she was. But something told her that it was about Damon, that was all she had been thinking about anyway, so he was probably the cause of her insomnia now too. She opened the door and saw Stefan standing there with a bunch of red roses.
"Uh…hi" Elena said confused and looked up at him
"I know how this looks, but these aren't from me" Stefan said "Can I come in?"
"Sure" Elena said and nodded and Stefan walked in and handed Elena the bouquet of red roses
"Their from Damon" Stefan lied, he got those roses, but he was slowly trying to push Damon and Elena back together. "I guess he heard you were down in the dumps again lately" Stefan sighed and tried to play dumb.
"Oh…" Elena said and took the roses and walked towards the kitchen and put them down on the counter and walked back over to Stefan who was in the living room now "Did…did he say anything else?"
"No, he just asked me to bring you those. I was around town today anyway and he took Caroline out to practice her fighting since he's the better fighter" Stefan said
"Okay" Elena said and nodded. What was she expecting? Stefan was bringing her the roses from Damon, Stefan didn't know about her and Damon, of course he wouldn't have made Stefan say anything. "How's Damon been?" Elena asked and got a strange look from Stefan "I hear he was sad too lately…from Caroline" Elena said, lying as she went
"Yeah, he has" Stefan sighed, he knew Elena was lying, but he was playing along for her sake "He's okay"
"That's good" Elena nodded and started to feel awkward talking about Damon to Stefan "So…tell him thanks…for the roses"
"I will" Stefan smiled and walked out the front door
Elena walked into the kitchen where the roses were and found a vase to put them in. They were the same perfect blood red as the others were. Elena felt a few tears fall as she arranged the roses, but she found it as a way of punishing herself for hurting someone that was, and still is, madly in love with her. Why couldn't she just love him back and make things easier? If she could, she would take her brain out and get it examined to see what the problem was, why she couldn't love Damon back, so she could fix it and make everything right again. But sadly, she couldn't, and she was going to have to suffer like everyone else in the world and figure out all by herself why her brain was so messed up.
Damon had been too quiet for the past two hours. Stefan had come back and left again in that time and Caroline was starting to worry that Damon had done something drastic by now, or something stupid like shove a stake through his own heart. Getting tired of waiting around downstairs, she ran upstairs and walked into Damon's room quietly. She saw him breathing, which was a good thing, he wasn't truly dead yet. Caroline looked down on the floor and saw a picture of Elena. She picked it up and noticed he tried to tear it in half, but he couldn't. She sighed and put the picture in the open drawer where she saw more pictures of Elena. She took them all out and looked through them. She saw a bunch of familiar pictures and remembered those moments, like Elena's birthday and her first football game as a cheerleader, Caroline was there for most of those moments. Finally, she found a really unfamiliar picture, it looked pretty new actually, but Caroline couldn't really see it since it was dark in the picture. Caroline moved over to the light that was coming in from the open door and what she saw made her heart break for both Damon and Elena. She saw a picture of Damon kissing Elena on the cheek and she was smiling away. And all the pictures after that were of them kissing and smiling and just being happy. Caroline's heart broke with each picture. She wanted to make them be in love again. She wanted to get them back together. But she knew she couldn't do anything. If she compelled Elena to love Damon, not only would it be fake love and hurt Damon even more, but Stefan would find out and probably give Caroline a long lecture she wasn't looking forward too for abusing her powers. So she was going to bite her tongue and decided to let this relationship take a natural course. She was going to watch her best friend and one of her new friends suffer, she was going to let them feel heartbreak and cry, and no matter how much she wanted to, she wasn't going to do anything about it except listen to them. And she was going to silently hope that if they suffered and felt all the pain, that one day, soon, they would find their way back to each other. Caroline looked down at the pictures again. She knew that if she showed these to someone who knew nothing about Damon and Elena and asked them if they looked like a couple, they would probably say they looked like the cutest couple ever.
"You are not going to interfere" Caroline said to herself and put the pictures back where she found them and let a sleeping Damon continue his slumber.
Elena sat up in her room, looking at the new red roses sitting there on her dresser. She remembered when she asked Damon why he always gave her a blood red rose. He told her because she was as beautiful as a rose and that her blood smelled like roses to him, which was why they were always blood red roses. Elena asked about the thorns too, and Damon said it was because even though she was beautiful, she was also a little rough around the edges, he said that she always felt the need to protect herself, that he sensed how she always kept herself guarded, which was why all the roses always had thorns. He said he would give her one without thorns when she finally let her guard down, but that hadn't happened yet. Elena picked up one of the roses and carefully avoided all the thorns as she looked at the beautiful flower. She didn't know why Damon would send her flowers out of the blue like this, she hadn't heard from him since she called the whole thing off. She always asked Caroline since she was at the Boarding House to get Stefan so he could take her hunting and training to fight since Caroline never fought a day in her life, but all Caroline ever had to say was "He was wasted", which usually meant he was stuffing his feelings down his throat, which meant he was probably trying to not feel anymore, to become unfeeling again. Elena carefully grabbed the flower by the stem and was putting it back in the vase when her door suddenly opened and, caught off guard, Elena grabbed the flower and felt the thorns sink into her hand and she instantly dropped it and saw all the blood on her hand now.
"Ow" She said and carefully picked up the now bloody flower and set it on her dresser
"It's just me Elena" Jeremy said and walked towards her and saw all the blood "Crap, come on" Jeremy sighed and dragged Elena into the bathroom and Elena brought the rose with her. Elena wasn't an invalid, she could have fixed her hand up by herself, but Jeremy just went right to work and wash her hand off and cleaned up her cuts and bandaged her up even thought she really didn't need to be bandaged up.
"Thanks" Elena said and Jeremy noticed she was still holding the blood covered rose in her other hand
"Hand it over" Jeremy sighed and Elena handed him the rose and he washed her blood off of it and handed it back to her "Why were you so jumpy?"
"I don't know" Elena sighed "I just thought…I thought you were someone else"
"Elena, I usually don't snoop into your…relationship stuff, but I know you were dating someone, Caroline told me" Jeremy said
"I was dating Damon" Elena sighed
"Are you clinically insane?" Jeremy said without thinking and was practically yelling it at Elena which caused her to flinch away from him from the sudden yelling "…Sorry" Jeremy sighed "…Does Jenna know?"
Elena nodded and made her way out of the bathroom and back into her room and put the rose back.
"Is that where the roses were from?" Jeremy asked
"Yeah" Elena said
"…So…you two-"
"I don't wanna talk about it" Elena said
"…Okay. I'm going out, I just came up here to tell you that" Jeremy said "I'll be back in two hours at the most, okay?"
"Okay" Elena nodded and Jeremy hugged his sister goodbye and walked out of the room, he was supposed to be going to Tyler's, but now, he was going to pay Damon a visit
Jeremy barged into the Boarding House, not caring who else was there if anyone was there. He looked around downstairs and found no trace of Damon or his liquor for that matter. He walked upstairs and saw his bedroom door cracked. Jeremy slammed the door open and saw Damon stir in bed, Jeremy was trying to contain his anger, but he had to let it out now.
"Hey, asshole, wake up!" Jeremy hissed and went and opened up the curtains in Damon's room and that made Damon sit straight up in bed
"Taking your life into your hands now Gilbert?" Damon asked as he rubbed his eyes
Jeremy took off his vervain bracelet from Elena and pressed it onto Damon's skin and Damon instantly hissed in pain and lashed out at Jeremy and had him pinned against the wall in his room in the blink of an eye.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Damon asked venomously
"Why did you hurt my sister?" Jeremy yelled
"How did I hurt her?" Damon hissed
"You fucking dumped her!" Jeremy hissed back and pressed the vervain bracelet on Damon again to get him off of him and Damon let go of him and backed off
"She dumped me!" Damon said
"…Really?" Jeremy asked normally now and put his bracelet back on
"Duh" Damon said "Do you really think I'd be in here, trying to get over a week long hangover if I dumped her?"
"…You probably would have just dumped her anyway" Jeremy sighed "You're an ass"
"You just figuring that out now Sherlock Holmes?" Damon asked sarcastically and Jeremy rolled his eyes at him "And I wouldn't have dumped your sister"
"Why?" Jeremy asked
"Because…I just wouldn't" Damon said, there was no way in hell he was telling the twerp that just tried to kill him that he was hopelessly in love with Elena
"Whatever" Jeremy sighed "Just…stay away from her, okay?"
"I haven't said a word to her in a week" Damon said
"That means stop sending those damn roses too Damon, she needs to be alone for a while, at least away from you and with people who really care about her" Jeremy said
That was it, that set Damon off. He had Jeremy pinned again and didn't give a damn about the vervain.
"Listen here you little punk ass teenager" Damon growled "I care about Elena more than anyone in this world ever could! She means the world to me. And as for roses, I didn't send her any damn roses" Damon hissed
Jeremy was in shock and confused. In shock that Damon cared so much for Elena; he saw it in his piercing blue eyes that were full of rage right now since Jeremy accused him of not caring for Elena. And confused, because Elena said that Stefan brought the roses to her and Stefan told her they were from Damon.
"So…you didn't make Stefan bring her any roses?" Jeremy asked
"Why would I do that?" Damon asked as he slowly let go of Jeremy
"…Nothing, they must be from someone else" Jeremy sighed
"Who?" Damon asked and instantly had Jeremy pinned on the wall again and this time Jeremy saw jealousy in Damon's eyes
"Probably Jenna" Jeremy lied "Jenna knows that flowers usually always cheer Elena up. She knew Elena liked roses lately since you always gave them to her, it was probably Jenna"
"…Oh" Damon said
Jeremy thanked god that Damon was probably too hung-over to notice that lie. "…Sorry I barged in here and got you with the vervain"
"It's fine…it's healed already" Damon said
"I gotta go. I promised Tyler I'd be there like ten minutes ago" Jeremy sighed
"Fine" Damon said and Jeremy started to walk out of the room "Jeremy?"
"Yeah?" Jeremy asked and stopped to turn around to face Damon now
"…Tell Elena that I'm still here for her…if she needs anything" Damon said
"…I will" Jeremy nodded and walked out of the room now
Jeremy would have to talk to Elena more tonight, to understand the full story about her and Damon. Obviously something happened. Damon seemed to be so in love with her, hell, he was about ready to kill Jeremy for accusing him of not loving Elena or caring for her, so there was something there. But what made Elena break up with Damon was what Jeremy wanted to know.
A/N: So Stefan is trying to help move things along between Damon & Elena very slowly; Caroline is trying to stay out of their business (we all know Caroline, we'll just see how long THIS lasts :P); and Jeremy is playing protective brother now.
Oh, a thing to watch is this story is going to be the roses, specifically the roses right from Damon, so these one's didn't really count, but they still mean something since Elena thinks they are from Damon. ;)
And since you guys are such wonderful readers, here's part of the next chapter:
Chapter Four: Need You Now
Elena was up in the middle of the night and wide awake again. Except this time, Caroline wasn't there. Elena remembered Caroline saying she wasn't going to be there tonight, that she was practicing hunting at night with Stefan and if she needed her to just text her. Elena knew she needed someone right then and there. She had the worst nightmare ever. She was shaking and everything from it, but she couldn't remember what it was that had her so shaken, she just knew whatever it was, it scared her, badly. Elena turned the light on in her room and tried to calm herself down for a few minutes, but it didn't work, she was still shaking like a leaf. Elena picked up her cell phone, it was 3:30 in the morning, for all she knew, Caroline could be trying to sleep by not, but she said that she would be up all night. Elena had the text message open and everything, but she couldn't type. She could have called Caroline, but she knew what she really wanted to do. So instead of texting Caroline, she decided to text Damon. Two weeks since she had last seen him and she didn't feel right, she wanted to see him, and she could see him tonight if she got him to come over. She sent her message and waited and waited for him to answer her back. Five minutes later, Elena was still shaking like a leaf, and her phone hadn't gone off yet. Before Elena knew it, someone was opening up her bedroom window, and she visibly saw from the all back outfit, that it was Damon.
Damon turned around after shutting the window to see a very fragile and tired looking Elena sitting up in her bed, shaking like a leaf. He didn't say a word and just sat on the edge of her bed next to her and she crawled right over to him and wrapped her arms around him. He didn't mind, he knew she was scared right now, so he put an arm around her and gently rubbed her back and held her there, trying to calm her down and stop the shaking.
I love you guys so much! And thank you for all the wonderful reviews! :) xoxoxoxo, Avril