"Where's Damon? Thought he'd want to make sure you made it home safely," Stefan said as they climbed the porch steps.
"I don't know. He just ran off, after..." After he snapped Kol's neck. After he drew the ire of every Original. After he erased any goodwill Esther might have felt towards him. And it was her fault. Every bit of it. If he hadn't been so angry at her, he never would have beaten Kol to a bloody pulp, never would have stared at her with his eyes alight with that feral, manic blood lust, an expression she hadn't seen from him in so long, except in her dreams.
And as much as she tried to be angry with him, she couldn't be. She saved all her anger for herself. He was right about everything. She was every bit as bad as Katherine. All the scars, all the feelings in the world couldn't change that simple truth. She loved two Salvatores. She used them. Maybe she was even worse than Katherine. At least Katherine hadn't loved Damon, had just been using him in her twisted games and perverse fantasies. But Elena had begged Stefan to break the neck of the person she loved most. It didn't matter what her intentions were. Damon had been right about that, too: If the tables were turned, she never would have forgiven him. How could she ask him to be better than she was? Elena knew she should search for him, that she should see if he could ever possibly accept her apology, but she couldn't face him right now. Just couldn't. Another failing.
"Yeah, he managed to make quite a scene. So much for playing nicely with the neighbors," Stefan said, folding his arms across his chest.
"Don't. Don't you dare, Stefan," she gritted, rage flooding through her body. After everything Damon had done for his ungrateful little brother, after everything Damon had sacrificed to bring Stefan back from his self-destructive spiral, Stefan had no right to criticize Damon's outburst. At least Damon let himself feel something.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Because he's your boyfriend now, he's perfect?" Stefan asked.
"No. But he's trying, Stefan, which is more than I can say for you," she said with weary disgust. She wanted to sleep for a thousand years; she never wanted to sleep again.
"You know, living up to your expectations is just exhausting," he said. He started to turn, to walk off into the night. But she seized his shoulder.
"How can you do that?" she asked. "Pretend not to feel anything?"
Stefan stopped, though he refused to face her. "Don't, Elena," he whispered.
"I know it's a lie, Stefan. I know the switch is a lie, I know that you're still in there, somewhere—somewhere so deep you don't even want to admit it to yourself, I know somewhere you're still-"
He turned toward her, his profile illuminated in the moonlight. "I'm still what?"
"That you're still good," Elena said. She took his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. She couldn't bear to lose him. She owed it to him to try to draw him out, to remind him of who he had been, just as she'd owed the same to Damon when he was a raw and bloody mass of hurt and resentment. She couldn't let Stefan take his same painful, lonely path.
Stefan grasped her hands in his, pulling them away from his face. "I can't, Elena."
"Yes, you can. It's hard, Stefan, it's so hard, but I know you can."
Another glimpse of the boy she'd loved, of those melting eyes and gentle hands and sweet mouth. Then his gaze grew hard and he thrust her hands away. "I can't let myself feel. When I do, all I feel is pain." He pulled away from her and walked into the night.
She stared after him, unable to move or cry. Everything she touched fell apart. Worse than Katherine. So much worse than Katherine.
There was a harsh bark of laughter, a sound devoid of mirth. Damon dissolved out of the darkness.
"Can't believe I came here to apologize. Here I was, feeling guilty about hurting your feelings, and all you can worry about is Stefan," Damon said incredulously. "So is that the game, Elena? You just fall for whatever Salvatore happens to be sadder on any given day? Then you fix us and move on to the next poor schmuck? Who's next, Klaus?"
Her mind was blank. Utterly blank. "That isn't—this isn't what it looks like," Elena started feebly.
"It's not? Because it sure fucking looks like you're running right back to Stefan," he snarled.
"Damon, I love you," she said desperately.
"No. You don't get to use those words, Elena. Not right now. I'm not sure you even know what they mean." Before she could blink, he was behind her, one forearm pressing against her neck, the other clamped around her waist, strong and inflexible as iron bands. He hissed into her ear. "Is this what you want, Elena? You want me broken and bleeding, teetering just on the edge of crazy so you can save me?" He thrust his hips against her, hard and terrifying. "Because I can do that. I can hurt you like he does, if that's what you want. I can make you just as broken as we are- as I am."
There were tears on her cheeks, though she didn't remember crying. "Let me go. You don't know what you're doing."
"That's where you're wrong. I know exactly what I'm doing—just like you did when you asked Stefan to break my neck, just like you did when you begged him to feel." He pulled her closer, the strength of his grasp forcing her to stand on tiptoe. She gasped for breath. "Do you know what he said to me? He said that this was all my fault, because I feel too much. Because I love you too much, I'm a liability." Another mirthless laugh. "How ironic is that?
"It's not your fault. It's all my fault, every part of it," she whispered. And in that moment, she could answer his question. Why she was so hell-bent on dying. Because every bad thing that had ever happened in her life had been because of her. All her fault. From her parents to Jenna and John to Jeremy and now Damon and Stefan's shattered lives, it was all because of her. And maybe if she could just be brave enough to sacrifice herself for them, she could atone. But they wouldn't let her, they forced her to endure and she couldn't bear the load any more. And now Damon saw her as she really was, with all her failings and flaws. And he hated her. And she deserved that, too.
His breath was cold against her neck. "I never had a choice, Elena. I could never help but love you."
Elena reached up with one hand, grasping the hair at the back of his neck. "Do it."
"Do what, Elena? Say it," he commanded, but she could already feel the points of his teeth lengthening against the delicate flesh of her neck, just next to where the blood pulsed.
"Break me," she whispered.
The pain was immediate and exquisite, a searing agony that faded into a dull throb that spread throughout her whole body, made her head swim and her knees buckle. She cried out, but the sound seemed to belong to someone else. All that existed was the pain, the pain and his lips, his tongue, his teeth, his touch, him. He clutched her to him like a rag doll as the world spun and then went black.