She started avoiding Stefan. It's been three days since the incident, and they haven't spoken a word since then. Whenever he came into the room, she went out, and when she came back, he usually wouldn't be there. She would fall asleep on the edge of her side of the bed, and when she woke up, he would be there, leaning on the edge of his side.
Avoiding him wasn't hard since it seemed he's avoiding her too.
Elena, Caroline and Bonnie made some plans to head to the town for some gelato. It would be such a shame to come to Italy, to Rome out of all places, and not try real Italian ice cream. It was early in the afternoon, and this must be the hottest day in Rome since they arrived, so Elena squeezed herself in her jean shorts and pink tank top. She tied her hair in a high ponytail and placed her sunglasses on the top of her head.
Since the day of the incident, how Elena likes to refer to it in her head, she's careful to do everything in the bathroom, especially changing her clothes. Before, when he wasn't in the room, she would just change her clothes there, without thinking he could come back at any given time. Now she's being extra careful, and doing everything that requires taking any piece of her clothing, in the bathroom.
She knew there's a small chance that what happened has to do with her, but she wanted to make sure she's not teasing him in any way.
She opens the bathroom door, without even looking makes a step outside, and the next thing she knows she's bumping into something or someone. She bumps into something hard and strong, and when she looks up, she notices Stefan staring at her. He's as confused and surprised as she is. There's something stuck in her throat and she swallows. Her chest is pressing onto his, and she feels like she can't breathe. She feels like her lungs are empty of air, but out of some reason, they're rising up and down more, and faster than usual. She has so many words, but she knows she's not going to use any of them. There are certain situations over which she has no power.
Stefan looks baffled, too. She can feel his stiff body next to hers, but then he relaxes and a smile appears on his face. Of course. Stefan Salvatore would never allow himself stay speechless in front of anyone. He never loses his cool. So why would he now, over her?
"Going somewhere?" he pulls his signature smirk over his face as he looks up and down her body, almost unnoticeable, unless you're expecting him to do so.
She shakes a little from all the possible scenarios and images going through his head.
She glares at him for few moments before she finally regains her composure. "Yes," she says quietly, "Out," she mumbles, separating her body from his, and stepping away from him.
She picks her bag from the bed and throws it over her shoulder, hurrying towards the door. She feels like there's no space, or air, in the room for them both. Her hand flies on the doorknob and tries to turn it around, but it doesn't even budge. She has to get out of there, so she tries again, this time more violent.
"It's locked," she hears his calm voice and the sound of keys being pulled out of his pocket, but she does not respond to his words. She's not even sure her brain managed to process the information due to the lack of air in the room.
Why is she panicking? Why does she feel like this? Why can't she be in the same room with him for more than a minute? What's this tugging feeling in her chest?
These things happen, they're teenagers. Even if they weren't, these things still do happen. Incidents happen. She was probably not even the cause of his feelings, and his reaction to those feelings had nothing to do with her, but out of some reason, she was strongly affected by it.
She basically straddles the doorknob like a crazy person.
"Elena, the doors are locked," she barely notices he called her by her first name when she pulls on the doorknob one more time and it ends up in her hands. She looks at the round, bronze thing in her hands before she releases a loud sigh.
She drops the knob on the floor, and she herself falls on the armchair behind the door, and she whines desperately, "Why do these things keep happening to me?" she covers her face with her open palms, "It's like I'm cursed or something," she throws her hands in the air out of despair.
"Look, Gilbert - " he says, having no intention listening to her whine about her every day problems, when she interrupts him in the middle of the sentence.
"And whenever these things happen, you just happen to be around," she says like she hasn't even heard him say a word, "Fate is probably having a laugh somewhere out there for putting us in these situations," she chuckles holding on her sobs.
When he hears the weight of her voice, and how sharp it is, he decides it's better for him not to say anything, he might only make the situation even worse than it already is.
She keeps on looking at one spot on the wall when the first tear escapes her eyes and falls down her cheek, making him gasp silently.
"Rome was supposed to be different," she tries to clear her face from tears, but as she wipes off one, the another one falls down her cheek, "I was supposed to be different," he sits on the bed, looking at her confused.
He leans his body forward, making his back bend, and intertwines the fingers of one hand with the fingers of the other hand, making his fists clench together, "Why in the hell would you want to be different?" he furrows his brows, eyeing her.
Elena always seemed so confident, like every move she made is exactly what she wanted to do. Like every one of her decisions, even the things she did not plan to happen, somehow perfectly fell into the plan she had all along. He never thought Elena would ever want to be somebody else, or that she's not satisfied with her life.
She slowly raises her head to look at him with the corner of her eyes before she says, "Because I'm tired of being invisible," she says those words through a sob.
He was little taken back by her words. He never though of Elena as invisible. She's the class president, she's in the book club, last year she won an award for the best literature work by young author. She also writes for the school newspapers. She wears those silly graphic shirts he secretly likes, and her legs look really, really good in jeans. Elena may not be the most popular girl in school, but she's not invisible either, because everyone know who she is.
She's also the only person who ate the pancakes made by his nine year old self without one complaint. She's the girl who he had taught how to swim, and she's the girl who sprained her wrist on her second tennis practice and never took a racket in her hands again. She's the girl who, in the kindergarten claimed that rainbow is an actual color, and her favorite nevertheless, and who, when they were six, vacuumed his hair until it became so tangled that his mom had to cut it off. He was one bald six year old on who's head she decided to draw clouds with crayons.
Even if she was invisible to others she sure as hell wasn't invisible to him.
"You're not invisible," he says.
"Yes, I am," she argues, "I'm invisible to my family, friends, even strangers I pass on the street. I've been invisible my whole life, and for the better part, I was fine with it. Until this year. Until I've realized this is my last year here and that I have nothing left. I walk through the school hallways and I have no memories, pleasant or unpleasant ones. And that made me want to be seen. When I realized I'll have nothing to say about my years here when someone asks me," her own words only make her cry harder.
He shakes his head. "That's not true."
"Of course it is," she chuckles painfully, "I have never been to any parties. I have never had a real boyfriend," she looks up at him, and when her eyes meet his, she says, "I was never in love," she swallows those words like she's ashamed of them, like she's regretful she never loved someone.
To him, that was silly. He never wanted to love someone, and here she is crying for not having a chance to love someone.
"Sometimes I wish I was one of those popular girls," she lowers her look down.
He laughs out loud, "No, you really don't," he shakes his head, and she looks up at him curiously. "Elena," he calls her by her first name again, and this time she notices, "Those girls won't have anything nice to say either. They will go to college, some of them will realize that sleeping with a bunch of guys is nothing to brag about, and some of them will continue sleeping with a bunch of guys and then they will have children of their own and realize that they will never be able to share their experiences with them, because they wouldn't want them to act the same. One day, you will be able to sit down with your kids, and maybe you won't be able to tell them about all the parties you've been to or all the boyfriends you had, but you will be able to tell them about your friends who were there for you, and about all the experiences you've achieved, and how it was a great experience for you because you were who you wanted to be, not someone others told you to be," she eyes him curiously, almost with surprise while he talked about her in such a way that he only brought more tears to her eyes, "You're not invisible, Elena. You only make yourself invisible."
"I make myself invisible because people convince me I am. Because guys like you do not even notice me."
He chuckles, more to himself than to her comment. "You couldn't be more wrong," he shakes his head, "There are people who see you more clearly than you think."
She looks at him confused, surprised and curious, awaiting for him to continue with his argument.
"You would be surprised with how much guys talk," he smiles to her. Guys talk as much as girls do, the only difference is that they do not go around stabbing knives in each others back. "So I know for a fact guys notice you. I mean, you're," he tries to find the right word when he finally blurts out, without thinking, "You're beautiful," he surprises himself by his choice of words, and her cheeks blush as she takes her look away from him.
She would be able to handle hot or sexy or something similar to that without blushing. But beautiful is something completely different. It's more personal. It's more than pretty or good looking or when someone tells you that you have a nice face.
When someone tells you you're beautiful, they're talking about more than your looks.
"Guys simply do not know how to approach you because you put these walls around yourself," he explains, "And girls like Katherine and Dana and 'wide legs' Sally are intimidated by you because they're afraid one day guys will get bored with them and decide to climb over the walls you're hiding behind," he tries not to look her in the eyes but he fails miserably. That's something that holds his look on hers, and for a moment he feels like there's not a force powerful enough to tear his look away from hers. "They're intimidated because they know, in the long run, girls like you have so much more to offer."
Elena looks at him emotionless, with tears still on her face, "That's the thing. Guys never want what I have to offer," she says somewhat hurtfully.
"That's not true," he furrows his brows like he's personally offended, "I remember when you were dating Matt," she shoots him a confused look, "He used to talk a lot about you, you know?" a light smile appears on Stefan's face, "I think he really loved you," he says which makes Elena's heart ache because she was never even close to loving Matt. "He would talk about you guys going to the cinema or having a date in the Grill, or about some trivial thing you said that made him laugh, and the only thing I could think of is what a lucky guy he is," Stefan tells her truthfully, because as much as he never wanted a relationship, as much as he never wanted the mess of loving someone and being hurt by the same person, there were times when he craved for it.
Elena keeps on looking at him surprised before tears fill her eyes. But they do not fall down her cheeks, they simply group in the corners of her eyes, and stay there making her eyes glimmer under the sunlight. She parts her lips a little and a silent, husky voice comes out of her mouth, "Where were you Stefan?" she asks him and he lowers his head out of humiliation because he knows to what she's referring to.
Sometimes his actions, his behavior towards her stings him a lot, even though he was a just a kid and did not know better.
"I - I don't know," he stutters a little while saying those words.
"My mom died and you did not even call. I was so alone," she cries out loud, "My dad barely talked at all, and Jeremy talked about everything but her. Everyone started acting like she was never here, and I couldn't," she looks at him, her pain piercing through him, "I needed my best friend and you weren't there," those words escape her lips.
He turns his head the other way. "I'm so sorry," he says, guilt crushing down on him.
"I know we stopped talking few months before she died," she continues like he hasn't said anything, "But I thought you might come when you hear that she's gone. I waited for you but you never came," her words make him turn his head to her again, and their eyes lock, "I kept thinking about what I did wrong. Did I push you away? Was it something I did?" she asks him with a husky voice, "Why wasn't I enough, Stefan?" she finally asks him.
His heart breaks into two when he imagines 12 year old her asking herself what did she do wrong. He gets down on his knees and kneels in front of her, taking her hands into his.
"You didn't do anything," he tells her, caressing the top of her hand with his thumbs, "I did. It was all me," he lifts one of his hands to her face to wipe the outline of her tears from her face, "I was an idiot. You were perfect."
"Elena, where are you?" Caroline yells as she pushes the door of her and Stefan's bedroom open, "Bonnie and me are waiting for you in the lobby for half of hour already," she says angrily before she steps inside and looks towards the bed.
Her eyes pop wide open when she sees Elena sleeping next to Stefan, her face nuzzling on his side, and her arm sprawled across his chest. Stefan motions her to be quiet by putting his finger across his lips, mouthing 'psssst' to her. He gently takes Elena's arm with his hand and moves away before her arm falls on the bed.
"She was heading to meet you when she had some pre-adolescent crisis," Stefan explains to Caroline who's still eyeing him wearily.
"So you offered yourself as a human pillow?" Caroline cocks her eyebrow in his direction.
Stefan smirks at her. "Well, I'm a much better option than the actual pillow," he answers smugly.
Caroline smirks right back at him. "Don't you hate her?"
Stefan pulls his fingers through his hair, "I don't think it's possible to hate Elena," he looks back at the sleeping girl on the bed.
Caroline wants to yell victoriously, but she decides not to. "She doesn't want to tell me why she hates you, though," she decides to play it from another angle.
Stefan exhales loudly as he looks back at Caroline. "I don't think she doesn't want to tell you. I think she simply doesn't have an answer to that question," he huffs.
Caroline looks at him curiously before she asks desperately. "What happened between the two of you?"
Stefan keep looking at the usually perky blonde in front of him before his face relaxes and he says, "She was my best friend and I stopped talking to her because she was someone others didn't want her to be," he answers, kinda disappointed with himself.
Caroline ponders on that for quite some time before her eyes pop wide open, "You stopped being her friend because she did not have enough popularity potential?" she spits out disgustingly.
Stefan lowers his look and nods humiliated. "I was a douche, I know. We started middle school and I wanted to play football and kiss girls and Elena was still the same girl I met at the kindergarten. She was herself, no excuses, and she did what she wanted to do, and believed in what she wanted to believe in."
"And other people did not like that?"
He shakes his head. "No."
Caroline eyes him for a moment.
"Do you ever regret choosing them over her?"
"Every single day for the past six years."
AN: As much as I love teasing and sexual tension, fluff and opening their hearts to one another is still my favorite to write.
Be sure to tell me what you think about this, and thank you for all of your wonderful reviews of the previous chapter!