Hey there!

I'm really glad that you're giving this story a chance, I might take a while with my updates because life has been a bit busy lately so please just bear with me. The chapters are a bit short but that's just the way the story is developing, I really hope you're liking it.

Thanks so much to Lorena because she's been awsome at being my beta and of course to all of you reading this.

Love you!

"He stepped down, trying not to look too long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking"

-Leo Tolstoy-

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After the first day when he made me put on my lipstick for him Damon and I saw each other every day. He would pick me up from school in his blue Camaro and drive me to the dance academy, he would wait for me outside and we would drive to the falls and talk in his car until it was time to go home.

My parents didn't suspect a thing; I had been such a good girl all my life that they didn't even think that there was something different about me.

Damon was so unlike me in many ways. He told me that he used to move around a lot when he was a little kid; that they usually lived in trailer parks and motels because his father was always changing jobs. And then when he was ten years old his father had abandoned them, it had been hard but they still had their mother to keep them afloat but all that changed when he turned fifteen and she died from a tumor. Since that moment it had been him and Stefan against the world, I felt so bad every time that I thought about it.

The people I hanged out with used to make fun of Stefan every day because of the holes in his clothes and the hand me downs school supplies he took to school every day, if only they knew all the hardships the Salvatore brothers had faced their entire lives. I started to see the world in a new light, I realized I had been sheltered my entire life, leading a privileged life while there were millions of people out there who weren't as lucky as me.

"What's worrying you?" He asked softly one Friday afternoon while we were sitting inside a diner in the outskirts of town.

"I got into a fight with my mother" I answered and he put his hand on top of mine. It was the first time he touched me "I just… we don't really get along"

"What do you mean? All parents fight with their kids"

"It's different" I shook my head slowly and fixated my eyes on the coconut pie in front of me. Damon was having apple pie, he loved apple pie.

"Explain it to me" He placed his hand underneath my chin and forced my face up, his eyes were so tender and soft that I couldn't help but break down under his stare.

"I guess…I don't know. I've never been good in her eyes, I don't want the same things she wants and that upsets her… she wants me to be like her." The gentleness in his blue eyes warmed my heart "She doesn't want to do anything, she never has. And she wants me to be like her, to stay in this town and do nothing but trivial things all my life"

"Then I guess that is indeed a problem, because you are the most unordinary girl I've ever known" He said with a small smile.

"You think?"

"I think there's a fire inside you, Elena, you're going to do great things in life. You'll see"

I laughed softly while staring at him "You're insane, Damon, everyone knows I won't do anything out of the norm. I won't be a great star or something like that"

"Well then, everybody is wrong and they will be surprised when the time comes. Everyone but me." He winked at me before cutting a piece of his pie and taking it to his mouth.

The only person who knew about Damon and me was my friend Bonnie because there was nothing I could ever hide from that girl, first because she was my best friend and secondly because she would find out anyway even if I didn't tell her.

She was shocked at the beginning, after all Damon Salvatore was not the kind of person we used to hang out with. But after a few days she didn't make much of it, mainly I think, it was because she realized how happy it made me to be around him and she had always wanted me to be happy.

"I think your friend doesn't hate me anymore" Damon said with a smile one Friday afternoon when he picked me up from school. We were heading downtown since Bonnie had agreed to cover for me, I had told mom we were having a slumber party and that I was heading towards Bonnie's house when we got out of school. Being the good girl I was she didn't even question the authenticity of my outing.

My hair was blowing in the wind as he drove us in his blue Camaro, the car was Damon's most beloved possession. It was an old model but Damon took care of it, and by the way he treated it you may think it was brand new. I had the radio on top of me since it was new and Damon had yet to install it, I was listening to music of people I never heard of before like Kitty Wells and Red Folley.

"Where are we going?" I asked Damon with a smile

He took my hand and took it to his lips "I'm taking you out to eat Mexican food" He placed a kiss on the back of my hand and I almost melted in my seat. We hadn't kissed yet, so simple things like him touching me or kissing my hand drove me crazy every time. "And afterwards I'll take you to play pool"

"What?" I asked with surprise

"Yeah, darling, with those legs… before you hit the ball you'll be half on top of the table" He laughed with his eyes still straight on the road, I blushed like crazy.

We found a place where they sold Mexican food, it was noisy and people drank beer and ate greasy food. The air stank of smoke and girls wore too much lipstick and eye shadow and not enough clothes. And there I was, a girl with pixie pink lipstick, a freshly washed face and a ponytail. A princess that had been stolen from her castle by the big bad wolf.

Damon taught me how to play pool that day, when he leaned down behind me and pressed our bodies together I felt things I had never before. I had turned seventeen a few weeks earlier and had absolutely no experience with boys, especially not boys like him, but I didn't feel scared with him.

"Told you those legs would help" He whispered in my ear before we hit the ball and managed to knock three out.

We walked out of the bar hand in hand and the sky was already dark and the stars were shinning in it. He was going to drive me back to Bonnie's house so I could spend the night there but a part of me knew that if he asked me to spend the night with him instead I would have agreed, in spite of my inexperience I already knew that I was never going to feel the same way about anyone ever again.

"Can I see you again tomorrow?" Damon whispered as we stood outside his car, the noise of the bar in the background and the dark night enveloping us.

"I don't think you can" I said sadly. Tomorrow was Saturday and my parents usually liked to spend them with my aunt and uncle, I loved them and I especially liked to spend time with my cousin, Jeremy, but it also meant that I wouldn't be left out of their sight and that seeing Damon was completely out of the picture.

He took a resigned breath and leaned his forehead into mine "I wish we could" I could feel his breath on my face and closed my eyes so I could experience it better. We hadn't even kissed yet, our touches had been growing with time but I had yet to experience the feel of his lips on mine and right at that moment there was nothing I wanted more. "I'll be thinking of you" He finally said with that crooked grin I loved so much and I couldn't hold it in anymore. I stood up on my toes and pressed our lips together for the very first time.

Fireworks exploded behind my closed eyes as he placed his hand on my waist and kissed me back with as much emotion as I was kissing him. When we broke apart he threw his head back and stared at me, I stood there under his stare completely breathless. The sky behind him was dark blue and his eyes were almost as blue as it, my heart was beating wildly in my chest and my hands were shaking as I placed them on his biceps, he drew me in once again and kissed me over and over, there in the parking lot as the night wind caressed our bodies.

The next Monday when he picked me up from school I told him not to take me to the dance school, instead we drove to the falls and kissed for hours in the backseat of his blue Camaro. I had found something new I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Kissing Damon felt like coming home and I had been longing for that place for a long long time.

Now as I look back and think of all the bad things loving Damon brought me I wonder if I would have done things differently knowing what I now know. Sometimes I like to think I would but the honest part of myself, the one I like to keep quiet most of the times, knows I would have done it the same way. Because even now, ten years after everything went downhill, I still can't find anything that I love more than those kisses I shared with him.