003; Shadows of her Broken Heart// Part III
III
- Moving On or otherwise known as trying to forget.
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“I think I’m afraid to be happy because whenever I get too happy, something bad always happens.”
-Charlie Brown
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In the process of moving on, everybody must try and realise their feelings, Elena always tries to do this whilst she’s in her mourning process- she’s found that while she may never really get over the deaths of her loved ones, she will try and reflect upon herself while she is in her acceptance stage.
The most thought-provoking time is during the night, she had decided this a long time ago, also this idea that everything looks better during the night is completely wrong because she knows how many demons there are, who lurk in the shadows, who like to see good people like her suffer (or who are the shadows who do make her suffer) just because of her looks, (but more so her stupid resemblance to one person) or just because they can make her suffer for the sake of it. So as she paces in Jeremy’s hospital room, her feet just making a slight squeaking noise along the floor all she can think is that she doesn’t need anyone there, she doesn’t want Stefan’s help or his support, of course it would be nice to have someone hold her hand but she wasn’t really in the same boat as him, she didn’t want to be this new person who lies and covers up the truth because of some love which isn’t even good for her (nor really pure, if she ponders on this thought for long enough). And it is in that exact moment she realises she’s all alone because Stefan and Damon will stay and play games, life-threatening games, with Katherine; Bonnie basically hates her and she has no one left.
Nobody cares about her.
On that dreary, dark night there’s this looming cloud over Elena because she does want support but she has gotten so used to covering up her feelings for the sake of someone else that she simply has nobody there for her. She has to decide that this life she chose with Stefan, what is it really about? Why is it that nobody asks her how she’s dealing with the fact that her vampire boyfriend went off the rails? Why her? Why is this life enough for her? Elena sometimes gets into these apathic moods where she feels she has to torture herself just that little more.
Usually, it starts fine, with the slow rhythm of rain hitting the back window, and then as the rain speeds up and the thumps are harsh against her low-ceiling windows she wishes her heart would beat that hard, she wishes she could feel the thumping against her rib cage, she wished the turmoil inside her to calm as the rhythmic beats of the rain calm, the calm after the storm should be within her. She’s sure the showers outside shouldn’t make her shake and shiver with each thunderous drop.
She can’t concentrate looking at Jeremy’s limp body so when the heart monitor beeps one long beep she hears the thunder’s load clack and feels Damon’s strong hands wrap around her torso as her legs give out and she falls in slow motion to the floor, the anger is bubbling out of her howling sobs, and her shaking becomes uncontrollable. Even his soothing strokes don’t calm her down.
In the midst of her tears and her shaking she leans further into her comforting support, she’s glad that it is Damon holding her together.
~
Over the passing weeks Katherine seeps her way back into Stefan’s life and Damon occupies much of Elena’s time, he takes her out to dinner and they hang out at the boarding house… There was Stefan trying to think of any way to explain his new attachment to his ‘maker’ and there were the ones who were left behind, Damon and Elena trying to escape their respected ‘other halves’.
No matter how much reassurement Stefan provided Elena, she was convinced he was lying to her, and she couldn’t understand what his strange behaviour was about, at one point she asks him whether he cheated on her with the bitch but his consistent denial convinces her that it wasn’t that…the only conclusion Elena could come up is blackmail, and she really didn’t want to know what game the three were playing. Elena spent most of her time doing three things, spending time with Damon (which almost always ended with an argument between the two), arguing with Stefan (because he was spending a little too much time with her twin look-alike) and pondering the meaning of her life. A few months into Katherine’s arrival Elena is at her graveyard, sitting against her parent’s grave, doodling in her diary when a mysterious stranger, a very good-looking mysterious stranger, makes his identity known to her. That really when she starts to put everything into perspective.
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It is a dull day, a very bleak, meaningless day in her prolonged existence.
The slight tapping against her ceiling windows is beginning to irritate her but at the same time she’s comfortable in this position. Colourful as her thoughts are she’s still remembering tiny fragments of her past life.
Every action has a reaction- that was the theme. Everything in this world reacts with something or other; she knows that one too well. Atoms in everybody’s cells are reacting and every single feeling we have comes from our brain that reacts with the information we receive. Atoms react and create bombs, which cause huge explosions.
Maybe it was too late to delay the reaction? That thought never occurred to her.
Elena knows that he hears them come up the drive, she understands that he can feel the uncertainty she feels as she takes a few minutes, and afterwards calculated steps to the Salvatore boarding house. He hears also her rhythmic heartbeat, too calm, too controlled. In that respect she supposes she is like Katherine, Elena thinks that even in those days her utter self-control of everything showed how alike the two really like. This snake-like control that she displayed around Stefan and Damon in particular should’ve warned her in advance.
Back then, though she forces herself not to take a gulp of air before she knocks on the daunting door in front of her. Her breaths were still very calculated. She braces herself, as she knew that with her luck the brother she really didn’t wish to see would be the one she was forced to confront first.
“I’m here to see Stefan”
“Ah, the knight with the Edward Cullen hair, the brooding puppy-lover, the luminous moon to your dark, dark night... that Stefan?” He said, his tall frame almost leering over her. She couldn’t help but think that she liked it, him trying to intimidate her, predator to prey, in turn she stood up taller, and as she said her next words, both of them were surprised at the somewhat distaste that laced them. “On the surface, yes that Stefan.” He sent her a quizzical look and choosing to ignore it, she strutted past him into the kitchen.
“St Stefan is up in his bedroom” Damon announced and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively as she turned to give him an ‘I know’ look. “Whatcha kids gonna do? Recite poetry to one another?” the somewhat bitter undertone to his voice did not go unnoticed by Elena.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you care!” she amused him with her bitchy tone, a warning, he knew. He knew that she knew bitchy Elena turned him on.
“Oh, you minx! How you know me so.” His Shakespearian accent makes her roll her eyes.
“Oh, oh, code red, call Stefan, I think she just winked at me.” She smiles to herself and in turn winks at him quickly, but then fussing around the kitchen… she almost forgets he’s there until he starts again: “You know Elena, I pity you” She raises an eyebrow in question and waits for him to carry on, whilst turning around and pouring herself a drink from the tap. “You lack fun in your life,” He nods thoughtfully, as if he had figured out some big mystery he had been puzzling over for weeks. She turns, her eyes sparkle with mischief as she gulps down the water, thinking of a response, which won’t sound dirty or provoke any more comments from Damon.
“As opposed to all the fun you always have” her sarcasm is almost sadistic, she hated these conversations because she’d be reminding herself that she was in love with this person… she continues on, “drinking, picking up some random girl at a suspicious joint? I wonder- can vampires get STDs?” She says, now annoyed because she knows he’s like that because it was his mechanism, his way of life.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were jealous” he’s amused.
“Nah, just feel sorry that you know, you have to do that to have at least a bit of dignity left, after all Katherine stole most of it” Her non-chalet tone makes him annoyed, she goes to the bar and pours herself a glass of amber liquid, intending to drown it. His hiss makes her turn abruptly, and face him square on. After she drowns the glass, her eyes locked with his, Elena wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Giving him a knowing look, he stands watching her with fascination as the whiskey doesn’t make her shudder, instead the blood in her veins run faster, he feels himself boiling with anticipation for a taste of her delicious red juices, though he quickly squashes this feeling. He notices that she gave him a small, private smile. They swapped places, him by the bar, her making her way closer to the stairs.
“Oh no, you aren’t the victim here, Damon.” Her eyes blaze with fire, shining brightly against the dark starless night.
“And you are, miss perfect?” frustration, he feels a lot of it in that moment.
“You know what Damon, think whatever you want, the difference is I’m human and I’m tired of all you supernatural vampire, werewolves, witches I just want to scream for everybody to leave the hell alone! How is it my fault that I look like your ex-girlfriend? Or that my boyfriend loves her more than me? Or that my best friends are on her side. Could you just tell me that? What exactly have I done in my unimportant, uninteresting, dull existence?”
“Why don’t you go ask your boyfriend that?” His simple suggestion makes her uncontrollable anger nearly boil over; she intended to completely stake these to idiots by the end of the day.
She mutters a soft ‘ha’, “That would naturally make your day complete, right? If I had made that same speech with a few amendments.”
“See, now the winning point of that speech would be at the end of your colourful rant at the fallen angel,” He begins humorously, “but when you tell Stefan that you hope he chokes on the witch’s blood and dies next to a dead puppy because you can bring yourself to care anymore, and then my day would be complete…” and as she climbs the stairs her final words echo off the walls. “Goodbye Damon, have a nice day.” And as an afterthought she adds, “why don’t you go visit your dead relatives in the alternate universe you call home?” her words ring loud and clear in the silent house, and as the door to Stefan’s room bangs closed Damon realises all of them are in deep, deep shit because someone had finally revealed the complete truth.
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