Pretend You Love Me 3
“Are you ever going to speak to me?” Damon’s angry voice echoed through the kitchen. They had eaten in their same usual silence as always as they ate. As soon as they finished, Elena had jumped up and started straight into the dishes.
The way she avoided him had been brewing anger in him for weeks. She was pushing him away, she would hardly speak to him and he was sick of it. He wanted his wife back, the bubbly, smiling, and warm woman he married only two years ago. They told each other everything, they were each others best friends. He wondered when that had changed. Maybe he was being punished for seeing Andie every once in a while. They would only talk, he would justify.
Elena’s tense back alerted him that his voice may have been too harsh. Yelling at Elena was never the way to go about things, especially when she seemed so fragile. The look in her eyes as she turned to face him was heart wrenching. All he wanted was to take her in his arms and take away her pain. Hell, he just wanted to touch her, to feel her skin on his hands, to press his lips against hers and take reality from her just for a little while. But as soon as he saw the pain in her eyes, it was gone and she was back to her cold exterior. It infuriated him.
“What are you talking about?” Her voice sounded shaky, even to her. She was so petrified that one day she would give into him and spill the one thing that he would absolutely hate her for. She hated herself for it. It was her fault after all. She’s the one who got pregnant, she’s the one who had to wait until she knew for sure before she told him, she’s the one who lost the baby the day before she planned to surprise him. Sometimes it felt like it never existed. Sometimes she wished that it never existed.
Thoughts of what could have been would haunt her every moment of everyday, and just seeing Damon’s face reminded her that he didn’t know. He didn’t know he would have had a child if not for her. She should’ve told him, she shouldn’t have waited no matter how sure she wanted to be. Yet somehow the miscarriage justified her actions, she saved him from the sheer heartache that followed her around every day. Sometimes she told herself that she was protecting him. She could handle the pain, but she would never handle seeing it on Damon’s face. But somehow she managed to put it there by herself just fine.
“Dammit, Elena,” Damon fired at her, “You know damn well what I’m talking about.”
“Maybe you should cool off before we talk anymore,” she deflected.
“No, Elena,” he yelled walking close to her and placing his hands on either side of the counter, effectively trapping her. “Are you leaving me? Do you not want me?” His voice dropped so low, she almost didn’t hear him, but the pain was almost deafening.
“What? No, god no!” Her voice raised in panic, that thought had never crossed her mind.
“Well there is a reason you’ve been pushing me away. What did I do wrong?” His pained voice raised a little.
“You didn’t do anything, ok?” She said as she tried to push out of the cage his arms created.
“No, you are not running away from this conversation, Elena,” he said, his voice firm and his arms set stronger around her.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she said defiantly, crossing her arms over her chest. They stood there breathing heavily for several tension-filled minutes.
Damon’s eyes suddenly softened before he whispered, “Just tell me you love me.”
She barely had time to register what he had said before his lips were against hers, moving feverishly, trying to coax her out of her cold shell. It was the first time they had kissed in months and her body was as responsive as ever to his touch. Her body had missed him, missed the way his arms fit perfectly around her, the way he pulled her to him as if she couldn’t get closer to him. She missed him, plain and simple.
His body pressed into hers, pushing her back against the counter as his lips worked their magic on hers, pushing them open and sliding his tongue to meet hers. Her hands clung to the fabric of his shirt on their own accord. She needed something to hold onto before she was completely swept away. That didn’t last long, because as soon as he slipped her dress off her body, she was done for. She immediately pulled his shirt off before placing her hand at the back of his neck and pulling him closer.
He responded to her instantly, his hands were everywhere at once, tracing her flat stomach, the swell of her breasts, following her clavicle, and running down her smooth back. Her hands followed his, they traced the strong muscles and she loved the way they jumped under her touch. He blazed kisses down her neck as he hastily removed the rest of her clothing before lifting her onto the counter.
She was lost in his touch, lost in everything about him. Her heart swelled at the sounds she could still elicit from him, they drove her insane in the best way possible. Maybe fixing them would be easy, maybe there was nothing to fix, just a bump in the road for them. Maybe everything would be alright. So as he pressed himself into her, she uttered the three words he’d almost begged to hear.
“I love you,” she whispered into the skin on his shoulder. She could feel the rest of his apprehension melt away as he moved with her.
“I love you, too,” he whispered back to her as they fell over the edge together, looking right into her eyes. In that moment, she never realized how much she needed to hear those words from him. In that moment, she let herself think that everything would be ok.
They would survive this.
---BREAK---
They had been treading on thin ice for a week. They’d spoken more words to each other that week than they’d spoken in almost eight months. She wondered if maybe, just maybe they could finally fix them. Then she’d remind herself what happened the last time she let herself think that, she walked in on her husband and her best friend. But no, she wasn’t the victim, she held her own secrets that would hurt him more than he could ever hurt her.
She knew if they were going to fix things, they had a lot to talk about, but she just wasn’t ready to hear the truth and she knew he wasn’t either. If they survived the past months, the truth would surely be the catalyst in ending them forever. She didn’t know if she could handle that, so she settled for the barely-there relationship they were harboring only because they didn’t want to deal with the consequences of what would happen if one of them decided they didn’t want it anymore.
They still hadn’t slept in the same bed since the Andie situation and they hadn’t touched each other since that night in the kitchen. She was part of the reason they never touched, she couldn’t handle giving herself over to him like that again and then being reminded of what he did with her. It was far too painful. She had so many things she needed to ask him, she needed to hear from his mouth before she could even contemplate their marriage being fixed. She knew that once she demanded honesty from him, she would have to reciprocate.
She barely noticed the tears rolling down her cheeks until she heard the front door opening. She quickly tried to wipe them away when he appeared in the doorway of the living room where she was folding laundry. Her eyes could hardly resist him, he was so beautiful, lounging against the opening to the living room, his hair was ruffled and his black t shirt clung to him like a second skin. She had to shake her head to get herself back on track.
“Hi,” he said quietly, not knowing how to approach her. They’d been so careful with their words the last week, but it was more effort they’d put into their marriage in months.
“Hi,” she responded, she tried to avoid his gaze by busying herself with placing all the now folded clothes in the laundry basket.
“Are you ok?” He asked after a few quiet moments. He could tell she’d been crying when he walked in, they may hardly talk, but he could still read her pretty easily.
“I’m fine, just hormones,” she shrugged as she stood with the basket to take the clothes upstairs. The nagging voice in her head was telling her that if she didn’t get her question answered now, she never would. And if she didn’t ask, they could never work to repair their marriage.
Hormones. The word brought back the reality of their situation. She was pregnant. Pregnant with his child. It wouldn’t matter if he wanted out, he could never leave his child. Maybe the pregnancy was a blessing in disguise, maybe it was the one thing that would bring them back together, that would force them to hash out their issues and learn to trust each other again.
“Damon,” she said quietly when she reached the hall, he was halfway down on his way to the kitchen, but he stopped when he heard his name uttered from her lips. A sound he had missed so badly. He turned almost immediately to look at her. Her face was sad and he could see uncertainty in her eyes.
“Did you sleep with her?” Her voice came out as a whisper because she feared if it was spoken too loud it would bring the walls down.
“No, I didn’t,” he said quietly. He was almost thankful that she had caught them that day. It gave him the push he needed to swear Andie off forever. The hope he saw in her eyes was elating. For the first time in months he truly felt like they could fix this. They really could do it.
“Elena,” he called before she could head up the stairs, “I want to fix this.”
A small smile graced her lips and his heart soared, “I do too.”
“You do?” His voice was almost disbelieving, but it had a small ray of hope in it.
“Of course I do,” she said passionately, it was the most emotion he’d heard in her voice since that night in their kitchen.
“Ok,” he nodded with a small smile, “We’ll try to fix this. It won’t be easy.”
“I know,” she nodded. He turned to head back to the kitchen but her small voice stopped him once more. “Damon,” he turned to face her and saw what he thought was insecurity on her beautiful face, “If you don’t want to sleep in the guest bedroom anymore, you don’t have to.”
He had to physically stop himself from doing a happy dance. She really wanted to fix them, they were really going to take that chance and work things out.
“Ok,” was all he could manage with a small smile and nod of his head. She turned and started back up the stairs feeling more hope than she’d ever remembered feeling. But something loomed on the edge of that hope threatening to bring it down. He was honest with her. He told her the truth and soon she’d have to do the same. It was the truth that would truly threaten to send everything they have into oblivion.
So she laid in her bed that night, opting to go to sleep early, she was reminded of all the things they still needed to fix. She started to feel the same hopelessness she always did when she thought of how far they’d have to go to get back on track. They had hurt each other so badly, but she felt like her secret was the ultimate betrayal. She was unsure if he would ever be able to forgive her and that thought alone was devastating. She was about to surrender to the same darkness that claimed her and haunted her every night when she heard their bedroom door quietly open. She heard his soft footsteps padding across the room and into the bathroom.
The simple sounds of him moving about their bathroom brought a calmness upon her and her tears subsided as she got lost in the sound of him showering, the toilet flushing, him brushing his teeth, and finally the sound of the light being clicked off and his footsteps falling softly on the carpet of their room. She felt the almost-foreign feel of the bed dipping with his weight and she heard his soft sigh of contentment as he snuggled back into his spot for the first time in almost two months.
So instead of dwelling in the sadness of things that were to come, she decided to revel in the moment. So she reached out behind her as her hand sought his. Her fingers tangled in his and pulled his hand around her small waist. He easily complied and spooned his chest against her back, pressing his face into her hair. He took a deep breath and enjoyed the smell of her hair, how her body fit perfectly against his, and how finally, he felt like things were going to be ok.
She pressed her back further into him and got lost in the feel of his arms holding her protectively. She smiled to herself before she surrendered herself to sleep and for the first time in months, she fell into a deep sleep free of her haunting memories.