Children Of The Damned

Eliana

I drove home tense and decided to go for a run when I got home. So when I walked through the front door, I traded my flats for my old Nikes and ran down the block.

I tried to push back all the thoughts that crept into the front of my mind, but they didn’t seem to go away like they usually did whenever I ran. That was the thing. When I ran, I felt like my problems could never catch me. And when they finally did, I stopped running. Now, I was starting again, and I had to remind myself that running was not the answer. I had to remind myself to be more confrontational. The days of nice little “Ana Forbes” were over.

But to help release some of the tension I felt crawling under my skin, I kept running until I could feel my heart pounding in my ears. Then I turned around and ran back home.

When I reached my driveway, there was a blue pickup truck there. Matt’s pickup truck.

I walked up to the truck and found him sitting in the cab, fingers drumming on the steering wheel.

I rapped my knuckles hard on the glass of the window. Matt started and looked up at me. I moved back as he opened the door and stepped out of the cab.

“What the hell are you doing here, Matt?” I asked. He was the last person I wanted to deal with right now.

“I don’t like how much time you spend with Damon. I see the way you two look at each other, like there is no one else in the room. I know he wants you, and I think you know it too. You just don’t want to admit it to yourself because you actually have feelings for him too, don’t you?” He didn’t look angry anymore. He just looked upset, and resigned.

“You know what, Matt? I am tired of all this jealousy. It’s getting really old. And you know what, I’m not going to give up on my friendship with Damon just because you’re insecure.”

“So, you’re saying that you care more about being his friend than my girlfriend?”

“Are you really trying to make me choose between you and Damon?” I asked in disbelief. This was actually happening to me again?

“Maybe it’s time that you made a choice,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air.

“Matt, you just said the worst thing you could possibly say. The last time someone made me choose between him and a friend, he lost that battle.”

“So what? You’re breaking up with me now?”

“Yes,” I said. I felt my cheeks flush with anger. I was on the verge of furious tears. I hated that whenever I was absolutely livid, I cried. Crying did no good. “You need to leave now,” I said through clenched teeth, internally warring with the hot tears that threatened to spill over to the surface.

Matt got back in his truck and peeled out of the driveway without another word, just as the first tears spilled over my cheeks. Wiping my eyes with my sleeves, I went back inside and grabbed my keys.

In a few minutes, I was at the boarding house.

I knocked on the door, trying to compose myself. It wasn’t working. I just hoped that Damon would be the one to answer the door. No one else but him really knew about what I was going through at the moment, and I didn’t feel like explaining it to Stefan at the moment.

When Damon answered the door, I threw my arms around his neck. Greater than my embarrassment at sobbing on him was my relief that he was there to hold me right now. They were no longer just angry tears. They were tears of disappointment and disbelief that something even remotely like this could happen to me twice in a row.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” he asked as he pulled me inside the house, shutting the door behind me. I just shook my head and he took me into the giant living room/parlor, lit by the fireplace and the crystal chandeliers that hung from the incredibly high ceilings. He sat me down on the couch with him and put an arm around me. I rested my head on his chest as the tears finally stopped.

“I broke up with Matt,” I whispered weakly. “It was a nightmare, like some horrible case of déjà vu. He tried to make me choose, Damon, between being your friend and being his girlfriend. So, of course, I broke up with him. He was so incredibly jealous, and although I know he’s really not like Richard at all, it just reminded me too much of him. And I-”

“Shh. It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it. Just relax,” he soothed, his arm pulling me closer against him in a sort of one armed hug.

“Damon?”

“Yes, Ana?”

“You know you’re my best friend, right?” It felt good to say it, especially when I knew with all of my heart that it was the truth.

“And you’re my only friend,” he said, chuckling to himself.

_______________________________________________________________

Damon

Was there anything more solidifying, more condemning than being marked as the best friend? I suppose I deserved it. After all, I had been aiming much farther than that. Yet, at the same time, when had I ever been so highly regarded?

I was Ana’s best friend.

Too bad I had been waiting for her to say something entirely different.

After she left, Stefan emerged from his room. I knew he had heard the entire conversation.

“Go ahead. Purge,” I told him, noticing the face he wore only when he had something he really wanted to voice to me.

“I knew you loved her,” he said, and his voice was tender and happy when he said it, as if the word “love” itself could cure diseases.

“Even if I did, what difference would it make? She thinks of me as a best friend. I’ll never be more than that to her.”

“You do realize she just ended a relationship, right?” You are her sole source of comfort right now. If you truly lover her, you’ll give her time to decide what she wants. Otherwise, you’re just what everyone thinks of you.”