Eat Your Heart Out

I leaned against the door, breathing heavily. What the hell was wrong with me? I swore to myself that I would never let myself get attached again, never go through another thing like Jeremiah. And I just made out with another one! Oh God, what was I thinking?

There was a quiet knock at the door, making me jump about six feet from the ground.

“Kris?” I heard Elena say. “Are you okay?”

I jumped up and dusted myself off quickly. I walked over to the bed and grabbed my small bag and headed back to the door. I popped it open and was facing a worried Elena. “I’m doing okay,” I said with a slight smile.

She sighed, “Damon doesn’t always think before he –“

“Could we not talk about him please?” I asked, my grip tightening on my bag.

That threw her off guard.

“Uh, yeah sure. Ready to go?”

“Yep,”

I shut the door behind me and then followed her downstairs to the front door. Stephan bid us good-bye and soon enough we were off to the mall.

The ride to the mall was fairly awkward, filled with small snippets of conversation beginnings here and there. It was a long 30 minute trip and as much as I was enjoying getting out of the small town for a little bit and away from Damon, I was already ready to go home.

We walked into the mall and looked around one of the bigger department stores, still barely mumbling a few words at each other when I finally got sick of it. Grabbing her arm, I grabbed her and turned her to face me, “What did I do?”

“Nothing,” she said, trying to step around me, but I blocked her.

“Then why are you acting like I just stabbed you in the back?”

She let out a heavy sigh and crossed her arms. “Damon really isn’t someone who you should be getting involved with, Kris. He’s bad news.”

I stared at her for a minute before something clicked in my brain, causing me to laugh.

“You’re jealous? You’re dating Stephan and you’re jealous because Damon kissed me?”

“I’m not jealous!” she growled at me. “I’m just letting you know he’s bad news. I mean, why did you kiss him in the first place?”

Shaking my head, I let out a sigh. “First off, he kissed me, and then, I don’t know, something just came over me.” Something in my stomach fluttered at the memory.

Her eyes bulged a little and I know exactly what crossed her mind.

“Don’t worry, he didn’t compel me,” I stated, before realizing what I had said.

“H-How do you know about compulsion?” she asked taking a tentative step toward me.

“I-I- I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied taking off through the mall. She was right on my tail. When we were in a quieter place she grabbed my sweatshirt and pulled me back to face her.

“How the hell do you know about compulsion?”

“How the hell do you think?” I said snapping back. “And let me guess, both brothers are vamps, right?”

Elena shoved me behind a rack of clearance items before quickly glancing around. “Look you need to tell me everything, and I mean everything, that you know. “

“Why should I?”

“Because I swear to God if you tell anyone-“ she stopped and tried a different tactic. “Telling anyone about them is a death wish. If you really give a shit about them then you will keep your mouth shut.”

I stared at her before nodding my head. “Don’t worry, I’m not tellin’ anyone anytime soon.”

“Well…good.” She mumbled and we continued through the store.

It was quiet for a few minutes before I was bombarded again. “But I still don’t understand how you know so much.”

I sighed and turned to face her. “If I tell you, you cannot tell. Not the boys or anyone else can know if I tell you, got it?”

She nodded as we headed for the food court. After each grabbing a meal, hers from Subway and mine from Panda Express, we sat at a table and l began my tale. I explained everything to her – well, almost everything. I explained that my brothers adopted me when I was younger, how I found out they were vampires, and how we ended up here. I even briefly touched on the whole Jeremiah issue. The problem with that subject, however, was that I don’t remember much of my two years with him.

“…After that fiasco, my brothers made sure that all my jewelry had vervain in it, so that nothing would happen again. That’s how I know Damon didn’t control me earlier,” I finally finished, flashing her my thumb ring.

I could tell that she was nervous, especially after hearing my background. It wasn’t exactly something that you would want to hear come out of someone. “You promised,” I almost growled as I saw her thumbing her purse.

“I won’t tell,” she replied, pulling her phone out. She glanced at it quickly and then started to reply. “Stephan is just wondering how our day is going.”

I nodded, gathering my trash to throw away later.

“Well,” she said putting her phone back in her bag. “I feel that we have had enough serious conversation for a few days – how about that shopping spree?”

I couldn’t help but smile at the change of subject. “Sounds wonderful.”
Quickly we got up and left to the nearest store to spend our worries away.

~~

We got home about 9:30pm, laughing and giggling like long lost friends. In all honesty the day went much better than I planned, even with her knowing /most/ of my true past. It was nice to have someone that I could confide in that actually understood.

“You two are extremely happy?” Stephan verbalized as he walked over to welcome Elena
back.

“There were great sales at the mall today,” Elena replied with a smile. Both of us cracked up at the joke from earlier today.

In all honestly we were each weighed down with three or four department store bags with multiple smaller bags in each of those.

“Well, I’m glad that you are much better than earlier.” He said with a soft smile.

I nodded then headed upstairs with Elena to go drop everything off in my temporary room. As I began to unpack I heard a knock at the door.

“Glad you made it home in one piece. Mind if we talk?” I heard the door shut and I turned to
see Damon striding toward me.