Lost Cause

Giving is something I have always been good at. Nearly every relationship I had was give and take—I gave, the other took. It was like that with my older sister, Nina. She was my senior by five years, and always got what she wanted. I didn’t mind, though. Because whatever she wanted, I’d give her. It was never a big deal. I’d grown used to not being attached to any of my personal belongings.

It was give and take with all the romantic relationships I had, as well, which was why they never lasted. I gave, he took, and he was never satisfied. I never took. I don’t think I even have the ability to take, the foreign idea of taking something from someone is what it is—foreign. I guess you could call me a people-pleaser. But I don’t really mind. Because of my constant giving, heartbreak and disappointment were cast shadows on my life; breathing down my neck and following everything I ever did or would ever do.

So when Tyler Lockwood showed up at my doorstep in a crumbling heap of overheating skin and fast breaths, I would give him everything he needed to get back on his feet. Everything he needed to get back to Caroline.



Since the age of nine, I harbored a crush on Tyler Lockwood. Who could blame me, though? We first met when my family had moved to Mystic Falls. Tyler was two years older, and even at age eleven, he was already dominating the sixth grade class’s girls’ thoughts, alongside some fifth grade girls’ and lowly fourth grade girls’, like mine. Hearts were drawn in notebooks, marriage plans were made, and “forever and evers” were, of course, already in the making.

My crush on him started on my third day of school. It was lunchtime, and the boys invited us girls to play kickball. Being a fourth grade girl, I was already noticing that a boy’s cooties were slowly being replaced by attractive traits, for example, Tyler’s smile, or Matt Donovan’s soft, blue eyes. So my friends and I said yes.

It was Matt’s turn to kick, and Sophie, one of my friends, was pitching. Matt was always athletic, so none of us were surprised when he kicked it towards the outfield, where I was positioned. I was talking to another girl about something when I turned and the ball hit me in the face. I burst out in tears, even though it was a bouncy ball. Tyler ran over and asked if I was all right, then proceeded to take me to the nurse’s office. The nurse even let him fill my ice pack.

After that day, Tyler and I were pretty all-right friends. As we grew older, our friendship grew with us. Schoolyard games turned into study nights, tutoring Tyler in algebra and history. But as we hit high school, our friendship faded. Tyler made his way onto the football team whereas I preferred to work on pending art pieces and hanging out with my friends.

When Tyler got his first serious girlfriend, Caroline, I was hurt, yes, but I knew he was happy. I had given him all I had in middle school, and the time with him then was enough for me.



It was two o’clock in the morning and I still had yet to fall asleep. My parents were in Curaçao for some convention, and Nina was back at Princeton. I was alone when something sounded outside. Being the paranoid person I was, I grabbed the baseball bat I kept in my closet and crept down the stairs.

I heard loud groans and through the glass windows on our door, I could see something on the ground. Deciding what was outside couldn’t cause much harm being on the ground, I set the baseball bat on the kitchen counter and crept towards the door.

When I opened it, I quickly made my way outside, trying to make sense of what—or who—was on my front porch. He was curled up in a fetal position on my front porch, writing in pain, beads of sweat on his bare flesh. His bare flesh. Tyler Lockwood was on my porch in unbearable pain, and all I could think about was that he was half naked. When I finally regained my senses, I surveyed how bad he looked. He had dirt and bruises covering his entire torso, and there were some open wounds across his back with chunks of some kind of wood in them.

“Oh my god, Tyler,” I say, almost to myself. I try to lift him up on my shoulders, and his body sags, and I nearly fall to the ground.

“Come on,” I tell myself, gritting my teeth. I drag him inside then shut the door with my foot, and seat him on a chair at the kitchen table.

“What did you do, Tyler?” I ask him quietly before I walk to the bathroom to grab a first aid kit. When I walk back into the kitchen, I drop the first aid kit and scream. Tyler has buried a kitchen knife into his chest.

“Tyler!” I pull it out as fast as I can, not caring if it hurts, and notice that Tyler is still breathing, his heart still beating steadily. As I go back to grab the first aid kit, I notice Tyler’s knife wound is already closing up and healing. I set the kit on the counter and raise a hand to my mouth. All that’s left of the wound is a tiny white scar, then nothing.

“Tyler, I don’t know what is going on but you’re scaring me,” I whisper, shaking my head. If his knife wound closed up, why didn’t his other wounds close? I look at the small bits of wood in some of his cuts and I pull them out. Tyler yells out, and I am all choked up with sobs racking up my body. I throw the wooden pieces in the trash. I grab some cotton balls and antiseptic and wipe down nearly his entire upper body, cleaning off the dirt and dust, wiping off the blood. Tyler winces in pain, but doesn’t do anything else. I’m crying while I’m cleaning his cuts, but I try my hardest not to make a sound. Even after I’ve cleaned up all his cuts, they still don’t close up like they should, judging by what happened after he stabbed himself, and I don’t know what to do.

I touch the harsh ridges of the open cuts and cry even harder. Why would this happen to Tyler?

“Please, just, please give me answers,” I ask him. He falls asleep on the couch, leaving me just as confused and worried as I was when I found him on my doorstep.



Tyler wakes up around nine in the morning, seven hours after his big scare. I’m slouched in the chair on my desk, staring at my hands, when I hear him shift around. I look up and see Tyler sitting upright on my bed.

“Sierra?” he asks. The covers shift downward, and I see that his body is clear of any wounds or bruises.

“Tyler, you tell me what happened last night or I swear to god I will call the cops,” I say, shaking my head. But he and I both know I could never to that to him. Tyler sighs.

“I just got banged up, that’s all,” he says. I know he’s lying, but I won’t press any further. I throw my hands up in defeat.

“Do you want breakfast?” I ask, knowing fully well that I won’t get any answers.

“Nah,” he says. “My mom’s probably worried about me.”

“Your mom is worried about you?” I shout. “My god, Tyler! Your mom wasn’t the one who found you lying on her doorstep at two AM, beaten and bloodied! Your mom wasn’t the one who stayed up the entire night pulling bark out of your body and making sure you were all right!” Tyler looks at my accusingly.

“I didn’t ask for your help, Sierra!” he shouts back at me.

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure if I didn’t help, you’d be dead by now.” I say back to him. He doesn’t know how much he hurts me, the power he has over me.

“You know what, forget it.” He says, and with that, he stalks out of my room and makes sure to slam the front door on his way out.



I’m woken up at four in the morning by periodic raps on the front door. I crawl out of bed and open it, finding Tyler in almost the exact same position he was in the night before.

“Tyler,” I breathe out, and I take him back inside to patch him up once more.

The next night is the exact same. Tyler on my doorstep around three or four in the morning, cuts and bruises scattered all over his body for some unknown reason. I clean and bandage his wounds, he’s out the door, and the cycle repeats itself every night. On the seventh night that’s filled with silence, I break it.

“We can’t just keep going like this, Tyler,” I say once I’m finished.

“What do you mean?” He asks me.

“What I mean is you can’t keep coming to me, expecting help, without me knowing what’s going on. I can’t keep saving you. You can’t leave me in the dark, Tyler,” I respond calmly, surprising myself. “If you want me to help you, I have to know what’s going on,” I add quietly. Tyler only sighs in response and says nothing. I let go of the breath I’ve been clinging onto, and I throw the wet towel, stained red with blood, on the counter.

“Fine, then. Fine. I’m done. I give up, Tyler. You win.” Then he leaves. And he doesn’t come back.



It’s been two months since I’ve last seen Tyler, and although I could never admit it to him, I’m so worried I can barely concentrate on anything but him. At three seventeen in the morning, I find myself wandering to his house, using the woods as a shortcut. I stop in my tracks when I hear a shout, followed by the unmistakable sound of someone crying. It’s a shout I’ve grown familiar with, and it’s a cry I’m not ashamed of knowing. It’s all Tyler. So I run, following the sound of his cries for help, and I find the old Lockwood estate. I hear one more shout of his before I run down the stairs and am met with a locked wooden door.

“God damn it!” I shout. I repeatedly kick it until it falls and I unlock the metal gate, and I find Tyler in the cellar. He’s in the same position he’s been in, but there’s something undoubtedly wrong. Tyler’s back arches then falls, and his bones ripple.

“Oh my god,” I say, not believing what I’m seeing. His eyes flash up to me, the warm brown I would know anywhere flashing gold and a growl rips from his throat. His body contorts, and I can hear his bones breaking.

“Tyler,” I say quietly, slowly moving towards him. I remind myself that this is Tyler, that Tyler can’t hurt me. Another growl bursts through, and this time, I jump back.

“Sierra,” he shouts, and I hear the real Tyler come through, the tortured Tyler, the Tyler who is scared and alone. “Go,” he says after a burst of breath. I hear a series of bones cracking, and I can’t help the sob that comes out.

“I don’t want to hurt you!” But I don’t run. I stay. I walk closer, mustering up all the courage I have.

“I’m not leaving you, Tyler,” I respond, my voice much stronger, and within three long strides, I am by his side and kneeling beside his shaking body, my arms immediately wrapping around him.

“You’re okay, Tyler, you’re okay,” I say, burrowing my head into the crook of his neck, beads of his sweat dropping into my hair. I don’t care, though, because this is Tyler. This is the boy I’ve been friends with since fourth grade. This is the boy I’ve loved since eighth grade. After eight minutes, his bones stop contorting. His whole body is shaking and he is crying and I know that he’s been alone in this.

“S-Sierra,” he’s shivering now, cold.

“I’m still here,” I say, comforting him, my hand rubbing his back. He tries to turn on his back, but his face twists up, and he cries out. I help him onto his back.

“Why did you s-stay?” He asks me, and I don’t know why, but I’m not afraid anymore. I’m not afraid of telling Tyler the truth, I’m not afraid of Tyler knowing what I’ve tried my best to keep from him for the last five years.

“Because I love you,” I say, still rubbing his back, still holding him.

“You can’t love me,” he says. He’s stopped shaking now.

“And why is that?” I reply, an amused smile gracing my lips.

“Because I’m a lost cause, Sierra. No matter what you do, you can’t save me. You said it before, you can’t keep saving me. Sooner or later, I’m done for,” he responds, breaking my heart. My eyes start to water.

“Tyler, you can’t tell me who I can and can’t love,”

“Sierra, I’m doing this for your own good, you can’t love me.” Tyler looks like he’s getting more and more frustrated by the second. “I don’t love you! I could never love you! You can’t give me anything that I want, and you’ll never be able to.” My eyes are brimming with tears and I pull myself away from him.

“You don’t mean that, you couldn’t mean that,” I say quietly, looking down at him as if he’s something foreign.

“Well I mean it, okay? Besides, I’ve got Caroline! She’s ten times better than you, gives me all I want and more.” It feels as if Tyler’s torn my heart out of my chest.

“I wasn’t asking you to love me, Tyler,” I bite my lip as his expression remains stoic. “I only wanted you to know, but I guess I should have known that you would have hurt me anyway.” I walk towards the metal door, still swinging from when I burst in, and look at the wooden door that I kicked down to save Tyler.

“I wasn’t afraid of getting hurt when you were…whatever you were. But I never thought you could hurt me like this,” I shake my head and walk out, stepping over the broken bits of bark on the ground. As I walk up the stone steps, Tyler flashes in front of me.

“Sierra,”

“No!” I shout. “I get it, okay? You don’t have to hurt me even more.” But he doesn’t leave. With nothing left to say, I push past him and run. I run and run until I can’t anymore, and collapse on the ground. By now, my tears are furiously trailing down my cheeks. After a while I stop crying, but the slow, terrible pain is still too much to handle. I go home and drink a bottle of Jack Daniels—or was it two bottles? Or three? And I get out of the house an my feet take me anywhere and everywhere. As I'm stumbling back home, white lights flash by my eyes and then I'm just gone.

I'm gone.



I'm sleeping, dreaming, waiting. My emotions are going haywire, and my brain is willing my body to move, to twitch, to do something, but my body just wasn’t react. My body isn't doing anything. Something warm grasps my hand, which is how I know my body is freezing.

"Sierra," a feminine voice sobs. Nina. "What happened? Why, how could this happen?"

"It's all because of Tyler!" My mind screams. I want to shout it out, but my lips won't part. I feel the stiff coolness of my father's hand on my other hand, and I hear the whimpers of my mother. I hear Mrs. Lockwood's quiet, comforting words, and I imagine she is rubbing my mom's back, just as I did with Tyler. But I hear nothing of Tyler's. I don't hear his soft spoken voice, I don't hear his his loud, pained cries. I don't hear his tortured sobs. I don't hear anything that comes from Tyler. I held on to the hope that he would be here, beside me, begging me to wake up, but I guess I'm just stupid and naïve. Then, the door opens. My heart lifts, it's Tyler! I knew he would come.

"Visiting hours are over," a near robotic voice says, and my heart drops to my stomach once more. Of course it isn't Tyler. Time passes—I don't know how long, but it doesn't really matter. It could be nine o'clock, ten o'clock, eleven o'clock at night, but I don't know. All I see is black. I smell the bitter scent of rubbing alcohol. I hear the steady heart monitor, but nothing else. I taste nothing. I feel everything, unfortunately, physically and emotionally. I can feel the prickly touch of the wires attached to my body, I can feel the air flowing into my body. I can feel pain and sadness and everything is just intensified now that I've been stripped of most of my senses. The door opens—or is it just my imagination?—and light footsteps sound. Someone takes my hands into theirs. Who is this? I beg my eyes to open, but they won't.

"I never meant any of it." Tyler? "Not when I said that I didn't love you, not when I said I could never love you, not when I said that you had nothing to give me. Not when I said that Caroline was ten times better than you, either. The truth is, Caroline could never be better than you. And you've always given me your everything. And I'm so sorry I never had anything to give you, god, I am so sorry. I love you so much, and no one can tell me differently. I think I've loved you for a while, but it took me all of this to figure it out, and I'll never forgive myself.

"I'll always love you, Sierra, and I can't believe that I hurt you like that. I never thought I could be so cruel. I just--I thought I'd be protecting you if you stayed away. I thought that by hurting you, I'd be keeping you safe. I don't know if you still love me, but I just wanted you to know the truth. I hope you wake up soon, Sierra," he kisses my forehead and squeezes my hand, and then he's gone. My mind cries, my heart cries, I want to cry, I want to wake up. I never want him to leave again. I want him to come back. I want to love him, I want him to love me, I want us to be together. One sticky eyelid opens, then the other does the same. I am alive and awake and alert and I feel everything. And then I feel nothing, and my heart monitor beeps wildly and Tyler bursts into the room. And then my heart monitor goes flat.

"No," I hear Tyler gasp. "No! Sierra!"

But how can I hear Tyler? Is this some kind of sick joke?

"Don't die on me, Sierra," Tyler is blubbering like a baby. "Sierra, please, please, please," I'm crying on the inside, begging myself to come back to life, come back to Tyler. "Don't leave me," he whispers. And then a beep sounds. And another, and another, and another. I can feel my breath coming back, I can feel my eyes opening and my body shaking and my hands squeezing Tyler's.

"How are you alive?" Tyler asks incredulously.

"I don't know," I cry wildly, and he climbs in just to hold me.

Nurses burst in, and when they see Tyler and me, together, they freak.

"Visiting hours are over, I should call security on you!" One nurse shouts, and the others nod along.

"But you won't," Tyler says, staring deeply into one nurse's eyes. In confused until I realize there's some kind of connection, something he's doing. "You never saw any of this. She never flatlined. You were just having a cup of coffee." The nurses nod, as if they've been possessed or something. "Leave."

And they listen to him and leave, just like that. Then, Tyler turns back to me and smiles, then kisses me, taking me by surprise, and I kiss him back with all the love I've held for him. And we just keep kissing in the silence of my hospital room when I realize Tyler was never the lost cause. I loved Tyler for so long, my love unwavering, even when he told me he could never love me. Tyler was never the lost cause, like he had said before. I was.