Gifted (Vampire Diaries Fan-fiction)

Pretending - Chapter 67

Jeremy POV

"I'm sorry that you feel that way." Bonnie says after a long silence. I ignore her and focus on the trees rushing past us. It was nothing but a blur of green and black but anything was more interesting than having this conversation with Bonnie.

"We all just worry about you." She adds after a few more seconds of silence.

"Yeah, well I stopped worrying about myself a long time ago-" I snap. "-maybe you guys should too."

"You can't just pretend everything is okay."  Bonnie insists.

"Really? Because it seems that's what all of you are doing. You like to pretend it's okay, you like to pretend that everything will be alright, but none of you know that. You, Stefan, Damon, Elena, Caroline, Alaric, Jenna, all of you loved to pretend that nothing was wrong but all you accomplished was making yourselves feel better until the problem returned and knocked you on your back! I know everything's not okay, I know it never will be, that's why I don't pretend. Why do you think I'm still here and not six feet underground like everyone else?" My hear races in my chest and I'm breathing hard. I had to get everything off my chest and Bonnie was not the right person to tell everything too. Bonnie swallows and nods her head, she wasn't going to say anything, I knew she wouldn't. 

All of us at some point had pretended everything would be fine, whether it was the Salvatores, Bonnie and Caroline, or Elena and I. Pretending made us feel better, that's why all of us hated being told the truth. The truth reminded us all of just how vulnerable we all really were.

Bonnie POV

My throat closes and I feel my eyes begin to water. I blink quickly. I didn't want him to feel sorry for me, that was the last thing he needed. So I just nod and seal my mouth shut for the rest of the way back. I could tell this had been chewing Jeremy up for quite some time. What I didn't understand is why he never told anyone, we were all here for him. But if he felt the need to keep everything buried deep within himself that meant we were doing something wrong. Elena and I always thought we had him figured out, that we knew what was best for him. We didn't. That was obvious to me now and I felt so stupid for ever thinking otherwise. 

Jeremy needed his space, but none of us ever gave it to him. We all thought that coddling him and keeping him close would make him feel better but it was apparent that it made everything worse. Jeremy needed time to grieve. There was always so much going on around us that as soon as a catastrophe happened, like someone dying, we just said our prayers and moved onto the next. Jeremy never had time to properly heal, either because he was in danger or something new was up. We were all so busy trying to stop something bad from happening that we never noticed a problem developing in front of us.

We needed to help Jeremy, more than anyone else. We'd all have to find a way to push aside our problems and focus on how he was feeling, on how he was doing. If we didn't I knew it wouldn't end well. Reckless Jeremy would get himself killed in an instant, that was the last thing Elena needed right now. Both of them, they needed each other more than anything, they were the only remaining pieces of their family. Without each other....they'd both die.