Heal Me

Chapter 33

She could not understand why Rose was smiling so widely at her. Her love for Damon was not something Evangeline could be enthusiastic about, as it took control over her whole being so suddenly, that it seemed wrong. As his friend, the feelings she bare for him were unnatural, disturbing.

"I'm happy for you, then." her friend finally smiled, chewing on a sandwich.

"Well, I'm not." Evangeline sighed in exasperation. She thought Rose could understand her, even offer a piece of advice or two, yet now, noticing her naive way of thinking, the poor girl wondered how on Earth she could get out of this predicament without getting into a blazing row with her friends or Damon himself.

"What are you talking about?" Rose gulped down the food in her mouth and shifted slightly in her seat. "And what's with the long face you've been having all day long?"

"God, Rose, what do you think?" she tried to keep her voice down, yet the words she spat were full of anger, boiling inside her alongside the passion felt for Damon the night before, at the campfire.

"I think that he freaking loves you as well, that's what I think!"

Shocked by Rose's answer as she was, Evangeline let her lips part in lack of a quick and witty reply to dismiss such suppositions. It could not be... such feelings couldn't have bothered him as well, she was sure of it.

"Don't be ridiculous..." she finally muttered, looking down and fidgeting with her fingers.

"I'm not, Eva! You are the blind one. You can't even notice the way he looks at you sometimes." Rose said, placing her sandwich on the table. "Good Lord, I swear I get the impression that he just wants to push you against a wall and kiss you like he fucking means it!"

"Rose-" she gasped, her face reddening in the pleasure she found just by visualizing him doing that. Her fantasies were now a bit more satisfied, leaving Evangeline with an orgasmic sensation in her heart.

"Listen to me!" the other girl continued. "I'm not saying that he knows he's in love with you. But it's definitely in him, trust me."

"We're friends, Rose... we can't."

"That's bullshit and you know it!" she cut her off, slightly annoyed. "Look, Eva, I know you. I'm your best friend, remember?"

"Sure-"

"Don't think that you're just going through a phase or something, I can tell that you really love him.  So what if you two are friends?" Rose shrugged, remembering her sandwich and taking another bite then getting up.

"I've never demanded anything but his friendship and it took an awful lot of time to earn it. I can't just go up to him, say 'I love you' and then expect for him to say it back and kiss me. I can't afford 'everything or nothing at all', I just can't." Evangeline sighed and, getting up as well, began to walk beside her to their lockers.

"You can be selfish from time to time, you know? There isn't anything wrong in yearning for happiness, no matter what it involves. Excuse the language, but... just learn to take a fucking risk!"

"Please, Rose... It's not my story to tell, but Damon has been going though some rough stuff for the past few months and I-"

"You just happened to meet then befriend him, right?" her voice was full of sarcasm as she quirked both her eyebrows. "You know romance isn't in my nature, but seriously now... There has to be a reason you met, an electric pull, something."

She scoffed at first and unlocked the locker, placing her books inside it. But then she remembered the day they met, how Damon's eyes spoke volumes about his past and how the pain hidden in their color made her gasp. Just for a second... there it was... the pull; she could still feel it if she thought about him long enough. Maybe Rose was right after all; maybe it was okay to release the egoistic trait of out nature from time to time. Maybe that could be the only thing that could make us truly happy.

~

As Damon's silent sobs finally subsided and he got up, afterwards pacing around the room, he was bothered by the urgency of taking a decision in what concerned her...

The thought of his whiskey-tasting lips caressing hers in a kiss made its way to his mind, disrupting his tries to concentrate on the matter at hand. Yet, it was not regret for kissing Evangeline that he felt, but rather for not remembering it sooner. For him, it was one of the most intimate displays of affection between two young hearts who care for one another. And then again, Damon was wondering how come she hadn't said anything about it, not that it was so simple to talk about such things, but still...

And, unusually, as he reflected upon these things, minute snowflakes began falling from the sky, floating in the air, swiftly carried away by the wind.

"The first snow of the season..." he murmured to himself, excitement seeping through his flesh and into his blood, spreading all over inside him, a feeling of content filling him for no apparent reason. After all, it only showed that time continued to pass by him, ever merciless, making him grow older and older, his mother and his baby sister still laying dead six feet under.

Yet, somehow, the snowflakes did not remind him of that; they were pure, delicate, intriguingly complex and fragile at the same time, just like Evangeline was. She was a snowflake that fell from the sky just for him, just to heal him, and, besides that, nothing else proved of any importance whatsoever. Right now, he did not care about kissing his recently best friend, drunk or not, inside 'The Dark Pub' or outside... it did not matter anymore. Because Damon cared about her so much and was so grateful for her brightening his life like she had done, that if she were there, in front of him, he could not bear not to hold her tight and laugh and shower her with short, sweet kisses.