Blood Sisters • The Vampire Diaries [1]

XXIII. QU'IL M'AIMERAIT À MOURIR

Days had passed since that first night, since I let the man that would forever change my life, in. It was good then, when I didn't know who he was, when I thought that I knew the truth. But, in a way, it was the truth, at least then.  It was the only truth I knew from him.

He told me about his life, the places he'd been, the things he'd done, about his complicated family, and I'd laughed and thought to myself, you don't know complicated. And that was before Stefan came in on the morning of Founder's day and made it far more complicated than it was to start with.

"John?!" I repeated, brows knitting in confusion after he'd pulled me aside to my room to tell me what he'd found out. "Is that even possible?"

There was a possibility that my Uncle John, was my biological father, and as much as I didn't want to believe it, it made perfect sense. He and Isobel knew one another, and she'd said that he'd had a thing with her when they were younger, and I was..at a loss for words.

"There is no proof, but he dated Isobel when she was a teenager and he was the one who brought her to your dad's office for the delivery."

I shook my head, running a hand through my hair. "My whole life I've never liked this man. I..."

"Sorry, I'm sorry." He spoke up, as I let out a sigh, trying to wrap my mind around everything. John wasn't someone that I'd ever gotten along with, someone that nobody ever got a long with, and to find out that he could be my father was crazy. "I just...I wanted to tell you before Damon dropped it on you on some typically inappropriate way. And I... I wanted to talk to you about Damon.."

I furrowed my brows, looking up at him. "What do you mean?"

He sighed, moving to take a seat next to me by the window in my room, and it reminded me of that night after what happened at the dance - I wanted to hold his hand, again. I wanted to feel that same comfort, that same sense of sanity I had when we'd left, when I'd watched him kill that vampire.

"I know that you and Damon are close." He began, and I didn't bother trying to deny it because it was true. We had grown close, closer than I thought that I could ever get with him, and when Isobel said that he - that Damon - loved me, I was completely shaken up. I didn't know what to think of it, didn't even know how to wrap my mind around the thought of him loving me. "And I just... I don't want you to get hurt."

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I'd never been too afraid of being up on stage, of having more than a single pair of eyes on me, but for the first time, I was nervous. I stood on top of the Miss Mystic court float, watching and waving to the townspeople, smiling especially bright when I spotted my Aunt Jenna. But, it wasn't the crowds that stirred on my nerves, it was the person that was standing with me.

It was Damon.

All of the couples were specifically and strategically placed, with the women standing in their big ball gowns, hair curled tightly, and corsets tied even tighter, in front of their dates. Damon's hand was lingering along my back, and as light and as gentle as he was, his hand somehow felt heavy against me.

I didn't know what I felt for him. I knew that I cared about him, but I didn't know what that meant. He wasn't easy to care about, not like Stefan. Damon was manipulative, and he would lie, and kill and do whatever it was that he wanted, and yet, somehow I'd grown to feel something for him. And that was hard, caring about someone that was so closed off, that pretended not to care himself.

Part of me wanted to listen to Stefan, to think rationally, to be more cautious about letting Damon in, and the other part wanted to throw that all away and just live in the moment with him. And I was afraid, afraid that whatever I felt for him, wasn't mutual, that maybe deep down he still hated everyone in this town, that he was still the same person that I'd met a couple months ago.