Cold Hearted | Damon Salvatore

seventeen

***

"Hey, is she up yet?" Alaric asked Elena, entering the Gilbert house with Aria.

Though Aria didn't want to be here, she knew she needed to be there for not only Jenna but also Alaric who was losing his mind with his ex wife's return, it also gave her some time to think about Damon's proposal.

Elena shook her head in denial, "She won't come out of her room".

"What did you tell her?" Alaric asked.

"Nothing, she won't talk to me" Elena replied.

"Did you actually try talking to her?" Aria snapped, "Or did you knock on the door once and when she didn't answer, just gave up?".

"Aria--".

Aria ignored Elena and turned to Alaric, "Don't panic, we are going to fix this".

"I hope so" Alaric whispered, extremely scared he was about to lose the woman he loves because of his past.

Suddenly, the trio's attention went towards the stairs where Jenna was descending from.

"Jenna" Alaric said.

"I don't want you here Ric, you need to go" Jenna snapped, completely ignoring Elena and Aria.

"Listen, I can't begin to imagine what you must be feeling right now" Alaric said.

"Rage and betrayal would pretty much cover it" Jenna said, glaring at Alaric.

Aria sighed, "Jenna you have every right to be mad at us, we shouldn't have hid this from you, we were wrong, but I didn't know how to tell you, how was I supposed to tell you that Elena's biological mother, who we all thought was dead, isn't really dead, and is actually my dad's sister, I tried telling you once but the words never really came out, I'm not asking you to forgive me, because I know it's going to be extremely hard, if someone hid something like this from me I would be pretty mad at them as well, just don't be mad at Ric, it was me and Elena who told him not to tell you about Isobel, he wanted to tell you the truth as soon as he had found out, but me and Elena stopped him, we were scared Jenna, we didn't know what to do, so we did the most childish thing we could, we hid it from you, and I am really sorry you had to find out like this".

By the time Aria was finished, both Jenna and Aria were crying, Aria's heart was filled with extreme guilt, Jenna was the last person she wanted to hurt, yet somehow she ended up hurting her.

Alaric looked at Aria with a slightly shocked expression on his face, Aria had never told Alaric to hide the truth about Isobel from Jenna, it was Elena who didn't think Jenna could handle it, Aria just took half of Elena's blame on to herself without even thinking about it for a moment, in that moment, Alaric realised how selfless Aria Connor really is.

"Where are you going?" Elena asked Jenna, seeing her packed bag.

"I'm going to stay on campus" Jenna replied, "I have a thesis to write and I don't wanna be in this house".

"Jenna--".

"I'll speak to you soon" Jenna told Aria, subtly letting Aria know she wasn't as mad at her as she was with Elena, at least Aria apologised.