Its because of the wording! it makes it sound so much more romantic than it actually was.
I WILL BE WRITING THE ENTIRE THING SO MY HAND WILL HURT! Well... all of the bits with Elena and Stefan in it.
'Elena had gone into the bathroom dazed and numbly grateful. She came out angry.
She wasn't quite sure how the transformation had taken place. But sometime while she was washing the scratches on her face and arms, annoyed at the lack of a mirror and at the fact she'd left her purse in Tyler's convertible, she started feeling again. And what she felt was anger.
Damn Stefan Salvatore. So cold and controlled even while saving her life. Damn him for his politeness, and for his gallantry, and for the walls around him that seemed thicker and higher than ever.
She pulled the remaining bobby pins out of her hair and used them to fasten the front of her dress together. Then she ran through her loosened hair quickly with an engraved bone comb she found by the sink. She came out of the bathroom with her chin held high and her eyes narrowed.
He hadn't put his coat back on. He was standing by the window in his white sweater with bowed head, tense, waiting. Without lifting his head, he gestured to a length of dark velvet laid over the back of a chair.
"You might want to put that on over your dress."
It was a full-length cloak, very rich and soft, with a hood. Elena pulled the heavy material around her shoulders. But she was not mollified by the gift; she noticed that Stefan hadn't come any closer to her, or even looked at her while speaking.
Deliberately, she invaded his territorial space, pulling the cloak more tightly about her and feeling, even at that moment, a sensual appreciation of the way the folds fell about her, trailing behind her on the floor. She walked up to him and made an examination of the heavy mahogany dresser by the window.
On it lay a wicked-looking dagger with an ivory hilt and a beautiful agate cup mounted in silver. There were also a golden sphere with some sort of dial set into it and several loose gold coins.
She picked up one of the coins, partly because it was interesting and partly because she knew it would upset him to see her handling his things. "What's this?"
It was a moment before he answered. Then he said:
"A gold florin. A Florentine coin."
"And what's this?"
"A German pendant watch. Late fifteenth century," he said distractedly. He added, "Elena-"
She reached for a small iron coffer with a hinged lid. "What about this? Does it open?"
"No." He had the reflexes of a cat; his hand slapped over the coffer, holding the lid down. "That's private," he said, the strain obvious in his voice.
She noticed that his hand made contact only with the curving iron lid and not with her flesh. She lifted her fingers, and he drew back at once.
Suddenly, her anger was too great to hold in any longer. "Careful," she said savagely. "Don't touch me, or you might get a disease."
He turned away toward the window.
And yet even as she moved away herself, walking back to the center of the room, she could sense his watching her reflection. And she knew, suddenly, what she must look like to him, pale hair spilling over the blackness of the cape, one white hand holding the velvet closed at her throat. A ravaged princess pacing in her tower.
She tilted her head far back to look at the trapdoor in the ceiling, and heard a soft, distinct intake of breath. When she turned, his gaze was fixed on her exposed throat; the look in his eyes confused her. But the next moment his face hardened, closing her out.
"I think," he said, "that I had better get you home."
In that instant, she wanted to hurt him, to make him feel as bad as he'd made her feel. But she also wanted the truth. She was tired of this game, tired of scheming and plotting and trying to read Stefan Salvatore's mind. It was terrifying and yet a wonderful relief to hear her own voice saying the words she'd been thinking so long.
"Why do you hate me?" He stared at her. For a moment he couldn't seem to find words. Then he said, "I don't hate you."
"You do," said Elena. "I know it's not... not good manners to say it, but I don't care. I know I should be grateful to you for saving me tonight, but I don't care about that, either. I didn't ask you to save me. I don't know why you were even in the graveyard in the first place. And I certainly don't understand why you did it, considering the way you feel about me."
He was shaking his head, but his voice was soft. "I don't hate you."
"From the very beginning, you've avoided me as if I were... were some kind of leper. I tried to be friendly to you, and you threw it back in my face. Is that what a gentleman does when someone tries to welcome him?"
He was trying to say something now, but she swept on, heedless. "You've snubbed me in public time after time; you've humiliated me at school. You wouldn't be speaking to me now if it hadn't been a matter of life or death. Is that what it takes to get a word out of you? Does someone have to nearly be murdered?
"And even now," she continued bitterly, "you don't want me to get anywhere near you. What's the matter with you, Stefan Salvatore, that you have to live this way? That you have to build walls against other people to keep them out? That you can't trust anyone?What's wrong with you ?"
He was silent now, his face averted. She took a deep breath and then straightened her shoulders, holding her head up even though her eyes were sore and burning. "And what's wrong with me ," she added, more quietly, "that you can't even look at me, but you can let Caroline Forbes fall all over you? I have a right to know that, at least. I won't ever bother you again, I won't even talk to you at school, but I want to know the truth before I go. Why do you hate me so much, Stefan?"
Slowly, he turned and raised his head. His eyes were bleak, sightless, and something twisted in Elena at the pain she saw on his face.
His voice was still controlled-but barely. She could hear the effort it cost him to keep it steady.
"Yes," he said, "I think you do have a right to know. Elena." He looked at her then, meeting her eyes directly, and she thought, That bad? What could be as bad as that? "I don't hate you," he continued, pronouncing each word carefully, distinctly. "I've never hated you. But you... remind me of someone."
Elena was taken aback. Whatever she'd expected, it wasn't this. "I remind you of someone else you know?"
"Of someone I knew," he said quietly. "But," he added slowly, as if puzzling something out for himself, "you're not like her, really. She looked like you, but she was fragile, delicate. Vulnerable. Inside as well as out."
"And I'm not."
He made a sound that would have been a laugh if there had been any humor in it. "No. You're a fighter. You are... yourself."
Elena was silent for a moment. She could not keep hold of her anger, seeing the pain on his face. "You were very close to her?"
"Yes."
"What happened?"
There was a long pause, so long that Elena thought he wasn't going to answer her. But at last he said, "She died."
Elena let out a tremulous breath. The last of her anger folded up and disappeared from under her. "That must have hurt terribly," she said softly, thinking of the white Gilbert headstone among the rye grass. "I'm so sorry."
He said nothing. His face had closed again, and he seemed to be looking far away at something, something terrible and heartbreaking that only he could see. But there was not just grief in his expression. Through the walls, through all his trembling control, she could see the tortured look of unbearable guilt and loneliness. A look so lost and haunted that she had moved to his side before she knew what she was doing.
"Stefan," she whispered. He didn't seem to hear her; he seemed to be adrift in his own world of misery.
She could not stop herself from laying a hand on his arm. "Stefan, I know how it can hurt-"
"You can't know," he exploded, all his quietness erupting into white rage. He looked down at her hand as if just realizing it was there, as if infuriated at her effrontery in touching him. His green eyes were dilated and dark as he shook her hand off, flinging a hand up to bar her from touching him again-
-and somehow, instead, he was holding her hand, his fingers tightly interlocked with hers, hanging on for dear life. He looked down at their locked hands in bewilderment. Then, slowly, his gaze moved from their clasping fingers to her face.
"Elena..." he whispered.
And then she saw it, the anguish shattering his gaze, as if he simply couldn't fight any longer. The defeat as the walls finally crumbled and she saw what was underneath.
And then, helplessly, he bent his head down to her lips.
(blah, blah, blah! nobody cares about what happened to Vicki)
