If We Had Met First

Chapter Nineteen

            “Now this might be a lot for you to digest at one time but you both need to know about what happened to your mother. I could very easily lie to you both and say that it was a complete accident but that was not the case. We were in the living room waiting for both of you to get home when we were attacked. The vampire went after me first and then got your mother.”

            “Then how are you alive?” Jeremy asked. Elena had been waiting for an opportunity to ask this, it wasn’t that she wasn’t grateful that somehow he had survived but she couldn’t help but wonder how. She had seen him lying there, seen his unseeing eyes yet somehow he was sitting right in front of her one hundred percent alive.

            He took a moment before answering; he was examining his hand and twisting the ring he had on. It was the same one Damon had pointed out.

            “The ring saved me. It was something invented by our ancestor Johnathon Gilbert, it will save the wearer from death of supernatural causes. So once the creature killed me the ring brought me back, the bite was gone and I was perfectly fine but your mother was not.”

            Elena could tell that her dad would have rather discussed vampires than his dead wife, she could see the tears welling up in his eyes. It was hard for her to convince herself that she would never be able to talk to her mother again and she couldn’t imagine what it was like for her dad.

            While wiping the tears from his eyes before they could run down his face her dad explained how vital it was that they be alert for anyone they didn’t recognize and tell him if they saw anyone who looked suspicious. After that he stressed how they had to keep this a secret, no one could know anything about what he had just told them.

            When the nodded he stood up and told them that he needed to go out to make arrangements. Elena didn’t need to ask what arrangements he was talking about because the way his voice shook when he said her told her that it was something to do with her mom.

            Even just think about it made her gut twist and she couldn’t even manage to smile at her dad when he walked out of the door. Jeremy didn’t move and neither did she and they both sat there for a couple minutes of silence before Elena remembered something.

            “Hey Jer, do you remember anything funny from last night?” She asked.

            Jeremy looked at her and just shrugged, “I stayed out late with Anna, we lost track of the time. The next thing I remembered was waking up in the hospital. The doctors think I saw mom and tried to get away from it but ended up fainting and that I just repressed the memory.”

             “That’s it?” Elena asked. She couldn’t believe that he remembered nothing about Anna attacking him. Maybe before Anna had compelled him to make sure he wouldn’t remember anything about it just in case something went wrong with her plan to kill him.

            Jeremy nodded, “if I hadn’t been late I would have been here when the vampire attacked, I could be dead right now. I should be dead right now.”

            As a single tear ran down her brothers face she ran over and wrapped her arm around him. His body shook and she gently rubbed his back as he buried his face in her shoulder and cried. She just knelt beside him and let him cry, she knew that there was nothing that would help him more than her just being here for him. There was nothing she could say or do that could take away everything bad he was feeling.

            She didn’t know when it started but soon she was crying along with him, they both held each other in their hug and supported each other. They cried until they ran out of tears and their bodies stopped shaking because of the sobs.