Barely A Memory

Chapter 6

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Stefan sat back on his bed, tossing a football up and down as he watched the ceiling fan spin. "You know what bothers me?" he murmured, concentrating on his tosses. "The fact that everyone seems to be mourning me. I mean, I'm right here."

Elena, who had been looking through Stefan's journals for quite some time, stopped flipping through pages and glanced up sympathetically. "No one is mourning you, Stefan. You're just a lot different now." When he frowned and said nothing, she sighed. "It's a good different. When you were a vampire, you carried around a lot of guilt. I think I've seen you smile more this week than I have in the past year. Your love for... this girl... maybe it was weighing you down."

"Whatever happened between us, there's no way it killed that feeling." He roughly grabbed the ball and rolled onto his stomach. There was no way Elena would understand the things he had felt with the girl from his dream. The chemistry in the air was something unforgettable, something priceless. It felt special, like their love had been one-in-a-million. It was undying. Invincible. And he knew that maybe he was hanging onto false hope, –it wasn't as if she were sitting beside him right now!– but he trusted his instincts, and every single one was telling him to love.

Elena let out a long breath and turned back to the journals. He smiled a bit to himself; there was something about his brother's girlfriend that intrigued Stefan. There was a sadness always present in her chocolate eyes, but elation as well. He wanted to know more about her, and he wasn't quite sure why. Maybe it had something to do with the cute way that her nose crinkled when she was trying to concentrate, or the way she seemed to visibly relax when she laughed. He didn't know why he noticed these things, but he kind of liked that he did. After a second of wondering, Stefan came to the conclusion that he simply appreciated Elena and the genuine interest she took in him.

When she noticed him staring, Elena glanced back up, her eyes lingering on his for a second too long before she glanced back down and covered her face with her hair. She opened her mouth to speak and quickly closed it again. Curious, Stefan simply watched and waited for her to speak. She looked up at him again briefly and stared at the floor. "Maybe you should just read your journals. Maybe you'll remember everything, including the girl from your dream."

Stefan's stomach lurched. "No," he said immediately. "I don't think I want to remember." It was strange, but he was unable to describe the dread that coursed through him at the thought of becoming the person he had been. He didn't want to be miserable, like Elena told him he had been. He wanted to remember who he was by rediscovering it, not by recollection.

Elena looked somewhat relieved and somewhat disappointed, but Stefan didn't ask. She began to silently close the books and put them back on the shelves, and he watched, desperately trying to come up with something to say to her.

Say something witty, he thought to himself. Don't just sit here staring at her like an idiot.

"I... uh... I like your necklace."

He cringed. What kind of comment was that? She wasn't even facing him. She probably thought he'd been staring there for a greater portion of the afternoon, and he didn't want that, because he genuinely liked the way it looked on her, and he hoped that she got that, and... wait, why did he even care?

Instead of giving him a strange glance like he had expected, Elena turned to him slowly, a slow smile curving on her soft lips. Well, he didn't know if they were soft, but they looked soft.

"You like it?" she said softly, her eyes full of awe, and for a brief second, no pain. She fingered the old, silver pendant that rested over her chest and bit her lip. "It was a gift. I think I kind of wear it too much." She slowly made her way over to Stefan's bed and sat on the edge, so he pulled himself up and sat beside her.

"It's beautiful," he complimented.

"Yeah, it is." She gave a halfhearted smile. "No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to lose it."

Stefan gave her a look of confusion and asked her why she wanted to lose it. Elena gave a little chuckle and replied, "It was given to me by someone I love- loved very much."

He tilted his head to the side, never looking away from her face. "You've loved more than one person?" This concept was completely new to him. From the look in her eyes, it seemed like this person still had a tight grip on her heart, and yet she wasn't with him. He finally understood the constant pain in her eyes. Was Elena's lost love similar to his?

Her grievous look struck him to the soul. "Yes, I have," she answered honestly. "Love comes and goes, Stefan. It's more complicated than smiles and declarations of forever on a rooftop."

He felt the strange urge to brush a strand of hair from Elena's face, but suppressed it. "What does it feel like?" he wondered aloud, glancing down at the pendant on her neck once more.

Stefan wasn't really expecting an answer, but almost absently, Elena began to speak. "Love is... love is like being caught in a tornado. You see the storm coming every time, but you're never ready for the moment that the tornado picks you up off of your feet and carries you away. First, you're really scared. Terrified. You've never done this before. Then, for a while, it's incredible. You're flying. And you're blinded, but it's alright, because you're spiraling up and you have no control over your body. It's exhilarating. But you know that it's dangerous... that it kills and causes pain. And eventually, you spin right out or it fades to nothing. And you're left with nothing but damage."

Elena was looking at something only she could see now. Stefan was amazed by her words, the way her lips could form pictures in his mind and build pressure in his chest. He wanted to get tangled up and lost in her words. "But it's all worth it," she said after a long pause. "Because you'll never forget what it was like to fly."

Stefan just looked at her for a long moment. "Why can't you keep flying?"

"To feel something." Finally, she snapped back into reality. "Wait a minute... feeling something. That's the key!" She quickly spun to face Stefan, her eyes wide with wonder; he could practically see her heart through her eyes. "I know how to help you realize who you're supposed to be!" she finally said, her eyes shining. Before Stefan could even speak, she explained, "When you learn to love, how to really love, Stefan, you learn how to live."

He was not following her. "...And?"

"I'm going to take you through the steps. I'm going to show you what it's like to love."

He was now the one to give her a strange look. "That's going to be a problem, considering I have no one to love right now. And it's not like I can pick someone."

"No, it doesn't actually require falling in love." Elena shook her head, and he was having difficulty understanding what she was trying to accomplish here. If he wasn't supposed to fall in love, how was he going to love? "When you're in love, you experience every emotion known to man, right?"

He shrugged. "I suppose..."

She smiled wider than she had all week, and Stefan couldn't help but smile back. She stood up and extended her hand. "Follow me. I have an idea."

He was beginning to wonder if Elena was completely sane, muttering on and on about falling in love without loving. But nonetheless, he placed his trembling hand in her own.

With a pleasant shock, Stefan realized that he would probably follow this sad, crazy, wondrous girl to the end of the earth if she kept smiling at him like that.

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