Barely A Memory

Chapter 7

XXXX

I've got an itch,
You've got an emptiness,
I couldn't fill,
False gods and tenderness
Into your will,
Pray on the falling,
Straps from your shoulders,
How do I hold you?

XXXX

Elena concentrated on the road as she drove, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles were practically white. The last time she was in a car with Stefan Salvatore, his loving eyes had not left her face once, and she absolutely adored it. Now, many things had changed while others had not. Stefan was looking at her; she could feel her body tremble a little bit more every time his eyes fell on her, but the semi-pleasant chills went away almost immediately, for he would look down at something random in the car and pretend that it was interesting. Elena wondered if her face was giving her away, for she had not once dared to lock eyes with him. Now that they were both human, she couldn't risk getting distracted and accidentally driving off of Wickery Bridge.

She winced at the thought. Too soon.

Despite the shaky rush that flooded through her every time Stefan glanced over, Elena hated that he kept looking at her. What was so interesting about her face, anyways? Shouldn't there have been some phantom instinct remaining in Stefan's cluttered mind that was telling him to stay away from her? She, after all, had been the reason for his demise. If Stefan had remembered her when he returned, Elena knew that he probably would have been halfway to Australia by now. Who on earth would want to be involved with her after all of the things she had done? Being sired was not an excuse; she was sick of excuses.

So this is what she was going to do: she was going to teach Stefan how to live without love and convince Damon to leave Mystic Falls with his brother in tow and never look back. Or maybe she would leave. It wasn't too late to apply to college.

The minor details did not matter now. All that mattered was the fact that Elena was going to teach Stefan how to live without her and let him move on. He would do it, too. He would find another girl who deserved him, and he would love her to the ends of the earth. She'd make him happy, and eventually, he'd settle down and marry her and have beautiful children and...

With a painful tug at her chest, Elena thought about what a great father Stefan was someday going to be.

She hated the fact that she was already jealous of this anonymous woman, the anonymous woman she had mentally created for him.

"You know," Stefan said after a long silence. For a brief second, Elena's heart stopped beating when he looked at her, but her breath returned when his eyes fell on the road. She hated the effect he still had on her. "I was thinking about your whole 'love is like being in a tornado' simile."

Elena concentrated on the road. "And?"

Chuckling to himself, Stefan observed, "I'm pretty sure that if someone was in a tornado, they would not want to be caught in another one."

Unable to keep the grin from curling onto her lips, she took a risk and briefly glanced at him. "Touché."

He rested his head back in the seat, now concentrated on the road. From the tone in his voice, Elena knew he was smiling. "That is, if they made it out alive."

She simply shook her head. Even when he pretty much knew nothing, Stefan still made a point to prove his intelligence. "Know-it-all," she teased, immediately regretting it. Every time she opened herself up to this pleasant feeling that surrounded Stefan -every time she let him in- Elena knew she was playing with fire. She couldn't explain it. He wasn't even a vampire, but there was something so compelling about him, about the atmosphere around him. It was so damn hard to keep him at arms' reach when her body visibly shook and her lips curled up whenever he did something as simple as look at her.