Barely A Memory

Chapter 23

"But you weren't!" She argued. "You let her make her own decisions and she let you. You were perfect, Stefan."

"And now she doesn't love me," he commented curtly. "Nothing can change that. And I stopped waiting for her to magically change her mind years ago."

Caroline frowned and internally cursed herself for even bringing it up. "So..."

"So I'm done waiting. I've been done." He threw the shirt over his head, almost completely forgetting about his hangover. "If she came through that door right now, I would not go back to her."

XXXX

Elena's heels clicked across the pavement as she walked outside of the Florida bar, the man behind her practically salivating as he followed her, paying close attention to the confident sway of her hips. She reached behind her, a gentle grin forming on her red, painted lips when he took her hand. "You do stuff like this often?" she asked, her back to him.

He chuckled. "Nah, you're a special case, babe."

"Hmm," she said. "You sure knew how to charm me." She giggled and finally turned to reveal her grin as she gripped him by the collar and pushed her lips to his roughly. He returned the kiss with sloppy fervor as she pushed him to the wall of the ally, her hands pressed against his torso. This went on for a few minutes, just as Elena had suspected it would, until she pulled away, "Wait," she panted, leaning back, just inches from his lips. "I have a question."

"Anything," he breathed, staring down at the space between them.

"Did you really think you could lure me out here to kill me?" Before he could even register what she had said, Elena took a small step back. Within a split second, she had reached into her jacket and pulled out something –a wooden stake-, plunging it deep into his stomach. He shouted out in pain and reached to pull it out, but she only twisted it deeper, which in return made him yell out in pain again. "You mentioned the cure to vampirism in there. What do you know about it?"

"I... don't... I don't know anything," he gasped. Elena gritted her teeth and twisted it deeper. "How'd you know I was a vampire?"

She chuckled, a dark, jaded sound that resonated from somewhere deep in her throat. "It's a skill." After all, she had spent the past year perfecting this: killing vampires, sensing a vampire's gaze, fighting a vampire. Ever since she'd killed the vampires who had taken her from Stefan, she'd been unstoppable. "Now tell me what you know."

"I'll tell you if you don't kill me, please," he begged, pain-stricken.

"Fine. Go."

"I know that there's two humans right now who hold the key. One was resurrected from the dead. I don't... I don't know how. I've just... I've heard things." He coughed in pain and Elena loosened her grip. "There's rumors about them. Whoever kills them, drains them of their blood, gets the cure. Apparently the... dead one's got these... abilities. No one knows."

XXXX

This incident from the previous night played over and over again in Elena's head as she drove up into her hometown. The "Welcome to Mystic Falls" sign filled her with so much nostalgia that she almost had to pull over and catch her bearings. She'd spent the past year of her life trying to fill her void through hunting, but now... Now, it was all coming back to her.

She lived here. Died here. Lost her parents here. Fell in love here. Fell out of love here.

Elena could already feel tears stinging at her eyes. She'd found everything and lost everything in this quaint little town. She hadn't seen Stefan Salvatore's face for two years, and she was pretty sure that she'd been suffering from withdrawals every single day.