****HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY EVERYBODY!!!***** Unless you're not American and in that case, have a great day :)
“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Derek asked me as we drove to my father’s house, the ten of us piled into another big SUV that Marcus had magically produced outside the airport. Loni sat up front with Marcus, directing him, and I couldn’t help but suspect that something was going on with the two of them. Of course, I had bigger issues to deal with and the thought was lost in the chaotic sea that was my mind at the moment. My dad had been my biggest fear since I was a little girl, and to willingly seek him out was practically suicidal for me. But now I had Derek…and even that couldn’t stem the fear that gripped me tightly and turned my entire body to ice – cold, hard, and emotionless.
“Yes.” Marcus pulled the car up in front of my dad’s house, and I stared up at the simple light blue house in awe. So this is where my father lives. Huh. I thought it would be more…evil. We’d agreed on the way there that Loni, Damien, Annie, Derek and I would all go in and talk to my dad while Milo, Jake, and Cate snuck around back and searched the house. I didn’t want to go in there, but a part of me that I’d rarely felt come out had reared its head in defense of my brothers. I loved them, and if they were here, I had to find out. No matter what the cost, I reminded myself. Damien knocked loudly on the big oak front door, and when there wasn’t an immediate answer, he knocked again more insistently.
“Guess he’s not home,” Loni said, turning to go back to the car when Annie stopped her.
“Do you smell that?”
“Smell what?”
“The house…it’s empty.”
“Yeah, we established that by knocking, genius,” Loni remarked smartly, putting her hands on her hips just as Milo, Jake and Cate joined us in front of the house.
“There’s nobody home,” Cate told me, placing a hand on my shoulder carefully. I frowned, confusion washing over me.
“So what? We’ll just come back later. Did you see any sign that Mike and Kyle have been here?”
“No Chris…the house is empty. It’s been empty for over three months.”
“W-what?” I stammered, shaking my head. What the hell did she know anyway? “No, this is the address. He gave it to Michael to give to me before he left last time.”
“Maybe he moved?” Loni offered, shifting on her feet uncomfortably as though she didn’t like what Cate and Annie were implying. Glancing around, I realized all of the vampires had the same sad, almost pitying look on their faces, and I grew uneasy.
“No, all of his stuff is still there. It’s just…left there,” Jake said quietly, and I waited for somebody to tell me what was going on.
“So what’re you saying?”
“We’re saying it looks like your father is dead.”
*** *** ***
“I mean, who the fuck do they think they are, huh? Telling me my father’s dead? Like I wouldn’t know! I’m his fucking daughter, of course I would know!” I shouted, pacing back and forth in the hotel room I was sharing with Loni. Damien had forbidden me and Derek to be alone together since the airplane incident, so I was now sharing a room with my sister. Although at the moment, she was “out” and I’d snuck Derek in here so I could rant to him.
“Chris…”
“Like they can sniff around a bit outside and suddenly they know everything about my dad? Um, they may be vampires but they aren’t psychics!”
“Actually, psychics tell the future-“
“Whatever! The point is, if my dad had died, I would have been notified, right? A phone call or something?”
“Chris there’s something I need to tell you and you might not like it but…I need you to hear it anyway,” Derek interrupted me, getting up to take my hand and seat me on the bed beside him. I took a deep breath, nodding as I prepared myself to hear some of Derek’s legendary wisdom; whenever I had a problem like this, he always managed to make me feel better about it, see clearly and calm my temper.
“Do you remember when I asked you to move in?” Derek started, clearing his throat and looking at me almost nervously. I nodded, wondering what that had to do with anything.
“Yeah, it was the day after my dad, uh, came to visit.”
“Right. And you told me what he did to you so I let you stay with me.”
“Yes, Derek, I know. I was there.”
“Of course, but um…do you remember what happened after that?”
“I ended up staying with you for longer. Look, Derek, if you’re not going to talk to me about my dad then-“
“No, just wait. Do you remember what happened before? Like that same day?”
“Um…I think I remember falling asleep and then you got back and asked me to move in. Oh and you got my stuff for me.”
“Yeah. Um…Chris, I’m not sure how to say this but I just want you to know that I love you so much and I only did what I did because I love you.”
“What’d you do, Derek?” I asked suspiciously, dread filling my uneasy stomach. I had a bad feeling about where this was going, and I prayed that Derek wasn’t going to say what I thought he was.
“Well, after you fell asleep, I was so mad about what you told me. I mean, your dad abusedyou for years and then had the nerve to show up and hurt you again? I just couldn’t handle it. So I, um, I went over to your house to get your stuff and have a talk with your dad.” Derek paused, looking down at our clasped hands. My breath was becoming shallow as I hoped beyond hope that this conversation wasn’t going where I dreaded it was.
“When I saw him, just sitting at the table drinking a beer as if he’d never done a harmful thing in his life…well I was furious. He should’ve had the decency to at least feel bad about what he did! And after that, um, my wolf kind of got the best of me and I…I turned.”
“You what?” I whispered, drawing my hand out of Derek’s and inching away from him. Please no…
“And I just couldn’t control my anger. I promise you, I thought I was doing the right thing-“
“What did you do?”
“I…I killed him, Chris.”
I sat there, stunned for just a moment before it sank in. Derek killed my dad. He murdered him. My father. Then I was on my feet, pointing a shaking hand at Derek as tears sprang into my eyes.
“What?” I cried, trying to pretend that none of this had happened. That Derek hadn’t just told me he’d killed my father. That my world hadn’t just come crashing down around me.
“Chris, I am so sorry and I’ve regretted it every day since.”
“But…but why…how could you…why didn’t you tell me? You waited until I was at my dad’s doorstep before telling me you killed him months ago? You let me come all the way to Chicago when you knew he wasn’t here? Were you just lying to me the whole time?”
“No, Chris, of course not, I just didn’t know what to say-“
“You didn’t know what to say? Derek, that was my dad! You killed my dad!”
“I know, I’m so sorry-“
“How could you?” I wailed in a trembling voice, my knees buckling as I crumpled to the ground. Derek’s betrayal was hitting me hard, and I let the pain wash over me relentlessly. Suddenly, it was as if the air was simply too heavy for me to push against, like gravity had just increased tenfold. The oxygen I was pulling into my lungs grew sparse, and I gasped through my sobs, clenching my hair in my hands tightly. The pain in my chest was like a ball of fire, slowly increasing with each passing moment, and I let out a scream of agony as it flared up. I knew Derek was trying to say something to me, but I could barely even listen to him over the pure torture I was feeling. I’d trusted Derek with my life, told him everything, and opened myself up to him completely; I would’ve died for Derek. And I’d thought he felt the same way, but the cold hard truth was that nobody is that perfect. I’d been a delusional idiot to think that Derek was my soul mate, that he was the one, and he’d just gone and proven me right. I was an idiot to trust him.
“GO! Just go, Derek,” I shrieked through my tears, not even bothering to look up as he exited the room.
“I’m sorry, Chris. I am so sorry” were the last words I heard him say.
*** *** ***
Three weeks later
“That’s the last place we can think to look,” Loni told Damien as the nine of us gathered in yet another dingy hotel lobby, this time in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Our family had gone on one vacation there back when we were little, and it had been a last-ditch effort to look there. Since Derek and I had broken up and he’d gone back to Beacon Hills, Damien and our group had been all over the country looking for my brothers. We’d tried Denver, Colorado, where our grandparents lived. Then we’d gone to New York, where my mom’s mother used to live in case Michael and Kyle were feeling nostalgic. After hitting dead ends there, Loni and I had led the vampires to Atlanta, Deer Isle (Maine), and even to San Antonio, Texas, which was home to Michael’s favorite basketball team, the Spurs. But after no luck in any of those locations, Loni and I were just about ready to head home.
“And if I don’t make it back for finals, my grades will have dropped so low I’ll be forced to repeat sophomore year,” I added, shoving my hands in my pockets dejectedly. I’d been depressed for three weeks, after finding out my dad was dead. Not that I’d miss him, because I most certainly would not. But I’d had some good memories with my dad as well. And besides, he was still my dad. In a way, I would always love him no matter how badly he hurt me or how awful of a person he was. But now he was gone, forever. Somehow, I always thought in the future, when we were both older and my dad was on his death bed, he would apologize to me for all the abuse and crap he’d given me, and I’d be able to hug him and we’d both cry and then the machine would beep and flat line just as he told me he loved me in his croaky, old-man voice. A tear slipped down my cheek as I recalled my dumb fantasy, and I quickly wiped it away before anybody could see.
“But we can’t just give up!” Annie protested, her bottom lip quivering as though she were about to cry.
“You guys can continue looking without us. We’ll leave you a list of all possible other places to look, and if you find them we’ll fly out immediately of course but…we have to get back to our lives,” Loni said quietly, and together the two of us gave each vampire a tight hug and promised to call. Over the course of a month, we’d all become close, and I’d actually grown quite fond of some of them. Cate, Gisela, Marcus, Jake, Damien…I would really miss them the most.
After crying a little bit, and then giving Cate one last hug, Loni and I boarded our plane back to Beacon Hills sadly. It wasn’t just that I’d grown to regard Cate as one of my best friends, and Gisela, too. That Marcus and Jake always knew how to make me laugh, and Damien was possibly the best advice-giver in the world. It wasn’t even that without the seven of them, I never would have made it through my break up with Derek in one piece. It was that the life I was returning to in Beacon Hills wasn’t even remotely as fantastic as the life I’d been living for the past four and a half weeks. Without Derek, my whole world just seemed…bleak. And this time Cate wasn’t here to tell me to get back on my feet, and Jake couldn’t give me a ridiculous makeover and take me out dancing despite Damien’s protests. I couldn’t lose myself in Marcus’s jokes, or even distract myself by flirting harmlessly with Milo. I couldn’t cry myself to sleep with Gisela by my side, rubbing my back, and I couldn’t even be comforted by Annie’s countless horrifying stories about Michael. They were all gone now, and suddenly I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to survive without them. I needed those vampires, I realized with a start. And that just renewed the pain in my heart, the pain that would never ever go away. The pain that Derek had inflicted.
Several hours later, I was pushing my old key through the lock and stepping into my house cautiously. It had taken me a good fifteen minutes to hunt down the key, seeing as I hadn’t needed to use it in months. I wasn’t entirely surprised to see all my suitcases, duffle bags, and purses piled up on the kitchen table; Isaac or Erica must have brought them over when they’d heard the news. I’d gotten numerous calls and texts from the two of them, asking how I was, what happened, why Derek had come back without me, but I’d been too chicken to respond. By now I figured Derek had told them what he’d done, or at least some version of the story. But it didn’t really matter, one way or the other – I knew I could no longer be friends with Erica or Isaac after what Derek had done. They would always choose him over me, and there was nothing I could do to change that.
Feeling fed up and exhausted, I didn’t even bother going upstairs. Instead I just walked into the kitchen, grabbed a tub of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream, and curled up on the couch to eat it while I watched the saddest episodes of Vampire Diaries I could think of. I went through every season, watching characters die left and right while I bawled my eyes out. By now it was way past midnight, and I’d already broken the first promise I’d made to Cate – that I’d go to school tomorrow. Yeah, that’s not gonna happen now. I cried into my ice cream as my mind again wandered back to Derek; it always did, after a while. I was hurt by his betrayal, and the fact that he did in fact take my dad away from me, but what I was most upset by was his motivation. I knew he’d only killed my father for me, which made the guilt eat away at me until I was so empty and fragile I just didn’t know how to live anymore. What am I supposed to do now? I thought hopelessly, allowing the wracking sobs to wear themselves out. But two hours later, I was still crying and finally I just decided to turn over and go to sleep on the couch, regardless of whether my heart ached like it’d just been impaled. Goodnight Derek, I thought sleepily as my eyes drooped closed and I was sucked away into unconsciousness.
Derek’s POV
With a yell that shook the walls, I drove my fist into the floorboards in anger before jumping back up and doing fast, hard pushups to distract myself from the pain. The pain of losing Chris. I’d been an idiot when I’d gone after her father, and the guilt had plagued me ever since. I guess I’d just been waiting for the right time to tell her, and then there was the whole threat with the Argents and then she got pregnant and then I proposed…and I just couldn’t bear to lose Chris after that. But now, despite my best efforts, I’d hurt her in ways I couldn’t even imagine, and hurt myself in the process. Just great. Nice Work, Hale. Even though I’d tried to stay busy with the pack, and pick somebody to turn, it just hurt too much. I couldn’t think about turning someone without thinking of how I’d wanted to turn Chris. And then her friend Alice had been my second choice…but I’d have to talk to Isaac before doing that, and I just couldn’t face him or Erica yet. Although neither of them knew what exactly had happened, they knew we’d broken up and that I was devastated. I didn’t know if they’d talked to Chris or not because she was still searching for her brothers with those vampires…it drove me crazy thinking about her, wandering the country all alone without anybody to protect her but those dumbasses. I thought about Chris all the time; she was everywhere. Even though Isaac and Erica had moved all her stuff out, I could still spot things that reminded me inexplicably of her. The empty spots on the bookshelf where her ridiculous vampire romance books had been; the scent of her vanilla-and-oranges shampoo in the shower; the three different kinds of syrup we had in the cupboards because she covered basically everything in the gross stuff. I could barely leave my room, let alone the house, without breaking down and falling apart over her. I didn’t want Isaac or Erica to see me cry, but I knew they could hear me at night, silently sobbing to myself as I curled up in the big, empty bed alone. Cece had tried to talk to me countless times, but I’d pushed her away until finally, she’d left. I didn’t know where she’d gone until Peter told me she was living with him, but I didn’t really care. Chris hadn’t liked Cece anyway, so being around her just reminded me of the arguments Chris and I had had. Which in turn made me feel like punching myself in the face for how stupid I’d been to ever disagree with someone as amazing and special as Chris; how had I been such an idiot to let her slip through my fingers? With a groan, I leapt up and began to do fierce pull-ups from the bar I’d had installed over the bathroom door when Chris had mentioned how sexy she found it when I worked out. Dammit. I dropped down from the bar and stalked into the bathroom to splash ice cold water over my face vigorously. It had only been three weeks, but it felt like forever without Chris. I can’t do this anymore.
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Awwww :( I was crying while writing this :( I'm so sad that this moment had to come, but I'd been debating with myself whether to do them showing up at Chris's dads house & then Derek kills him, or having Derek killing him three months ago and I guess you can tell which one I decided to go with. It makes me so sad to have both of my favorite characters hurting so badly, but its necessary trust me! I would never do this on purpose :( But for those of you who might be wondering - this breakup is kinda sorta semi-permanent...meaning they wont make up in a day or even a week like before. This will take some time for Chris to get over, but I promise you this - they WILL end up back togehter eventually! Just not too soon :( So sorry please dont hate me!
But i'm curious to hear what you guys think of this chapter, so I'm going to do something I don't usually do. IF YOU ARE READING THIS RIGHT NOW, SCROLL DOWN A BIT AND LEAVE ME A COMMENT (not shouting, just in all caps to get your attention lol) But I know the usual people who always leave comments and I love you guys! But I really really wanna hear from those of you who I know are reading because I get like a hundred-something reads on each chapter, but who never comment :( So please please please just take a second to comment what you think or even just letting me know you like the story! Thanks so much guys and I hope you know I stayed up till 2 am writing this for you :) I didnt originally plan on updating until tomorrow or even Friday! But i just love you guys so much :P Anywayyyss, I hope you liked this chapter and I'll try to update by this weekend! Thanks so much and the pic on the right is of Annie >>>>>
xoxoxox thanks!