Bad Blood || The Vampire Diaries [1]

23: Bringing Out The Dead

   Caroline sat in front of me, watching me carefully. She tapped her fingers against the table as she watched me, brows furrowed in both confusion and anxiousness. I had told her about the drunken incident with Stefan, where I told him that I would forget about Damon. What I kept quiet was how I suddenly saw Stefan differently than before; she could learn that some other time.

   "So, you're breaking up with him?" Caroline asked, leaning over the table a bit. 

   "We aren't together to begin with," I told her, straightening my back. "It's more like me ending my feelings for him."

   "But, why?" She shrugged her shoulders and looked at me as if I were crazy. "Why would you do that? You looked like you really loved him, Clara!"

   "And I did," I sighed, running my hair back with my hand. "I just don't want to waste my feelings on someone who doesn't truly love me back, Caroline." I sighed and leaned back on the chair, looking out to the passing people. There were couples, both young and elderly and so in love. They smiled at each other, they stared into each others eyes, and they held hands as if it was the only thing keeping them from drifting away. 

   I sighed and turned back to Caroline, giving her a small smile. "I've loved Damon for over one hundred-and-something years, and he loved me for only five of those. After all this time wasting my feelings on him, I should move on, shouldn't I? I mean, yeah, he was my first love and I will always love him, but it's time for me to move on." I pulled out the ring and laid it on top of the table, letting her look at it. "To make it official that I'm moving on from him, I'm going to return that."

   "A ring?" she asked, surprised.

   "It was our engagement ring," I told her, smiling. "I thought it was taken from me after I died, turned out that Damon had it. He gave it to me when he and Elena came to Chicago." I stared at the ring in her fingers, admiring it. "I thought it meant that he still loved me, but maybe it meant that he was letting me go."

   Caroline threw her head back and groaned. "Ugh, I hate love!" she said, handing me the ring.

   I chuckled and pushed the ring in the pocket of my sweater. "So, have you heard from Tyler?" The Lockwood hybrid had left, and no one knew where he was or where did he go.

   "No," she sighed. "And I've left messages for him everywhere."

   "He's bound to re-appear sometime soon," I told her as I dug for money in my purse. "Don't worry too much about it, Care. Worry more about your dad."

   Bill Forbes, her father, the one that hated vampires and was my descendant, had been attacked by Tyler while trying to help the hybrid break his sire. Currently, Bill was at the hospital and Caroline was anxious to go. She wanted me to go with her so I could meet him, but I decided not to since he needed to take in that his daughter was a vampire and that she meant no harm to him or anyone else. 

   "I'll pay for this," I told Caroline as I laid thirty dollars on the table. "You go pick up your father from the hospital."

   "Come with me," she said, laying her eyes on me. "Please. You can meet your great-great nephew, or whatever."

   I let out a soft chuckle and shook my head. "I rather not get killed by a family-member."

   "He won't kill you," she promised, giving me a smile. "Please, Clara! Come with me. Maybe you can rethink this whole breaking up with Damon thing. I'm for the whole Team Camon, Dlara, whatever."

   "Yeah, well, I'm no longer Team Camon," I said, rolling my eyes at her. "Or, whatever. What is that, anyway?"

   "Your shipping name," she smiled. "It's your name pushed together, Camon." She took my hand and dragged me to her car. As she drove, she began to gush about how her father would love me, but I knew she was just telling herself that because her father was anti-vampire.