Heal Me

Chapter 25

"I'm sorry."

That was all he said as he avoided her gaze by looking down because he couldn't say 'no' to those beautiful eyes.

"I thought... you wanted to know." she murmured after a few moments, clearly embarrassed. She just wanted to tell him and be done with it. She needed Damon to know so that they could move on together... let it go together.

He looked at her, concern and also surprise washing through him as he realized that her past was still burdening her soul yet it was hard for her to tell him as well.

"I do." Damon replied bluntly because it was the truth: he wanted to know. But not tonight. 

"I just... It's been a very long day, Eva..." he continued with a sigh.

"It's okay. You're right..." she spoke lowly and hesitantly. She realized that... Of course she realized that it could be too much for the both of them, but she wanted to be free. From a few days before, when she got annoyed at Damon and said she could not tell him why she was not okay, Evangeline now felt this undeniable need to talk about it. She wished to share that day with someone because the thought of another soul but herself knowing all of that and being there for her and offering her a shoulder to cry on was so comforting.   

And all of a sudden her fingers started getting cold and they began trembling and her throat ached, announcing tears. She felt so weak... so pathetic and she did not even know why. Because Damon's mother died along with her baby daughter and that was so much worse that what happened to her? Because she was fussing too much over something that had happened four years before? She was not sure...

But Evangeline could not be so selfish and not respect Damon's decision. She had to wait just a little bit more; she had to make it through the night.   

"I-I'll just stop by your house tomorrow. Is that okay?" she managed to say, yet not looking at him, and opened the door.

"Yeah, whenever you want... you can let yourself in. And again, I'm sorry." he apologized quietly and looked up to see her already out of the car.

"I get it, Damon." she crouched down for him to see her face. "Good night."

"Night." he whispered but she was already up the front steps of her house, shutting the door behind her.

~

She was now knocking on his front door, nervously waiting for Damon. She knocked two more times because she was sure he was home, as his car was in the driveway, but still no answer. Evangeline remembered that he told her to let herself in, but she felt uncomfortable to do that; it was his house, after all, and she couldn't just barge in like she lived there too. Yet after a couple more moments of standing there like that, she finally tried the door and, indeed, it clicked open. Evangeline ducked her head in the doorway, the rest of her body still outside, and called him.

"Uhm... Damon?"

But no reply, so she raised her voice a bit.

"Damon? Is this a bad moment?" Evangeline frowned at the unusual silence and finally stepped inside, shutting the door behind her. She walked towards the living room and looked around, vaguely recognizing a couple of things from the night when she went to The Dark Pub to pick him up. She scoffed to herself as the image of a disheveled Damon sprawled on the sofa popped in her mind.

But Evangeline quickly shook off those thoughts and tip-toed up the stairs, where she hoped she would find him. If they had not lived pretty far apart, she would have left and came back later, because it felt as if she was trespassing, creeping around his house like a thief. That thought brought a wide, sheepish smile to her face as she got to the top of the stairs and knocked on the first door, opening it when she did not hear anything. It was a very elegant, organized office, with a massive ebony desk and many small glass shelves on the walls, with all sort of books, binders and framed photographs or diplomas on them. She figured this had to be Damon's father's office, as she could still sense the manly cologne in the air.

Evangeline closed the door and, trying the one next to it, she found herself in a spacious bedroom, which was empty, just as the living room and the office. Where could Damon be? His car was there and the front door was unlocked. But didn't he hear her calling him? Her certainty that he was home was quickly lowering.

Frowning, Evangeline sauntered to one of the last doors remaining, wanting to at least try all possibilities before looking for him somewhere else, and opened it quietly. And, finally, Damon was there. In nothing but a white towel hanging from his hips.

Her mouth opened with a gasp as her eyes uncontrollably roamed across his almost naked form, with water droplets dripping from his hair and hitting his hard, hairless chest, then rolling down his abdomen to his faded V-line, where the towel finally absorbed them.

The whole room was warm and smelled of steam and his usual woody and leathery perfume, which she got the chance to indulge in that evening on the small hill where he kept her in his protective arms.

But after a second or two of standing there like that, Evangeline finally realized the situation she was in and noticed the embarrassed and surprised look on Damon's face.

"God, I'm sorry." she blurted and got out of his room, closing the door.

" I-I... I'm so, so sorry. You told me to let myself in so, uhm..."

"It's okay, Eva." he said louder than usual so she could hear him through the closed door. A smile was evident on his lips as he quickly dried off and put on a pair of jeans, a soft T-shirt and a cardigan.

"I did call you but I guess you were in the shower and you couldn't hear me." she mumbled, regretting that she did not knock.

"Don't worry." Damon replied as he opened the door with a mischievous yet goofy smile on his face. "It could have been worse. I could have been butt naked." he emphasized those last words teasingly.

"Shut up." she muttered jokingly and looked down, her cheeks going crimson red. Damon chuckled, which made her smile too, and got out of the way so she could come in.

"Anyway..." she sighed and curiously looked around Damon's room. She was quiet while she took in the high bed with white and burgundy sheets, the desk with a few notebooks on it, the dark curtains that were pushed aside so the light could come in brightly and the wide TV and playstation directly across the bed, on the opposite wall, of course.

"You've got a nice room... huge too." she said absently while reading with delight the title of the books he had on the few shelves. Damon was standing in the middle of the room with the wet towel still in his hands and he just watched her with a contented small smile on his face. This was the first time he was actually glad he met her in the first place because he realized that he would have never been the way he was now without her. From the brunette intriguing girl who asked if she could stay beside him a few weeks ago, when she was nothing to him but a stranger, Evangeline gradually became so much more than that.

She had been right: they actually were friends.

And his father and her were the only two reasons Damon's life was worth living after all that had happened.

"What?" Evangeline said after a few moments, when she felt him staring.

"You made them stop..." he murmured with his lips still curved into that boyish smile.

Frowning, she turned her whole body to face him.

There was something in his eyes that made them so intense and so deep, so meaningful... there was a little, little something she could not distinguish properly, because all she could tell now was that it warmed her insides and made her heart beat faster, sending her in a sort of ecstatic frenzy. It felt strange yet right at the same time.

"Made what stop?" she asked.

"The nightmares."