fanfiction
On Tiptoes
It takes Elena all of ten minutes after their arrival to realize she is once again the keeper of a secret that she can’t share with anyone. She and Damon had agreed, rather bitterly on his side, that they would pretend as if nothing had happened until they had Stefan nursed back to his normal self. So when Bonnie and Caroline are waiting for them at the Boarding House, showering her with hugs and kisses when she gets out of the car, Elena finds herself answering with something akin to a lie when they ask her how she is. Tired, she tells them, but also thrilled that they got Stefan back and a little worried about how long it will take him to recover. Then there is a pause where she very explicitly leaves out how much really happened, how profoundly changed she feels and Bonnie and Caroline just smile and nod, their arms slung around her, not realizing that she’s no longer the Elena they know. It does something funny to her throat, the realization that she has distanced herself from these two girls and their allegedly unconditional love and understanding for each other. Thankfully, almost as if on purpose, Damon choses this moment to interrupt their reunion.
“Hey Blondie”, his irritated voice reaches them from the direction of the trunk, while the grunting and thrashing noises let them know that Stefan is at least partly conscious and not exactly in a cooperative mood. “Care to give me a hand over here?”
Caroline rolls her eyes and lets out an exaggerated sigh but flashes over to him anyway while Damon meets Elena’s eyes for a bitter second before instantly looking away. It makes her realize that this in fact worse than the other time she kept a secret from everyone that mattered to her, the time when she had just found out about Stefan’s true nature. After Jenna was finally let in on everyone’s supernatural involvements, she had felt so relieved that she didn’t have to lie anymore to someone close to her. And now this time she’s not even able to talk to Damon, her conniver and confident in crime.
After they have Stefan safely locked and vervain-injected in the cellar, all of them, including Jeremy and Alaric, come together in the parlor to discuss the situation. It could be just another crisis talk for them if it weren’t for Stefan’s significant absence from their midst. Also, though Elena is not sure if anyone else notices, she and Damon have chosen the two chairs farthest away from each other. As soon as Damon finishes his somewhat cut version of how they found Stefan, Jeremy inquires in a heated voice if they shouldn’t go after Klaus, make sure to finish him off once and for all before he starts on some new evil plan, launching a hybrid army or something similar.
“No way, Jeremy!” Elena exclaims loudly without letting him finish. “I won’t have anyone of you risking your lives again! Besides, we don’t have any idea how to kill him now that he’s a hybrid and Stefan is not even recovered and no - just no! I won’t let you!”
Jeremy seems to chew on an answer that clarifies she’s no longer in a position to forbid him anything but something about the shrill undertone in her voice makes him hold back. There are also Damon’s eyes, focused on him with a clear threat. The guy did kill him once, after all.
They agree to focus on Stefan’s recovery for the time being, deciding to not feed him anything, not even animal blood until he’s much better and that nobody human, which basically means Elena, should go downstairs without the company of another vampire.
“How bad is he?” Alaric’s voice sounds a little subdued, his worried eyes on Elena for whom he has started to feel strangely responsible since Jenna’s death.
“Well”, Damon tries very hard for his usual chipper tone. “Let’s just say that he confused us with something edible and now prefers growling as his way of communicating.” Then his gaze drifts fleetingly over Elena and he continues almost seamlessly. “He’ll get better though, it’s just a matter of time.”
They try to talk to him afterwards, all of them, Damon standing at Elena’s side as she grips the bars of the cell door while they attempt to explain the situation to him. Although he manages to leave out most of Klaus’ goodbye speech. Elena can practically see the wheels turning in Stefan’s blood dazed mind as he tries to fit their words with the apparently cloudy fragments that he himself remembers, his eyes flicking rapidly between the two of them like a panicked animal. The moment it get’s too much for him comes like a visible crack in his eyes as he suddenly lunches forward, teeth flashing and trying to snap at her hands through the little window. Damon’s in front of her in an instant, pushing her back while trying to calm his brother down rather fruitlessly, calling out to him in his rare soothing voice over the unsettling guttural noises that come out of Stefan’s throat. Meanwhile, Elena is leaning against the cold stone wall, still shivering out of shock, Caroline’s arm squeezing her reassuringly and she wonders how many times more Stefan will scare her like that before she’ll be unable to ever look at him again and feel completely safe.
After that, Damon never accompanies her when she goes downstairs, it’s always Caroline who watches out for her safety, hovering protectively in the background. Elena stands there for hours, watching his silently rejecting back as he gets increasingly weaker with the lack of blood, and tries to talk to him, to coax out something of the Stefan she knows. Just a glimpse, something that will tell her he’s still in there somewhere and needs her to simply dig him out again. Instead he refuses to even look at her, never mind talk to her. It makes her feel like a moron. A very sad, naïve, pitiful moron.
Sometimes she wonders if she would bear it better if she could just talk to Damon, get some of his pragmatic, nonchalant but, nevertheless, slightly optimistic comments to put things into perspective. But they never talk these days, careful to avoid looking too close now, as if they fear that one accidental touch, one intimate word, might be enough to unravel their secret in front of all the others. As if on instinct they never sit on the same couch anymore when a meeting with the whole group is on and when she wants to tell him something she leaves notes, rather than calling. Increasingly she feels it whenever Damon’s looking at her too long, stands to close or says something to her with that sweet, tender undertone that is far too intimate for a boyfriend’s brother, carrying with it memories of a night she tries very hard not to think about. Always then she averts her eyes, takes a step back or replies something in a harsh voice, determined to keep up the distance between them. However, several times she has caught herself staring at him when she feels unwatched, getting lost in the curve of his forehead or the movement of his hands. What surprises her is how much she actually misses him. After weeks of spending night and day together she’s grown used to their banter, their silly games, to him just being there all the time. And she realizes how little she actually knows about him, how many things she still has to ask of him. Where was he when WWII ended? What is the one dish that he simply detests? Does he prefer dogs or cats? All of a sudden these things seem very important but as with Stefan, there is only silence between her and Damon nowadays and she hasn’t forgotten that it was her own choice, for the most part.
Elena thinks they are playing their roles well because, aside from Bonnie, nobody has made a comment so far.
“What’s up with him lately?” she had asked after they passed Damon by in the driveway of the boarding house and he barely nodded in greeting. “Did you guys have a fight?” Her eyes had been fixing her curiously, head tilted up and Elena had heard herself telling her best friend in the world a complete lie for the first time in her life.
“Oh, you know, just Damon being Damon. He’s probably still moping that I didn’t let him go alone to find Stefan. Thank God I don’t have to hear his smug comments twentyfour hours a day any more!”
And Bonnie just rolled her eyes dramatically, huffed once and agreed “Damon!” as if that would sum it up, while Elena was inwardly yelling at herself, pressing her fingernails so hard into her palm that they were bound to leave marks.
She doesn’t want to lie to Bonnie, really, but she knows her friend, the strong animosity she feels towards Damon and her love for black and white judgments. Sadly, her own situation is nothing if not a big mess of grey right now and she can’t bear the thought of Bonnie looking at her with incomprehension and disdain if she were to find out. She simply can’t lose anyone else, so she rather lies.
The fact that Bonnie is so caught up with the problem of Jeremy and his ghostly ex-girlfriends is immensely relieving in that aspect, at least.
So it happens almost naturally that she’s spending more and more time with Caroline and she can’t help but think occasionally that vampirism is just maybe the best thing that ever happened to her. It frightens her a bit because it’s still the last thing she would wish for herself, her desire to stay human nearly overwhelming whenever she looks at Stefan. Still, if somebody would want to advertise vampires, she couldn’t imagine anyone more fitting and appealing than her blond, former second best friend. She still vividly remembers the Caroline of last year, always jabbering away about boys and social life, constantly checking her hair, insecure and, as she feared sometimes, a little jealous of her for reasons she could not really fathom. Of course, she is still immaculately dressed and determined to not let Elena lose herself in brooding, renting movies, dragging her to the mall, stuffing her with ice cream. These things haven’t changed but when she looks at her now, it’s like she sees a more refined, matured version of that girl. Instead of losing her humanity, she seems to just gain more of it every day. In the past she had been careful with her secrets around Caroline, always aware that gossip was a currency but when she imagines now how she’ll ever own up to this thing with Damon, it always starts by talking to Caroline in her mind.
In the meantime, Elena has taken to jogging, for hours on end, through the beautiful, secluded woods that begin behind the boarding house and have grown over the old Salvatore Plantation. At a pace that is too fast to be comfortable, her feet are drumming on the dark, shaded trails until she is drenched in sweat, her sides stitching and her heart beating so forcefully that she can feel the blood pumping up to her fingertips. Only when she’s about to collapse does she return to the boarding house, shakes the earth out of her shoes and takes a shower in Stefan’s room where she still sleeps every other night. Though she never ventures over to his side of the bed, only seeks out the cool sheet where his body should lie with her fingertips.
It’s almost fall now, the clouds are passing faster over the sky during the day and the nights are beginning to smell of wood fire and rotting leaves. She hasn’t found herself in front of the fridge, searching for ice cream, since last week when school started again. On Sunday, Alaric has been raking the lawn in front of their house for the first time this year, filling up plastic sacks without saying a word about it.
In two weeks she will turn eighteen. An adult, officially now.
She meets up with Caroline downstairs in the parlor, downing a cup of coffee together before making their way further downstairs, Elena with a feeling that already reminds her of failure. When they arrive at the cellar door, she begins like she usually does, by telling him about the outside world.
“Tonight it’s been really cold already, Stefan, I had to close the window when I woke up because my nose was freezing. Maybe I’ll turn on the heating soon…” As usual she waits for an answer that never comes and continues, forcing her voice to sound normal. “Damon says he’ll give you a little animal blood now, if you want it. He also says that the school secretary is sending him letters asking where you are and when you’ll come back. He said he wants to know what he should tell them soon, because he didn’t become a vampire to be stuck with annoying administration stuff.” Another silent pause. “It’s weird to be in school without you. I actually have started to really learn again, when I’m not distracted by some random vengeful vampire. Did you know that an embryo is completely covered with fine, long hair at some point during the pregnancy? Sometimes, though Mr. Carlson says that’s very rare, the baby is born and has still long hair all over its body. Can you imagine? It must be like getting a little animal instead of a baby.” Stefan remains silent. “Anyway, I bet you knew that already…” She can feel herself reaching that critical point already, the one that she tries to avoid but never does, the one where she starts to beg. “Do you know that it’s my birthday in two weeks? Caroline says we have to throw a huge party because it’s my eighteenth. I think she means something like gowns or a dress-up party by that. Do you want to know what my birthday wish is?” But still there is only silence and then she is breaking again, like she always does at some point of her visits. It’s starting to leave her washed-out. “Please, Stefan, just say something, anything! Do you want to ignore me until you just mummify of undernourishment? I know you feel guilty, Stefan, but you have to talk to me. We miss you, all of us! Do you think we just got you back for nothing? Stefan, you have to trust me, we’ll help you through this!” But there’s no answer, like she already knew there wouldn’t be. In sheer frustration Elena begins to pound against the thick door, the banging of her fists echoing loudly in the corridor. After a few seconds she can feel Caroline’s arms stilling her movements, forcing her to stop her outburst.
“Easy, Elena, easy,” she whispers assertively. “Why don’t you let me talk to him for a second, hm? You wait upstairs and I’ll try my luck for once, okay?”
She rubs her face wearily with both hands. “Okay, yes, maybe, I don’t know, maybe he’ll talk to you. I’ll just -, I’ll just wait in, um, upstairs.” Then she turns around and trots away, her feet dragging a little over the stone floor. On the step that leads down to the sitting room she sinks down, chin on her knees, fingering the old carpet while she absentmindedly listens for any noise from the cellar. At first she hears nothing, the whole house is quiet except for the occasional creak in the old walls. Behind her closed eyelids the red, pulsing light is slowly putting her to sleep. Half dreaming, she can see herself going slowly down the steps to the cellar, then abruptly missing a step and with a flinch she snaps awake again. From the stairs she can hear Caroline’s raised voice. She’s not screaming exactly, that’s something she hasn’t heard her do since the day her father announced to her that he wanted to move in with another man. But it’s as close to yelling as it get’s and Elena slowly inches down the stairs, hoping that her friend will be too engaged in her tantrum to hear or care that she’s there.
“I get it, Stefan, ok? We all get it! You feel guilty and for a good reason too. But not talking anymore, especially not to Elena, who was crisscrossing for weeks through several states to find you - well, that’s just completely mean!”
“I know that, Caroline, alright? It’s just that I simply can’t look at her, after everything I did, all the people that I …” The sound of Stefan’s voice, raspy with the lack of use, sounds unreal to Elena’s ears. But it’s certainly him, the pained tone so familiar that she can see his frowning face in her mind.
“Well, if you just go on ignoring her then you’ll have another thing to be really ashamed of, that’s for sure! Do you think Elena doesn’t know of all these people? They were travelling in your wake, ok? And yet she’s still here, simply wanting you to trust her so she can try to help you. And all you do, is pretend she’s not there when you should be so thankful! Seriously, Stefan, if you weren’t my friend I would, I would - God!” Words seem to fail her here, but knowing Caroline she’s probably gesturing wildly through the air, trying to let off steam.
“No, you don’t understand”, Stefan insists. “I get these pictures of -, I can’t be sure, all my memories are hazy but I think -, I think I might have killed a small girl.” His voice gets so quiet in the end that Elena has to strain her ears to understand him, and Caroline’s murmured response, going on for quite some time, becomes incomprehensible to her. The next thing she’s able to understand is Caroline’s question.
“Do you want me to get her? So you can talk to her?”
Stefan has barely let out a weak yes when she’s already flying down the rest of the steps and to the opened cellar door. For the first time in weeks, he’s not showing her his back; not looking her directly in the eye either but at least she can see his haggard, pale face now.
“Elena, I’m so, so sorry,” His voice is earnest even if he’s addressing the floor in front of his feet. “I don’t understand how you can still look at me, after everything I did.”
A very mean, small voice in her head comments well, I don’t know either, another provides her with something she might have said once, back then when she still believed in Stefan’s infallibility: this is not you, Stefan, you’re stronger than the blood, okay? But what she finally says is something altogether different.
“I’m so glad that you’re talking again. And I’ll promise to help you, okay? Small steps at a time and all that.” She’s not ready to give him a hug just yet but she gives him a smile, without teeth, but still and the strange quivering in the corner of his mouth tells her that he’s trying his best to return it.
Together with Caroline she makes her way upstairs again where Damon has apparently just returned from one of his numerous, mysterious trips about which she can’t ask him any longer. She tells Caroline to fill him in while she gathers her stuff from Stefan’s room before her friend is going to take her home. When she comes down again she catches Damon clapping Caroline on the back saying something like good work in an almost fatherly tone. She has the urge to tease him about it before she reminds herself that, at least in one way, he actually is Caroline’s father now and that, anyway, she no longer talks to Damon like that.
“So, glad to hear we have a willing participant to our rehab program now. This should be fun!” He eagerly rubs his hands together, blinking with fake enthusiasm.
The two girls are hurrying by him on their way outside, casually telling him goodbye when Elena feels, just for a fleeting second, his finger stroking the outside of her hand in passing.
The lurch of hope and security in her chest is so powerful that it scares her.
One and a half week pass, with small amounts of blood and Elena and Caroline’s supportive words before they let Stefan out of his cell. When he passes the ultimate resistance test, invented by Damon, and doesn’t touch the bowl of human blood deposited in front of his bed for two days, Stefan’s finally led upstairs, greeted by all of them like a lost brother. He is still careful around Elena, trying not to scare her but at the same time constantly seeking her presence, as if she’s the only thing that’s holding him up. Elena’s glad to have him back, glad for the feeling of normalcy that the return of Stefan’s old self gives her, but at the same time it’s starting to feel like a burden, as if formerly he had been her rock in the grief over her parents and now he’s suddenly dependent on her. It makes her feel so much older than him.
She’s still running whenever she’s got the time and doing her homework with a thoroughness she didn’t even possess before Wickery Bridge. But it keeps her anchored now, busy with herself whenever Stefan’s needs or the occasional glimpse she gets of Damon threaten to overwhelm her. Tonight, as they have agreed, she’s going to sleep together with Stefan in his bed again for the first time since the sacrifice. The whole day she’s been a little jittery about it, entirely unsure how it’s going to turn out, considering she hasn’t even kissed him again yet. But she’s determined to try. Right now everything, this whole mess of her feelings for the two brothers, feels like it’s tittering on a steep ridge and though she doesn’t know which way she’ll fall, to fall she wants.
A warm glowing light greets her when she enters Stefan’s room in the evening, coming from dozens of candles spread all over the desk, floor and shelves. There are fresh flowers on the nightstand and she’s pretty sure it’s Norah Jones who’s telling her that somebody’s going to be on her mind forever. It’s like the romantic, innocent dream of every teenage girl, this room and suddenly uncomfortable she turns to Stefan, who is lounging against the windowsill like the role model of the romantic hero.
“Wow, this is beautiful, Stefan,” she begins, at which his eyes light up with a hopeful smile. “But you know that I’m not ready to - you know, go all the way just yet, right?” Her hands are twisting nervously in her pockets.
“Yes, of course, Elena, don’t worry,” The understanding smile never leaves his face. “I just thought this would make it a little easier, ease the tension and all that. I thought we could watch a silly movie together and -“ he pauses dramatically. “I got you hot chocolate!”
His eyes are looking at her with such an over-the-top pleading puppy expression that it makes her smile. “Okay, yes, I would love that,” she answers him quietly, feeling as if she’d just made an important step. Hours later, tucked cozily under the blankets, her stomach filled to the brim with warm, sleep inducing cacao, she faces him in the red light of the candles, sure that she could now cross the distance between them with her hand without tensing up on the inside. She’s already debating with herself to just reach for his hand when he suddenly opens his mouth.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while,” he says quietly. “Is everything alright between you and Damon? You two have hardly talked lately…”
Elena’s pretty sure this question comes from the same place where he keeps the hazy memories of the night at the Lafayette Cemetery, but asking him about it would mean to acknowledge it so she just pulls her hand back and tries to think of a plausible explanation.
“No, it was just a little hard to be with him all the time, when we were looking for you. You know how he can be….plus, there’s still the whole thing with the blood feeding, so...” She fiddles with the pillowcase, the cozy feeling slipping second by second out of her body.
“Of course,” Stefan’s reply comes immediately, his gentleman instinct kicking in infallibly. “I’m sorry I asked. This must still be hard for you.”
“No, it’s fine,” she answers, the routine of I’m sorry, no, don’t worry so familiar that she doesn’t even have to think about it. “Of course you were curious. Would you mind if I try to sleep now? I’m really exhausted.”
“Of course”, He’s smiling, reaching over to slightly stroke her cheek, before he gently whispers I love you. Instinctively, Elena turns her pillow around with much rustling commotion, pretending she hasn’t heard the last bit. She doesn’t even feel very bad anymore. It’s really just self-preservation at this point.
She wakes hours later in a dark room, realizing that the candles must have gone out long ago and she’s unsure for a moment what woke her. Then she notices Stefan’s arms, which he must have wrapped around her while sleeping, his hot breath is tickling uncomfortable in her ear. Trying to control her accelerating heartbeat she carefully pushes against him, trying to role him off her but it only causes him to pull her tighter against him. Now she’s getting panicked, her breath coming in fast succession as she feels his whole body against hers. He’s too hot, too heavy; he’s making her dizzy, pushing her into the mattress with all his weight, his head pressing down on her throat.
“Stefan”, she whines feebly. “Get off me, Stefan, I can’t breathe!”
Now she can feel sweat breaking out as she begins to fight against him in earnest, aiming kicks at his legs, her hands fisting in his hair, trying to lift his heavy head.
“Stefan! Let go of me! Stefan!” She’s yelling, almost crying in panic when he finally seems to wake, emitting sleepy guttural grunts that only serve to heighten her fear. Suddenly the pictures are flooding her mind again, reminding her that the very same man who tore those people apart is now hovering above her in the dark and she begins to thrash at him like a madwoman, scratching, biting whatever gets in her way.
“NO! NO!” she’s screaming at the top of her lungs. “HELP! NO!”
Finally he seems to be completely awake. “Calm down, Elena, it’s just me! There’s nobody here, I swear! Please, calm down!” he urges her, trying to hold her flailing arms. But Elena won’t calm down, because can’t he see that he, exactly he, is the problem, looming over her as nothing but a dark, threatening shape? Her sweaty hair is sticking to her face with the effort to push him off, a rumble of shrieking sobs flowing from her mouth.
And then, in the blink of a second, he’s gone, light is blinding her and she’s picked up by someone else, curling herself around him like ivy, closing her eyes tightly against his skin. Above her she can hear Damon quietly lash out at Stefan with cold fury.
“Are you really this stupid, Stefan? What exactly were you trying to do, suffocate her? Scare her to death? Can’t you see that she needs more time?!”
“It wasn’t like that,” Stefan is now defending himself. “I was asleep, I must have rolled over without noticing.”
“Yeah, whatever, spare me,” Damon comments, already retreating to the door when his brother speaks up again. “Wait, where are you taking her?”
“To my room, of course, she needs a shower”, before he murmurs to Elena “Ssh, it’s okay, you’re alright. Everything’s fine, Elena, you’re okay.”
They’re almost out of the door when he can feel his brother’s eyes burning on his shoulder blades. “That’s strange, Elena said -, I didn’t think you two had become this close…”
Damon ponders for a moment whether he should make the effort to dispel Stefan’s doubts before deciding that he neither cares nor wants to. So instead he simply throws him a glance over his shoulder.
“Thought wrong then, didn’t you?”
He doesn’t bother to close the door behind him.
Once in his room, Elena feels herself be carefully lowered onto his giant bed and a second later the rushing sound of water tells her that he’s running her a bath. She probably really needs one, judging by the feel of her clammy nightwear and the amount of goose bumps covering her skin. Now he’s carrying her into the bathroom, but as he starts to tug at the hem of her shirt she stops him, feeling immensely shy all of a sudden.
“Really, Elena? I’ve already seen everything, you know…” When she still holds on to her shirt he adds “…and Stefan is still in his room, don’t worry.” She lets him get rid of her clothes now before stepping gingerly into the bathtub, the foam crackling gently against her skin. He must have put something in the water, the fragrance sweet and rich in the humid air and she instinctively knows that the smell will linger on her skin much longer, maybe even the whole next day. While she moves her limbs languidly through the hot water, Damon sinks on the ground beside her, leaning his head on the white porcelain rim of the bathtub. For a while there is only silence apart from the soft purling of water and bubbles. Then he turns his head until he’s facing her, eyes unusually dark in the dim light.
“You have to make a decision soon, you know.”
This is not what she wants to hear right now, it makes her angry, pushing her into defensive mode.
“Well, it certainly seems like you already made one since you’re barely home any more. I don’t even want to know how many women you’ve been with in the last weeks.” She had meant for that to sound furious and accusing, instead it comes out all sad and desperate. God, she’s not good at this manipulation stuff when it comes to him.
Damon’s face seems to totter between anger and amusement. “Not that I feel the need to defend myself, considering that I just picked you out of my brother’s bed, but if that makes you happy, rest assured that I ‘haven’t been with any woman’ since New Orleans.” His eyes seem to put her into trance. “I just couldn’t -, I didn’t want to -, I’ve had so many showers since we came back, Elena, but your smell is still all over me.”
She doesn’t know where to look to escape his desperate voice, the knowledge that they haven’t been this close to each other since their return. Her reply is unsteady but she figures she owes him.
“Me and Stefan, it’s not like you think, we haven’t -, I mean I haven’t even kissed him.” She inhales shakily. “It just feels wrong, which is crazy, I know, because he’s my boyfriend, after all - but somehow it would feel like a betrayal…”
“You still have to make a decision, Elena,” he insists, not satisfied by the crumbs she’s just thrown him.
“Remember what we agreed upon? I’d say Stefan has recovered by now.”
“No, not yet,” There’s the panic again. “He’s still not completely himself-“
“He’s as good as he ever will be!” Damon interrupts her harshly. “Face it, Elena, he will always need you in some way or another and it’s just your fucking sense of duty or God knows what that makes you unable to tell him goodbye!”
A heavy silence fills the bathroom as Elena eyes him timidly.
“Wait all you want, Elena, but I won’t tell you that I, too, need you. Not even if it were true.” His voice sounds low and defeated now. “When you come to me it will be because you want to, not as the result of some weird sense of responsibility.”
She hates it when he does that, pointing out flaws in her motivations. “How dare you, Damon, this is not the reason why I’m with Stefan! You don’t know me, I-“
And now he looks at her with honest surprise. “Oh, but I do know you. I know more of your secrets than anyone else. I have seen you when you were drunk, happy, brave, hysterical, ill, furious, jealous, crying, dying and resurrecting. I’ve spent a whole night making love to you. What more could I possibly need to know about you?”
It’s the truth, she knows it. There’s so much truth between them lately that it makes her feel naked, x-rayed.
“Okay,” she whispers. “I know, I will decide soon, I promise."
This is just a reupload because I somehow managed to delete chapter 8...Thanks to everyone who reviewed last time and sorry for not replying!