Salvatore

Chapter 4

Waking up the next morning was the hardest thing she had ever done in her short life. The thought of her mother dawned on her mind all night, leaving with little to no sleep. She twisted and she turned all night, tears consistently leaving her pillow stained and wet. As the annoying sound of her alarm blaring in her ears, she barely reacted. She could hardly find the strength to life her hand to press the button to stop it, she could hardly move her body at all. If this is what heartbreak felt like, she never wanted to feel like this again. She felt numb, as if her soul had been ripped from her body and thrown in the depths of the 'soul trash-can'.

Her tired eyes stared blankly through the window across the room, not even the beautiful scenery of the garden comforting her soul. Stefan's voice, with the words she never thought she would hear, replayed in her mind over and over again. Her mother was alive – apparently. She wanted to believe it was nothing but a rumor, maybe something she would laugh about in the future with her uncle. She wanted to everything but believe it. Believing it meant pain, it meant for too many questions to arise and for her feelings to get hurt learning the answers. She has been in pain for almost her entire life. This was the last thing she needed.

Her arms ached, though she was unsure why, as she pushed her body into a seating position, her blank eyes continuing to stare out into the garden. Her mind had a bad habit of overthinking and bringing him unnecessary scenarios in her head only to make her feel worse; and she could feel it growing the more she stared out the window, but she could not stop herself. She could see her mother, her dark hair flowing so beautifully in the wind out in the garden, a big toothy grin spreading across her lips. She picked Charlotte's younger self up into her arms, laughter filling the air with no darkness hovering over them to remind them of a dark past.

She could have lived a happy life with her mother. Her father might have never abandoned her if she stayed alive. May would have known how much Damon loved her – and a mother would never dare to leave her child if she was a kind as Stefan said she was. The doctors would have known that she is alive, they would never have told Damon that the love of his life was dead if she was standing in the room alive – they were the ones operating on her. It all did not make sense. Pushing the logic behind it all aside, if her mother did magically make it out alive without telling anyone...

That meant she was just as bad as Damon. She abandoned her family, her newborn baby in need of her mother. If what Stefan said was true, Charlotte was unsure if she could forgive her mother for doing such a thing, so, she hoped it was not. Nothing but a lie that someone told Damon as some form of revenge, something said to hurt the man that seemed to hurt everyone else. The May Adams in the stories that were told to her would never do such a thing to the people she loves, and Charlotte did not want to spend her life hating her dead mother if it was all but a lie.

Nonetheless, the whole situation hurt. She got ready for school with a sunken heart, and the clothes she wore matched her emotions. She had not cared about her looks today, nor about the opinions of judgmental teenagers like Caroline Forbes. They were lucky that she had brushed her hair and put on clothes that were not pajamas. She had kept her lips sealed as she entered the parlor where both Stefan and Damon had been seated, Charlotte could not even understand how her uncle could sit so close to her father. Then again, she did not have it within her to care so much.

Damon remained silent, as if all confidence that was once in him had faded away the moment, he saw his daughter standing at the top of the steps. The numbness in her eyes and the lack of energy she held reminded him of himself the day he learned of May's death. Stefan tried to talk to her with a gentle voice, scared that the wrong tone of voice could shatter the child. She could barely open her mouth to reply to him, she did not want to say to him, nor could she be bothered to speak. She found herself remained in her thoughts as they began their journey to school, and thankfully, Stefan understood that his niece was in no mood to talk. She knew he was there for her when she was ready; so, he knew not to pry her.