I Hate the Way...

Part 1: "Brace Yourself"

This story is loosely inspired by Purple Hearts and, obviously, the TVD universe.

Hope you enjoy : )

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Hope sits at her easel, enjoying the light breeze coming in through the window as she absentmindedly drags her brush across the canvas.

It's a habit she's picked up over the last several years.

Painting and painting, but never completing.

Because she can't see their faces.

They're blurred, blocked out of her memory, kept under lock and key, behind the red door of her subconscious.

After her parents died, she activated her vampire side and shut her humanity off, all in a matter of hours.

She went on a rampage, a killing spree, though she doesn't remember any of it.

Her aunts and uncles eventually caught up with her and used an ancient dark magic spell from Esther's grimoire to forge the same red door of buried memories that her Uncle Elijah's memories hid behind for centuries.

They took away all of the pain she'd inflicted on others, all of the damning evidence against herself, and they took what few memories she had of her parents in an attempt to free her from the turbulent emotions that attacked her each and every day because of their deaths.

Though her memories were wiped, her emotions still remained, buried deep within her aching heart, but still present nonetheless.

Her emotions and her memories are like ghosts, silhouettes floating through her subconscious.

Although it's deeply suppressed, she still feels the guilt from all of the pain she's caused.

That feeling of guilt is what led her to enlist in the United States Marine Corps, to try and somehow make up for the mistakes she made in the past.

Her unit deploys in a couple of weeks, and today marks their last day of military block leave.

She and a few of the other soldiers plan to go out tonight before heading back to work tomorrow.

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"I'll be back first thing in the morning for your test results, okay?"

Josie wipes the stray tear from her sister's cheek as she pulls her into a hug.

"They're negative Josie. I promise, I'm clean."

Josie pulls away, giving her sister a weak smile, "I believe you, Lizzie."

There's a ghost of a smile that forms on Lizzie's lips, the first Josie's seen in months.

"I should probably get going. I picked up an extra shift at the bar tonight, and I have to meet with our attorney beforehand," Josie stands up from the edge of the Gatch bed.

"I promise, as soon as I'm out of here, I'll find a job to pay you back for taking care of me for so long."

Josie looks sympathetically to her sister, "You may not have to worry about that. Let me see what I can do about our trust funds, okay? For now, you just need to rest."

Lizzie gives her a simple nod, "Love you Jo."

"Love you too."

With that, Josie leaves the rehabilitation facility their father picked for Lizzie.

After their mother passed, Lizzie didn't know how to handle the pain.

She ended up turning to drugs.