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It had been over three weeks since homecoming to which Isabella woke up the following morning feeling different, done with trying to figure out who was with her, against her, or walking down the middle since they didn't have the nerve to choose a side. She realized opinions were a dime a dozen, validation was for parking, and loyalty wasn't a word yet a lifestyle—it was this day her life had changed. It wasn't due to a man or her career, yet it was for the fact she realized life was way too short to leave the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket.
Like a crab growing out of its shell, real growth required Isabella to shed what no longer fit: the people, beliefs, and habits holding her back. Elena had tried apologizing countless times to Isabella over the past weeks, except she didn't keep contact with the doppelgänger. Isabella might have already forgiven her, except it didn't mean she forgot what Elena did or had to make anymore room for people who caused her pain like the doppelgänger did.
It took Isabella a long time to understand what it meant to forgive someone; she always wondered how she could forgive someone who chose to hurt her. After a lot of searching her soul, though, she realized forgiveness wasn't about accepting or excusing their behavior. It was about letting it go and preventing their behavior from destroying her heart so it didn't become bitter or livid. It was taking the knife out her own back and not using it to hurt anyone else no matter how they hurt her.
Isabella was raised to forgive people in her life, even those like Elena who weren't really sorry for their own actions they spent no time correcting and overlooked when they were trying to find the faults in her actions. Keeping her distance would sometimes let Isabella know who her energy increased and decreased around—she believed it was a way of God giving her a hint on who she should stray from and let go of or stay around and be kept.
The morning after homecoming, Stefan called to thank Klaus for his freedom—the only problem being it came at too high of a price, claiming Klaus took everything from him. The hybrid encouraged him to let bygones be bygones, except it was too late when he opened the door to the truck to find his siblings missing. Stefan was taking his revenge in the form of stealing the coffins holding the bodies of the Originals which Klaus had been carting around with him. Maybe so Stefan had leverage against Klaus, who threatened to kill him and everyone who had helped plot his death.
Klaus wanted Elena and Damon to help him find Stefan, so he could get back what Stefan stole from him. Since he couldn't compel Damon, he had to provide another display of violence to show him what would happen if he and Elena didn't help him. Jeremy was compelled to take off his ring and stand in the middle of the street while an SUV ran over him when Alaric got there in time to shove Jeremy out of the way, only for him to get hit—terribly.
