Shawn Salvatore

Chapter 12.

Shawn's P.O.V

I tell Emily everything. I tell her about my heightened hearing, extraordinary eyesight, super speed and my power to persuade someone to do anything I want them to. I tell her about my new family and how they've helped me over the past half a year. I tell her how I struggle being what I am and how I would do anything to be human again. I tell her about the blood lust and how it's always there lurking, never fully sated. I tell her how sometimes when I think about my long future ahead and the changes I'm going to see in the world I sometimes feel excited but most of all sad because I'll only ever have my family and never someone that little bit extra to share my life with away from them. I tell her about how I wanted my human life to play out; a good job, a loving wife and a few kids to run around our big home. I most of all tell her how I would never hurt her and I in some way may be like one of those hideous monsters she said she's seen in the movies but I would never hurt an innocent person for fun like they do. I have a conscience which keeps my human feelings and emotions in check.

"What about garlic, does that harm you?" Emily asks seriously.

"Other than it tasting horrid garlic is just a myth." I laugh.

"What about crucifix's?"

"Nah we're cool with them too." I answer patiently, loving the way Emily wants to know everything about me.

"Holy water, that's in all the movies?"

"Nope..."

"Stake to the heart? That's got to hurt right?" Emily asks her final question

"What are you trying to find the best way to kill me or something?" I joke. "Only wooden stakes can kill a vampire." I add.

"I'm just curious, I mean what if I decide to become a hunter and track you down one day?" She jokes back.

We banter back and forth for a while and it makes me feel like my old self again. I know it's stupid. I should never try to become close to someone I'm only going to hurt in the long run but I can't help it. Emily makes me feel human. My heart that beats coldly in my chest actually feels warm when she speaks to me and the passion she has when she talks about something she loves is unreal.

I know Stefan is across the parking lot probably listening to everything I'm saying and cussing at me for openly talking about these secrets but I can't lie to her when something I might say now could end up saving Emily's life is she were to ever be in danger. After the entire vampire world is growing fast, especially in this area and anything could happen when there are so many new out of control vampires running around the streets. I can't be around Emily and her family and friends twenty for seven so she needs to learn how to protect herself if something bad were to happen.

"What happened to your real family?" Emily suddenly asks out of the blue then looks as if she instantly regrets saying that sentence. You don't have to be a vampire to see the pink tint that covers her cheeks which says how she's feeling perfectly. "Sorry that was rude."

"They died." I grimace. It's the first time I've ever told anyone outside of my family what happened that night but Emily needs to know what happened to them to understand fully why I'm like this. "There was an accident-"

"-you don't have to tell me Shawn, it's ok, forget I even asked." Emily interrupts shaking her head for me to stop. I don't though because I think talking about what happened might finally get me to move on. Maybe that's why I've never fully accepted myself as a vampire because I've never fully accepted my birth parents deaths.

"There was an accident last year," I start; I stare out the front window of Emily's car as the most painful words flow off my tongue.

"My parents were coming home from a party at a friend's house. My mum and dad never drank much apart from the odd glass or two because they didn't like the effects alcohol had on them so them not drinking that night was perfectly normal. They drove the hour to and from Rachael's house. She was an old school friend I guess, I remember my mum always jabbering on about 'Rachael this, Rachael that.' I'd only ever met her once before a few years prior to the accident. I couldn't tell you anything about Rachael apart from she had long brown hair and this freckle to the right of her chin.

Anyway, they had to drive around some dodgy areas of road to get in and out of our small town in Canada to where Rachael lived. The main stretch of road everyone normally used was closed on the morning they were travelling back because of a land slide in the mountains so they had no choice but to go this way to get home. Not that many people like driving the back roots but that morning my father had to.

He must have lost control of the car because they went over the side of the mountain. They died that day and I was left with my grandparents unbeknownst to all of us until nearly a day later. We thought they had stayed at Rachael's because of the land slide. My parents were never big on technology so we couldn't contact them and we didn't know Rachael's details to call her.

I was seventeen I didn't need constant contact with them anymore. The following morning after they were supposed to have arrived home my grandparents rang the cops and a few hours later their bodies were found." I stop abruptly remembering every second of those agonising moments when we were told. How the police officer told us to take a seat because he had bad news. I knew from that moment I would never see my parents again and that broke me.

"I'm so sorry Shawn." Emily whispers, tears heavy in her voice.

I carry on speaking as if Emily hasn't said anything. Everything I've never said before is ready to roll from my mouth and I'm not letting it be buried down any more. I need this.

"Those months before I turned into what I am were the worst months of my life. My grandparents were barely coping knowing their daughter and son-in-law were dead and they suddenly had full custody of a seventeen year old that frankly was out of control. They would never have been able to live the rest of their lives with me a burden to them. I felt like I was that, a burden. My parents had left me and the only place I could go was with them. Looking back now I know it was my way of grieving my parents. The depression had set in almost straight away. I stopped eating, stopped going to school, stopped talking to friends, all reasonable things to be doing when family members are lost but it obviously felt worse for me because both my parents were gone.

I started drinking, a lot, and smoking some questionable choice of drugs. I started to get high from the moment I woke up to the moment I pretended to go to sleep for my grandparent sakes. I became a completely different person who relied on alcohol and drugs at seventeen years of age.

Anyway, one night I went out to where my parent's car was found and drank until I couldn't see straight. I felt so lost and I knew I couldn't live my life anymore because I didn't know what to do. I drank and I drank until the bottle of whiskey I had stolen from my grandfather's liquor cabinet was empty and I couldn't even stand on my feet. I took some of my grandmother's heart pills out of my pocket and shoved as many as I could into my mouth.

Just before I passed out though Lily, Stefan and Damon arrived and Lily gave me some of her blood. It was too late to save me completely so I eventually woke up to being what I am today. I died that night. My old life was left behind and for six months I was trained in being what I am. I said goodbye to my old life and we came here a few months ago.

The Salvatore boarding house is my home now and Salvatore is my surname. I miss my old life every single day but being want I am helps in blocking the pain from that section of my life away. I could choose to fully block out any feelings all together but I know if I let it all go I wouldn't be Shawn anymore. I'd become the monster I truly despise. I couldn't live like an emotionless creature like some do."

There's silence for a moment once I've finished. I feel lighter somehow though which for once feels so good. I know Emily wasn't expecting me to be so open but to speak to someone other than Stefan, Damon and Lily feels freeing.

"You shouldn't hold your pain in Shawn. It's not good for you." Emily finally says, tears shining on her flushed cheeks.

"I have to Emily." I start. "Because if I let my pain from that time out then the monster inside of me will forcibly shut out every emotion I'm capable of feeling and I promised I would never let that happen."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not a killer Emily and even though I never asked to be what I am today I'm getting closer to accepting myself. If I feel even an ounce of pain right now I will become something I wish not to be. I'll be that killer and that would kill the real me for real this time."

-x-

Hi! So yay another post so soon after the last one haha :) Please comment your thoughts guys it would mean a lot - Kelly xxx