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Foster stared at the ceiling, the ring in her hand turned warm even in her cold grip. "Hide it where he can't find it, Foster." She remembered when she was five, she started hiding food from the dinner table in her dress then stashing it where she believed no one would find it. They weren't a poor family by any means, but her father believed women shouldn't look a certain way so he would cut her meals, claiming, "No man want's a woman who's larger than them." Foster always hid the food behind her wardrobe, out of sight. But Damon knew her. One night when their father was in a particularly bad mood, denied Damon dinner and Foster found him, sitting on the floor, next to her wardrobe, holding the napkin off food from the lunch before. He knew her too well. As she did him. There's nowhere she could hide anything that he wouldn't find.
She could hear Damon — the slowing heartbeat, deep breathing, whispered pleads of her name to help him. If she were to leave, this would be the time to. Elena wasn't speaking to her, not that Foster blamed her. So many lies. She knew coming back her, lying would be part of her life. Lying is her life. Foster doesn't think she's ever gone a week without telling a lie of some sort, but the people she had lied to in the past, they didn't really matter. It'd been a long time since someone did matter to her like Elena mattered to her.
It wasn't the same way Katherine did, however. Foster had been trying to separate the feelings she had for Katherine and the feelings she does have for Elena before realizing that they're not even on the same plane. The love for Katherine was weak. It burned hot — it burned her, but not anymore. Katherine was gone, in the past, and even if she wasn't, Foster thinks, it wouldn't matter. The damage Katherine did, it was eternal.
Foster arrives at the school, teenagers bustling around, the smell of AXE far too strong, but then something of vanilla seeps in, and Foster looks to her right, at Elena, meeting her eyes. The sun burns, and something is stuck in Foster's throat, her eyes start to hurt from not blinking. A kind of gravity has Foster's feet moving, and when she allows her eyes to blink, Elena turns to walk away. Foster stopped and watched Elena go into the school building with Bonnie at her side.
People moved out of her path as Foster followed her footsteps, trying to catch up, but once Elena stopped at her locker, Bonnie no longer beside her, she froze. Elena looked at her, eyes softening, but then — that fire. She looked at Foster as a challenge and Foster took it.
"Hey," Foster spoke softly, leaning on the locker.
Elena took a book from inside her locker and closed it, turning to the Salvatore. "Hey."
Opening her mouth, Foster didn't know what to say. She just stared, and Elena stared back. "I'm sorry," Foster almost whispered. "What happened wasn't right — me leaving you with no explanation. You don't deserve that."
"And Caroline didn't deserve whatever Damon did to her," Elena snapped.
"No, she didn't." Foster took a breath. "Damon's gone now."
