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Chapter 26: EPILOGUE

I don't move back in right away. I don't even move back to Darling right away. We spend the weekend together, talking and cuddling and doing some.. other things. And then I go back to New York, where I continue with my life, and he continues with his back in Darling, as if nothing had happened. The first thing I do when I come back is shred our divorce papers into million tiny paper strips. There's no point in keeping those anymore.

Despite our plans of renewing our vows, we don't tell people for another two weeks. We try to ease them into it - my parents, Damon, Caroline. When they find out, my parents are bewildered with a mix of surprise and happiness, Damon simply shrugs, saying he had always known that this is how we would end up, while Caroline pointed her index finger at us and cautiously told us not to screw it up this time because she can't handle anymore drama.

We don't rush things. We wait. We may be technically married, but we've been apart for little more than six years and despite our old feelings still residing in our hearts, sometimes we seem alien to each other. He still knows how I like my coffee and I remember that he starts his morning newspapers backwards, but it surprises him when I don't burn his eggs. I tell him I've been learning how to cook, which surprises him even more. We're strangers to one another in a way we walk and, sometimes, even talk. Just like every couple in the process of getting to know one another is. We give each other space and we give each other time to get used to one another before we become Stefan and Elena we used to be. We never go back to being those same people though, or that same couple, but we evolve into something new, better, maybe even grown up. We still do immature things, like have a food fight after which I have to search for little bits of cookie dough stuck in his hair, or have sex on the kitchen floor on top of spilled flour. I fly to Darling often, which makes my parents happier than I've seen them in years, and he visits me in New York where I show him all of my favorite places. It's easy for him to build a relationship with Bonnie and he says that, in spirit, the two of us are very alike.

But when he gets used to my footsteps in the middle of the night, when he hears me trying to sneak out of the room, to the bathroom, without the fear of me leaving, and when I get used to his scent on my sheets all over again, is when we decide it's time for us to move back in together and start living our lives as if we're truly married. I make an arrangement with Katherine and promise her I will be available to her in at least three out of five means of communication at any given time. Bonnie cries as I pack my things and I promise her that we'll be in touch. Plus, it's not like we'll actually stop working together.

We don't move back into our old house. Neither of us think that's a good idea. There are too many happy memories in that house, but so many painful ones as well. And in some cases, pain trumps over happiness. We can't move on with the ghosts of our past haunting us. So we stay in his fathers house.

My new job, and the fact that I'm not in New York anymore, allows me a lot of free time. I start a project of redecorating our house, and he doesn't say a word about it, even though I do it because of him more than because of myself. That house never felt like a home to him, not since his mother died. And even though his father has been good to them, since his wife died he was more of a plant than a human being, so the house Stefan grew up in was never as warm as home should be. That's why the idea of building us a house, a home, excited him so much when we were younger. Because the house he had as a child was nothing more than a roof over his head. So I make it ours. I paint it in the colors we like, I hang our pictures on the wall, I make it brighter, more inviting, maybe even warmer, and he moves through it easier, happier, as if he's moving through a place where he truly belongs.

My mother gets equally surprised and excited when I ask her for some advice when it comes to cooking. I actually find out that I enjoy it - it must run in the family! I'll never be as good as my mom, but at least now I can invite people over for dinner and proudly say that I've made everything on the table without worrying that someone might get food poisoning.