Because Of You

Chapter 1

The flashing lights and the sound of the paramedic's soothing voice are what I seem to remember the most when I woke up in the hospital bed the next day. My hands are shaking from the pain and I'm begging the nurse frantically. I watch her take the needle and push more morphine into my IV drip without answering my frantic pleas. I'm begging the nurse with tears streaming down my face, to see my sister and her new born baby, to just know that they made it out alive.

"Now, There. There, Ms. Gilbert. This will help with all the pain. I promise." The nurse tells me as she takes my warm hand with her cool touch and strokes the top of it. Before I can ask another word, I feel the morphine kick in and my world once again goes black.

Voices are what wake me up hours later. The voices of family members crowding the outside of my hospital bedroom are what make my eyes flash open as I try to move. But, my body won't budge, I'm drugged and every single bone in my body feels like it weighs a million pounds.

I can hear them all trying their best to whisper and then just when I try to clear my head to think about what they are all talking about. One of them makes their way in. I don't need to lift my head up from the pillow to know that it's her, my best friend since childhood, Bonnie.

Bonnie's eyes land on my bruised and battered body, it's hard to miss the dry blood under my nails as I whimper. I try my best to get up from the confiding bed to greet her, but the pounding in my head stop my actions, quickly as I hear her soft voice speak.

"Elena, you've been in an accident and...I don't know how to tell you this." She tells me softly as she pulls up a chair to sit next to me. Bonnie grabs my hand gently into hers as she exhales deeply and then she says the one fear that I had been dreading since I had woken up in the hospital late last night.

"Katherine's dead...Elena, I am so sorry...I'm." Bonnie begins to say as tears stream down her face and my hand gently goes to whip them away as my own tears start to fall and suddenly I'm crippled with the thought of losing my sister and the one person that she left behind, that had meant the world to her...her sweet little baby girl, Lillian with her sweet green eyes and her beautiful olive colored skin.

XXXX

At the age of 25 years old my sister had become pregnant with a baby girl. Whenever my parents had asked her who the father was, she never gave up his name. She had told us the entire time that he was entitled to his privacy. Yet, it always bothered me with knowing that the young man that Katherine had got pregnant by would probably never get the chance to meet his daughter. So, it wasn't a surprise to me that just a few nights ago that she had decided that we would go and finally meet Lillian's father, that it was finally time to break her silence. But just as we had prepared to go, the snow on the roads had gotten heavier and it had become harder and harder to see...neither of us had seen the oncoming van that was coming directly for us until I heard the screeching of tires and the crash of metal and I knew that it was bad, really bad.

Bonnie's voice makes my whole body stiffen as she holds my hand tighter and looks into my watery brown eyes. "Elena, did Katherine ever tell you Lillian's dad's name?" She asks me softly.

"No, she never told anyone...Oh my god...What's going to happen to her?" I ask her in shaky voice as I hear her exhale, just as the door opens and we both look directly at it.

The hospital door swings open as Bonnie and I look up at it and we see a medium sized brunette smile politely at us. She's got black pants on and a red blouse, as she strolls into the room and clears her throat. " . Can I speak with you, alone?" She comments as she lifts her now falling glasses into place on her noise and gives Bonnie a saddened look.

I watch as Bonnie gets up and leaves the room. But not before she whispers "I'll be back later." I nod in her direction as I watch the young woman sit down in the same seat that my best friend had been sitting in and then she looks at me with the same saddened look that she had given Bonnie.

"Ms. Gilbert. My name is Meredith Fell and I first wanted to extend my condolences for your loss. We usually never do this so soon. But, knowing that Lillian doesn't have-." Meredith begins to say before I cut her off.

"She has a dad...He's just...not really in the picture." I tell her solemnly.

"Oh, Well..." She huffs as I watch her write something down on her notepad and then she looks up at me again.

"Elena, Katherine left a will and she had said that if anything had ever happened to her. That she wanted you to be Lillian's guardian." Meredith states.

I must have not heard her correctly because the first thing that spills off of my lips are the words that I know that I will regret. "Ms. Fell, I'm 24 years old. I don't know the first thing about raising a child." I state coldly. The instant that the words escape my lips, I of course regret them.

I sigh an exhausted breath and I try to explain my thinking. "I'm sorry. What I mean is...Can't my parents take care of her?" I ask.

I watch once more as Meredith shakes her head in disappointment. Probably thinking that the young woman in front of her has officially gone crazy. But then I watch as she exhales and then explains. "Elena. Your parent's don't want anything to do with Lillian...They signed over whatever rights they could have had to you. I'm sorry." She states informatively.

My sister was 25, only one year older than me and she had no idea what she was doing either. But, of course she made it work. Katherine had gone to school to become a nurse; she took classes at night, just so that she could be home with her daughter during the day. She lived on her own too, because after the huge fight between my parents and her, she had told them that she for one would make them proud and make sure that she proved them wrong. That she could be a single mother of a newborn daughter and not have to ask for a single penny from them.

While all of this was going in my responsible sister's life. I was barely passing my classes in college and would party the night away in whatever night club that I could find with my group of friends that I had known since childhood. One of them being Bonnie Bennett and another being Caroline Forbes. We had all grown up in the suburbs of Seattle and when we had the choice of going to different colleges, we had all decided that the three of us would be going together.

I hear a small laugh escape from Meredith's lips as she gets up from the chair and looks at me. "Surely , You'll figure it out. Lillian is your responsibility and she needs you." She tells me in a serious tone as I lift my head up slightly and watch her leave my room. I exhale deeply as I hear the click of the door finally being shut and then I breakdown, knowing that this loss of my sister is going to have an impact on us all, but especially the one person that had been closest to her since we were little girls and the one person who is now responsible for her own daughter.