No One Ever Said It Would Be This Hard

Chapter 9

After Elena said Caroline's name, sobs that were coming from the woman's silouette in the dark near a tree, stopped. Elena raised her head to look at Stefan who was staring in the direction where the person was sitting, and she asked herself does Stefan know is that Caroline or not. Can he smell her, can he recognize her?

"Caroline?" she asked again, this time louder. The silence was unbearable.

They could see someone standing up and grining their back against a tree. The person started walking again, and only few steps were needed for Elena to recognize Caroline's pale face. There were black veins all around her eyes, and her eye color was much darker than usual. Blood was smudged all over her mouth, and her hair was glued to her face. There was some blood on the ends of her hair, too. She wasn't looking straight at them, but she wasn't looking away either. To Elena it seemed like she's looking through them. There were tears in her eyes and her hands were shaking, although it was so clear she's trying to make them stop. Her jeans were muddy from the ground she was sitting on.

Her eyes wandered to the body on the ground. "Is she.. is she dead?" Caroline asked while taking a few second break after every spoken word.

Stefan looked down at the body and saw the woman is breathing. "No" he shook his head.

Caroline raised her head to look at him and her eyes filled with more tears. Sobs started again.

"I'm a monster" Caroline screamed and fell back on the ground. It looked like her legs have given up on her.

As she said those words, Stefan left Elena standing there alone and hurried over to Caroline. When he left her, she started feeling unprotected all of a sudden. To that moment, she didn't even realize how much strength and confidence was Stefan's presence giving to her while walking through the woods. Stefan fell down on his knees to be on the same level as Caroline was.

"Caroline, you have to calm down" he was trying to make eye contact with her, but she kept looking at the ground and sobbing loudly.

"No, I'm a murderer" this sentence she pronounced more quietly than the previous one. Elena could see that her words left Stefan speechless for a moment, because he looked like he's going to back down, but he gripped himself together.

"Caroline, look at me" he said softly.

Caroline's sobbings lessened and she raised her head. "My eyes" she whispered, "Why won't it go away?" few tears were rolling down her cheek and clearing her skin from the blood around her mouth.

"It's because you can smell the blood" Stefan had put his hands on her shoulders. "I can teach you how to make it go away, but I need you to calm down first" he was rubbing her arms with his hands in the sign of a support.

Caroline closed her eyes and nodded. It took her a few minutes to calm down, but soon she stopped shaking. The next time she opened her eyes, her face went back to normal. But as soon as she looked into the direction the woman was laying down, and smelled the blood, the veins on her face appeared again.

"No, no, no" she started crying when she felt the change in her face.

"Caroline, look at me" Stefan shook her and made her look him in the eyes. "Look, we're the same now. Maybe I didn't feed on that woman, but if you're a monster, then I'm one too" he kept talking while Caroline was looking him straight in the eyes. Elena couldn't see his face, but she could see her friend's mascara running down her face and mixing with what's left of the blood around her mouth. She was piercing Stefan with her eyes. "Just breathe. Breathe in, and then breathe out. And keep doing that until you don't feel the need for blood anymore" he explained to her.