"Honestly, your brother told me about your ex, Katherine. He said that the reason you're with me is because I remind you of her. I would like you to elaborate on this one." She confessed watching his shoulders rise higher and higher with every word. "As for Alaric, he told me to stay away or I would end up hurt. He told me that I should know more about your past to understand you and I would like to know truthfully. I want to know you Damon. We all have our locked up demons in a closet somewhere. I've told you I wanted to stay and be with you despite being warned not to. Please just shed some light on this situation for me because really I don't know who you are."
"Who I am?" Damon hissed and looked over his shoulder as he spoke. "I'm a monster, Elena. A monster that you could hurt you, Alaric is right."
"I don't believe that. I don't want to." She whispered.
"It's because you haven't seen that side of me. A side that I buried deep down a long time ago that I'm not proud of." He said with shame and guilt.
"If it's buried then why are you so afraid of hurting me if you haven't revisited that side in a long time?" Elena took a step closer to him and cocked her head to the side. "I just don't understand."
"I fight those urges every day Elena," he shouted. Damon spun around filled with rage. "You will never understand! I am too fucked up for anyone to understand, but myself."
"You won't let people understand. It's not because they couldn't, it's because you won't let them. You won't let me. You shut me out every time the topic gets too personal or I show true affection. Damon, I can handle the truth. I can handle the fact that you're a vampire and that they exist." She pleaded with him, but it only seemed to cause more steam to rise.
"I don't have control when I'm around you Elena! When I lack control is when my dark side wants to revisit. I can't let it, but I miss it. I really do miss it." He growled with a sinister smile creeping across his face. It was like a child realizing they had gotten away with something. It was eerie and discomforting.
"You miss it?" She asked trying to understand him without scaring herself too much with the truth.
"The type of person I am is not who I am meant to be. Vampires aren't suppose to be humble and dieting like I am." His tone grew thick and he was staring off into a place that wasn't here. He was remembering his dark days. "I was in a dark place from the moments before death and for many years after I transitioned."
"Why?" Elena continued to get him to speak. Instead, all she received was silence.
The room was lit my two single lights: the lamp on his desk and one in the corner by the bookcase. Even with the light the room never seemed so dark. It was like a cloud of disturbance was hovering over the both of them and growing larger by the minute. Damon's past was a button he did not like being pushed and now as she brought it up she saw he was trying to avoid the topic.
"Why must you always challenge me, Miss Gilbert?" Damon asked still soaked in the moment of frustration mixed with a hint of sarcasm.
"I challenge you because I'm curious." She tried to steer clear of his poor attempt at throwing away the conversation. He wasn't going to be able to control this discussion, not this time. "I'm curious to know about you. Why do you miss those dark days? Why do I remind you of your ex? Why are you a vampire? Why me?"
Plopping down into the armchair, Elena sunk deep into it. She felt breathless letting her every thought be spoken. He was the first person she ever felt like she could battle and speak her mind. His temper and his strong personality was much like other people she knew, but for some reason with him she felt able to do so. It took her by surprise every time she challenged him or let her inner thoughts slip out, but even with embarrassment from doing so her newfound self awakened her. She wasn't the Elena Gilbert she knew all her life. She was changing. She was growing.
"I don't dwell on my past. My past is in the past for a reason." He murmured sitting on the edge of desk now. "Why must you have to know more about me?"
Elena hung her head low and folded her hands together. "You seem to like to barge into my life so easily and often, I figure I would like to at least gain some history about you." She watched him carefully. He was distant and putting up a wall between them. That wall had to come down, even if it meant she had to break it.
"I led a very boring life. I died young, became a vampire, and now I'm a successful billionaire. There." He exclaimed and crossed his arms. Those icy blue eyes of his were focused so strongly and possessively on her she squirmed in her seat. Damon looked menacing and cold.
"What about your family or how you became a vampire?" She pushed him on with her eager questions, but was met with a resilient response.
"No!" He stated. "Not up for discussion."
Growing tired of him dodging question after question, Elena knew she had to take drastic measures. She clenched her jaw together and thought hard knowing the one possible action she could take that would get him to finally admit to something. "Fine. You know you can be a real stubborn ass sometimes? If you're not going to tell me anything, I'm sure your brother, Stefan will."
Her attempt to make him break was working. The tension in the room shifted and Elena knew one more step had to be taken to make this work. She rose from the chair as if she were about to leave and little to her surprise his body was nearly pressed up against hers. He looked down at her with fire in his eyes and his hand gripped her arm. It was almost painful.
"If you talk to him," He spoke in a low tone. "I will lose you forever. I don't want that."
"Then just tell me." She whimpered about her sentence and felt her knees buckling.
"Sit." Damon demanded and she fell from his grasp back into the chair. "I'll tell you what I want you to know. After this will you promise to stop asking me for a history lesson about myself?"
She inhaled a deep breath and replied, "Fine."
Damon returned to the spot on the desk where he sat and leaned forward. His eyes were on the carpet as if he was watching a faded memory. "I grew up here in Mystic Falls with my mother, father, and Stefan. I wasn't always the best child a parent could ask for, but we got along fine when needed. My father…he was hard on me. Always saying I wasn't living up to the Salvatore expectations. I lashed out. I said some things that I'm not proud of, but they needed to be said. My father was my biggest critic."
"You hated him." Elena whispered.
"Hates a strong word. Loathe might be better." He smirked. "And no interruptions. I told you I would tell you and if you proceed to interrupt I'll stop. Am I clear?"
"Crystal." She said feeling like a child being scolded. Maybe the qualities of his father were living out through his oldest son? Just from the minor description of him she could tell Damon was more like him than he wished to be.
"I thought I could prove to my father that I was the son he always hoped to be by fighting in the war at the time. I served, but not for long. I was thrown out for my indiscretions and had to return home. Let's just say my father wasn't thrilled." Damon continued down memory lane for her. He was bitter and it was becoming more apparent as he explained his past more. "When I returned home, my father was even worse and my mother never really said much. She always hid in the background. She was a good, loving woman, just not as strong as I hoped for her to be."
A moment of silence came after that. Damon sat upward and walked over to the cabinet with the liquor. He poured himself a glass and walked slowly back over to his place.
"While I was away serving, my brother became involved with a girl. She was an orphan and living with a family nearby. She was beautiful, confident, and alluring. Naturally, I was attracted to her, but she was my brother's girl so I let that be."
Damon took a sip of his dark liquor and gulped it down. She could feel her heart beating slow, but with a prominent thump. His story was intriguing and she knew by his crutch for alcohol that it was only about to get even more detailed.
"Until one night after dinner that I found her in my room. I was startled and asked for her to leave, but
she refused." He produced sadness in his voice laced with anger as he spoke of his memory. "She told me that she secretly had been wanting to talk to me for some time, but couldn't because of Stefan. Then she kissed me."
"She cheated on Stefan with you?" Elena asked realizing it had slipped out before she could stop herself. She pressed her lips together and looked to Damon for forgiveness.
"What did I say? One more remark out of you Miss Gilbert and I'll make sure to take care of you later." He confirmed his dislike of her interruption, but was calm. She half expected him to burst and throw a fit. Instead, he gave her a stare that made her lock her lips together and squeeze her legs together so tight because his expression was almost arousing.
He fondled with the glass in his hand and continued. "I'm not proud of what I'm about to say, but I did it because I was foolish. After she kissed me I demanded she leave again, but then she kissed me again. To make things short, we went about seeing each other behind my brother's back for quite sometime. He didn't know until she let it slip to him. Knowing what I know now, we should have kicked her to the curb for letting her toy with us like that, but instead we decided to fight for her and in the end we ended up enemies."
This girl was the one that him and Stefan had been brawling about in the hallway weeks before. She recalled the conversation and now it made sense. They had both been seeing the same girl, who drove them to insanity. Whoever she was, she disgusted her. How could someone be so conniving to play with the emotions of two people especially brothers?
"I was blinded by her for a long time and she is the reason why I'm still…around." Damon said in a bitter tone.
Elena sat up in her seat. She tried hard not to say anything, but it was almost impossible. He noticed her struggle and decided to end her agony with explanation. "I guess I should tell you this girl, the one who messed around with Stefan and I was Katherine. She was very consuming and I think that's why I chased her. I found out more than I bargained for when I decided to still want her. I learned she held a very dark secret and one that she wished for me too so that we could be together forever. Katherine was a vampire. She had been turned way before my time and had been searching for the right person to spend her eternal life with. At first, I was terrified, but then somehow I saw past it and began to understand what she wanted. I let her feed on me and she let me taste her so I could understand what it was like before I took the transition. I only wanted it because I wanted her. I was fool to ever think that."
"We had it all set out. She was teaching me little by little how to hunt my prey and how to trick people into thinking you were a normal human being. She was very good at it. But, the night of the transition the town went mad and found out her secret. They took her away and my father informed me that I would never see her again. Apparently, the knowledge of vampires was well informed back then. I guess that's where all the mythical lore comes from today. People think it's just in the movies, but really it was a horror back then."
"Once I knew she was going to be gone forever, I realized I didn't want this life. I only wanted it if I could be with her and there was no point in it now." He explained. It was like watching a suspense film. Every word he spoke she was on edge. Every time he mentioned Katherine, Elena wanted to scream. She was evil. She took an innocent boy and fooled him into believing a monstrous life was the right choice, when it wasn't at all.
"I thought maybe if I could try to save her that I could still go through with it. I only did this because I knew my time was ticking on Earth. I had drunk a concoction that she had mixed up that would bring me to my death while sleeping and then I would wake in transition. She was supposed to help make the final step and so naturally I knew I had to try and save her." A shiny layer of water filled his eyes as he spoke and Elena wanted to reach out and touch his hand, but she couldn't. She didn't want to break him from his trance. He lost the look of sadness immediately though. It wasn't losing her that made him sad; it was his own death reliving it that made him feel remorse. "I ran to the building where they were going to burn her and in the process of doing so I was shot. It was not the death I expected. The last thing I remember before the only image of darkness consumed me was seeing my brother lying next to me bleeding from his chest."
"Oh my god." Elena gasped and covered her mouth.
His story was tragic and Damon was raged from it. He threw his glass across the room. "I could have stopped this. I could have prevented this, but because of what Katherine taught me and the undying urge to rip someone's throat out because I needed blood and I already knew what the taste was like was why I became a vampire. I should have let myself die, but I couldn't. I couldn't do the right thing. I was selfish. She is the reason why I have been roaming this Earth for longer than I should have."
"I don't understand how you loved someone who did this to you?" She asked stunned by her discovery.
"I never loved Katherine." Damon assured her. "She will always be a part of my life and the ultimate factor of why I'm here today, but I have cut all ties to her. I now see how manipulative she really was."
"And I remind you of her?" Elena was appalled to be compared to someone like her.
"No!" He cried. "You are nothing like Katherine."
"Then why would Stefan say that?" She was confused to the comparison.
"Because Stefan still hold his grudge against me still to this day." Damon informed her pacing the room. "We both thought we were meant to be with her and that we would live eternally with her. We aren't and now we are stuck in this world forever as enemies because we were foolish."
Elena stood up and walked away from him. "I don't understand. Why is Stefan not like you then? You clearly both went down similar paths."
"When we were young as vampires we both went wild. I killed more people than…I did awful things, Elena." He shook his head and gritted his teeth. "Those were my dark days and for decades we lived like that. We never lived those days with one another. Stefan and I would cross paths on occasions, but he made it clear after death he wanted nothing to do with me. I felt the same. Since then we've become better, however it still hangs over us until this day."
"It wasn't until one day I went on a binge that I realized what I was doing and who I become. So, I decided to change. I became less reliant on human blood and kept my intake down. I drew up reading and studying and I even attended four different colleges all under pseudo names so suspicion wouldn't rise. I took my knowledge and turned it into a business…a corporation, Salvatore Corporations." A smile braced him, as he knew of his accomplishments. "Stefan has tried many times and has succeeded in becoming a recovering blood-holic and even tried to take up the business with me, but somehow he always falls back into his old ways."
The terrifying thought of Stefan losing control and taking it out on Caroline scared her. "And now he is with Caroline, my best friend." She shook with fear.
"I told you he is fine right now." Damon was behind without a single step. "I'm keeping a close eye on him. One false move and he is out of here."
"No offense," Elena turned around and shook her head. "You're really messed up."
"I know." He admitted to it without flinching. "I struggle with it every day wanting to be my old self and I may do things in extreme ways like the contract because it's my alternative, but it's who I am. I can't take back what I've done, who I've killed, but I can try to make things better."
"And where do I fit into all of this?" She asked shyly.
He pierced his thin lips and took a step closer to her. "You are my ultimate temptation Elena. With you it helps pass the bad thoughts and the urges, however it always makes them stronger and harder to fight."
Elena titled her head to the side and asked, "Why would you want to be attracted or ever around someone who does that to you?"
"Because I guess it's the only thing I've ever known." He confessed in an almost whisper. "We all want what is bad for us. Katherine wanted me because it went against the rules of relationships. In return, I
wanted her because I knew it was wrong. I want you because I bloodlust for you and I'm unconditionally attracted to you. You want me because I'm the bad boy. I'm everything you've never had. And that is truly messed up."
Chapter 35: Breakfast & The Media
After learning the painful truth of Damon's past, Elena was filled with mixed emotions. The chance to save his life or end it because he didn't want to become a monster was a choice, but in the end he couldn't resist the calling urges because Katherine had exposed him to his new nature. She hated Katherine. The reason Damon was a vampire and swayed toward objects that drew out his dark desires was because of her. She molded him into a blood lusting mess. His attempts to better himself were admiring and she respected his acceptance of knowing he would be this way forever and might as well do good with it, however she couldn't help but trace back all the blame to Katherine.
That bitch, Elena thought in rage. She walked toward the large cold window rubbing her arms.
"I know she is a part of your life and that you felt something for her," she uttered still astounded by their conversation. "But I'm glad she is dead. She sounds cruel and selfish."
Fifty Shades Of Dark - Damon Salvatore Page 24
