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- Every afternoon, I had the same hope: that several hours of solitude would help me figure out who I was and what I wanted to become.
- “I’m telling you, Stefan, we’re so frightened!” Mrs. Cartwright jumped in, running her hands over the bodice of her navy dress. “I don’t understand this world. It’s simply not meant for us women to even go outside.”
- wow
- “I’m Katherine Pierce.
- hey babe!!!!!!!
- Damon was my closest friend, the person I looked up to most in the world—even more than Father, though I’d never admitted it out loud.
- A light wind blew around us, and I inhaled her lemony ginger scent,
- katherine's
- “Somehow I think I play rougher.”
- u sure do
- After all, I’d never carried on like that when my mother had died. Father hadn’t let me. You have to be strong, a fighter, he’d said at the funeral. And so I was. I didn’t cry when, just a week after Mother’s death, our nanny, Cordelia, began absentmindedly humming the French lullaby Mother had always sung. Not when Father took down the portrait of Mother that had hung in the front room. Not even when Artemis, Mother’s favorite horse, had to be put down.
- we were heading out for a whiskey to celebrate my impending nuptials. At least, that’s what Damon called it, elongating his accent to a flat Charlestonian drawl and wiggling his eyebrows as he said it.
- that would be something Damon might actually do—he never worried about consequences or other people’s feelings.
- Damon wiggled his eyebrows and let out a low whistle. “You know how I feel about strong women,” he whispered.
- Damon couldn’t understand because he was wild and untamable—so much so that Father had entrusted me, the younger brother, with the future of Veritas, a role I now found stifling. A sliver of betrayal shot through me at this thought—that it was Damon’s fault I had to shoulder so much responsibility.
- once I even stopped by the stable to smell the broad back of her horse, Clover, just to see if her lemon and ginger scent had lingered. It hadn’t, and at that moment, in the barn surrounded by the horses, I’d realized how unbalanced I was becoming.
- yeah that's creepy, u're getting too obsessed stefan
- “No!” I said, annoyed once again. “She’s in mourning for her parents. I hardly think she’s looking for a beau.”
- she's actually looking for two
- “Mrs. Emerson. Daisy.” I bowed deeply. Daisy had hated me ever since we were children, when Damon had dared me to push her into Willow Creek.
- The magpies chattered, the bees buzzed, and the sun cast a golden glow on the trees. The entire coach smelled like ginger, and I felt my stomach heave. It was the smell of guilt over lusting after a woman who was never to be—could never be—my wife.
- “Your first death, the first one you witness, changes you,” Damon said finally,
- “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Katherine said, touching my arm. I flinched and drew my arm back. How dare she touch me so familiarly in public? Didn’t she realize that if we hadn’t been carrying on at the barbecue in the first place, the tragedy might never have happened?
- is this the first time he starts resenting her?
- I immediately felt a wave of guilt for assuming she was doing anything other than showing sympathy.
- he's clearly blaming himself over something he had no control over
- She reached into the basket and broke off a sprig of lilac, which she then pushed gently into my buttonhole.
- omg i just read that as butthole hahaha
- I nodded, feeling the full weight of the responsibility on my shoulders. Maybe this was what I was meant to be doing: not getting married or going off to war, but fighting an unnatural evil.
- hum what if stefan had become a slayer instead of a vampire?
- “I’ll do whatever you want,” I said. “Anything.”
- always so obedient and looking to please his father while damon won't even stand for it
- “I am Katherine Pierce. Nothing more, nothing less. I’m the girl you watched for hours on end after I arrived two weeks ago. What I confessed to you is nothing. It doesn’t change how you feel, how I feel, what we can be,”
- Katherine shook her head and gazed at the window. “I would never kill anyone unless I had to. Unless I needed to protect myself or someone I loved. And anyone would kill in that situation, wouldn’t they?”
- oh sweetie
- But I was scared for Katherine. Her hands felt so small, and her eyes looked so frightened. She was depending on me, a thought that filled me with equal amounts of pride and dread.
- oh but katherine doesn't depend on anybody
- “Fighting over the same girl,” Father said simply. “I wouldn’t want you to lose your relationship. I know I don’t always see eye to eye with your brother, but he’s your flesh and blood.”
- Oh they'll stick together alright
- “Young Katherine here is proving that she’s not only beautiful but that she has brains, too. An intoxicatingly infuriating combination,”
- I loved Katherine so much that it almost hurt; it made it harder to breathe, harder to talk, harder to think. It was as if my desire was a force larger than myself, and I was simultaneously frightened and overjoyed to follow wherever it led me.
- “The storm came in fast,” Katherine observed as she wrung out her curls. She didn’t seem at all self-conscious even though her soaking-wet white slip left nothing to the imagination. Somehow, it seemed almost more illicit and erotic to see her scantily dressed than to see her naked. “One could think that it was almost a sign that our relationship is not meant to be.” Her voice was teasing, but I felt a shiver of dread go up my spine.
- “It seemed like I needed a friend,” Katherine said firmly. “Damon’s a flirt. He doesn’t want to be tied down, nor would I want to be tied to him. You are my love, and Damon is my brother.”
- Katherine stared at me, a desperate, pleading expression in her eyes. But what could I do? She was lost to me now.
- how can you turn on her so easily??
- “I knew you’d tell Father eventually. I just don’t know why Katherine trusted you with her secret. Why she believed you wouldn’t turn her in. Why she loved you.” His voice broke on the word love, and he dropped the knife. His face crumpled in anguish, and he didn’t look dangerous or hateful. He looked broken.
- “She didn’t love me,” I said finally. She’d compelled me, and she made me hurt everyone I loved. I felt hatred rise up from the depth of my soul, and I wanted to lead the charge against Katherine.
- Damon rested his head in his hands, staring at the ground. It was then that I realized: Damon loved Katherine. He loved her despite, or maybe because of, her dark side.
- When I’d seen Katherine lying bound on the floor, foaming at the mouth, I’d felt a stomach-turning revulsion. But Damon’s love for Katherine transcended her current state. Damon loved Katherine so much that he’d accept the vampire side of her, instead of pretending it didn’t exist. And in order to be truly happy, Damon needed to be with her
- Damon bit his lip, and I knew we were in this together. Even though we often acted differently, when it counted we thought the same way. Maybe that—the shorthand communication we had as brothers—would be what would save us, and would save Katherine.
- “Stefan?” a weak voice called from the corner, and I forced myself to not lash out, to not spit in the direction of the voice, to not stare into those villainous eyes and tell her I hoped she got exactly what she deserved. “Damon?” the voice broke.
- That was it. And watching them, the way Katherine’s fingers stroked Damon’s hair, the way Damon cried into her collarbone, I knew that this was true love.
- Father had been right. There were demons who walked the earth, and if you didn’t fight them, then you became one.
- We locked eyes, and instantly I realized that I didn’t want to live like Katherine. I didn’t want to see the sunlight only with the aid of the ring on my finger. I didn’t want to always gaze at a human’s neck as if contemplating my next feeding. I didn’t want to live forever.
- Damon nodded, his eyes dull and listless. “There’s no life without Katherine.”
- “I pulled the trigger myself. I pulled it on you, and I pulled it on Damon. And apparently it wasn’t enough,” Father said. “Now I need to finish the job,” he said, his voice as cold as ice.
- WHAT!!! you killed your own sons??
- The anticipation was exquisite. Then, when I couldn’t take it anymore, I curled my lips and plunged my teeth into her neck. Her blood rushed against my teeth, my gums, spurting into my body, bringing with it warmth and strength and life.
- “It’s just us now. Forever. Brothers. There will be other Katherines, forever, for eternity. We can take on the world as we are.” I stopped, following Damon’s gaze toward Alice’s neck. Then he lunged and took a long, deep drink.
- Fury flashed in his eyes. “Thanking you? I never asked you to make my life a hell from which I can’t escape,” he said, spitting each word into the pond. Suddenly he pulled me into a hug with such strength that I gasped. “But hear this, brother,” he hissed in my ear. “Though we will be together for an eternity, I will make an eternity of misery for you.” With that, he released me from his grip and sprinted into the dark forest.
- If only I hadn’t been weak when Katherine stared into my eyes. If only I hadn’t gone back to see Father. If only I hadn’t made Damon drink. But I did. The fallout of those choices is a mantle that only grows darker and more nuanced with age. And I must live with the consequences of my misdeeds for eternity.
nov 23 2014 ∞
nov 23 2014 +
nov 23 2014 +