Heal Me

Chapter 11

'What the fuck did I just do?' Damon thought to himself as he turned around and began walking towards his car, glancing at Evangeline from time to time to make sure she was alright. If he only knew how far from fine she was at that moment...  

'Why the bloody hell did I offer to take her home?' he shouted in his mind and angrily ran a hand through his hair. He had promised to himself... he had sworn! He had sworn to let Evangeline be just a stranger and nothing more. That single fervent thought had been troubling him ever since she had first spoken to him, ever since he was blessed to meet such an angel of a girl.

 He cast her another glance, one full of anger and frustration, but one which spoke volumes... Why was he checking up on her? Why did he want to make sure she was not going to break down and sob hopelessly? Did he care? Was Evangeline right? Were they friends?

 And as his eyes landed on the white-dressed figure at his left, on her wet rosy cheeks and soft skin revealed by the way she had chosen to arrange her hair, he realized that he was way more involved than he had ever thought... he was in this whole thing -whatever it was- before he saved Addy from a car accident. He had broken his own promise when he had accepted that cappuccino and thanked her... Maybe he had broken it right after making it, when he had stared at the 'E' on her gold ring and let his mind make the connection between his mother and her. That moment might had been worthless... or it might had been when everything actually started, when she became so much more than a brunette teenage girl.

 But why couldn't Damon see her as just that? He simply could not do it. No matter how desperately, how hard he had tried to deny it, to deny her, Evangeline had made him feel and continued to wake emotions in him that he had never thought he would experience again.

Damon closed his eyes tight and bit his cheek to prevent himself from yelling at her. He was tired of this; he had had enough and wanted her out of his life for good. He thought that if that happened he would be able to forget her and that bright happy smile, to wipe out of his memory how strangely good it felt to have her so near to him, tying a knot in the lilac smelling scarf or dancing to the rich music, their warm hands perfectly resting against each other. But if that didn't work, Damon could always pretend to have forgotten the anger running through his veins when he saw an oddly looking boy trailing his slimy fingers all over the angel who sat next to him that day, or the raging heartbeat he had while waiting for those soft virgin lips to answer his main question: Why was she doing all of this?

 She suddenly sniffed her nose a little and tightened her grip around her upper arms. As the urge of glancing at her again washed through him, Damon damned that little special thing that she had; he now saw it, clear as day... There was something about Evangeline that he could not resist, could not deny. He had absolutely no idea what it was, though. And, as if it wasn't enough, that frustrated him and scrambled his thoughts even more. Because whatever that little special thing was, he could not fight it. But had he been actually struggling to do so? And not just try... struggle. Then why did he feel that, deep inside him, he did not want to?

 But he was sick of thinking. The overwhelming pain that he caused on that day continued to come back to him like the waves of the ocean that he was now drowning in. He had thought that he eventually would learn to cope, to live with it as if it was a normal part of his everyday life, but he was so wrong. Damon felt like he could come crumbling down any day; even as grown-up as he was, the grief was just too much...

~

Evangeline felt extremely uncomfortable as Damon led her to his car, slowly and carefully making his way through the darkness. Her eyes were still swollen up and her muscles were far from relaxed.

 With each moment that passed in what it seemed an interminable walk to the place Damon had left his car, she began to feel Brandon's hands on her again. It was just her imagination, of course, but every inch of white soft skin that he roughly touched was itching as a bad sunburn that she could not do anything about.