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“I’m sorry,” she said again. Damon nodded once, stiffly, and walked away, across the living room and through the door to the kitchen. A moment later, she heard the apartment door close quietly behind him.
What did I do? She pressed her hands against her chest, feeling a hollow, desperate ache inside. She couldn’t tell if the emotion belonged to her or to Damon.
Evening had come while Meredith sat on her and Alaric’s bed, waiting for Alaric to come home from teaching his class at Dalcrest. Dread pooled inside her. Half of her—more than half of her—just wanted to run, to get away before she saw him. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists so tight that her nails bit into her palms.
She had been waiting for hours. By the time she heard the front door open and close, the bedroom was almost totally dark, lit only by the streetlights shining in from outside.
Of course, Meredith could see perfectly well.
“Alaric,” she said in a small voice, unsure if he could hear her from the hall. He called back and then came to the bedroom.
“Hey,” he said softly. “When did you get home?” Even if she hadn’t been able to see the smile on his face, she would have heard it in his voice. “How come it’s so dark in here?” He reached toward the light switch, and Meredith stiffened.
“Leave it off, okay?”
“What’s wrong?” Alaric came closer and brushed a concerned hand featherlight across her cheek. Meredith pulled him down beside her on the bed and buried her head in his shoulder. She could hear his heart beating, as steady as the sea.
“What is it?” Alaric asked, pulling her against him. His body was warm and solid, and he petted her hair with one hand, trying to calm her down. Meredith realized she was shaking against Alaric, pushing her face against his shoulder. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” he asked again, sounding almost frantic now.
Meredith told him everything she could think of: how Jack had changed her, how long she’d been hiding it from him. That she’d lied, that she hadn’t been down in Atlanta with the hunters at all, but with Jack, being a vampire.
“I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t trust myself. ” Around you, she didn’t add.
Alaric was silent for a moment, and tears began to fall from Meredith’s eyes. She pressed her face against his shoulder again, shaking. His shirt was warm with his body heat, and she pushed closer, treasuring the last moments of contact. He’d leave her. He’d have to. How could Alaric love her, if she was a monster?
But then his arms went around her and held her tightly.
“We’ll get through this,” he promised. His lips brushed the side of her head, and she gave a choked sob, soaking Alaric’s shoulder with tears and snot. “There’ll be a cure. Maybe. And even if not, we love each other. We can handle this. ”
Alaric’s voice was strained, but he wasn’t flinching away from her. And there weren’t any lies between them, not now. She closed her eyes and sobbed into his shoulder.
She could still smell his blood, salty and metallic, as rich and mysterious as the ocean. But Alaric didn’t smell like food anymore. Instead, he smelled like home.
Chapter 19
Matt hesitated in the hallway, Jasmine’s hand firmly in his, staring at the plain wooden door to Meredith and Alaric’s apartment. His mouth felt dry, and he wasn’t breathing quite right.
It was ridiculous, he knew. He wasn’t afraid of Meredith just because she was suddenly a vampire. He’d been friends with Stefan for years, and he had a cordial relationship with Damon, although they weren’t exactly friends. He’d even been in love with a vampire, poor Chloe, when he was a freshman in college.
Maybe his history with Chloe was the trouble. He knew how hard it was for a vampire to resist feeding, to stay a person instead of a killer. Chloe hadn’t been able to, and in the end she’d chosen to die instead. Becoming a vampire, fighting against those new, violent instincts, could tear a good person apart.
Matt wasn’t going to let that happen to Meredith. None of them were.
Jasmine leaned against him, warm and quietly reassuring. “Can’t stand out here all day,” she said, and Matt lifted his hand and knocked.
Alaric opened the door and smiled at them, looking so normal that Matt’s heart gave a ridiculous hopeful hop. Maybe everything’s okay.
But, as the door swung wider, he saw Meredith, slumped at the kitchen table, her head in her hands, and his heart sank again. Meredith was definitely not okay. She looked broken. Like she’d been fighting on, out of pride, pretending everything was fine, fiercely determined that none of them would know what had happened to her. And now that they knew, all that fight had gone.
Damon lounged in a chair on the other side of the table from Meredith, while Elena and Bonnie leaned against the counter behind him, their faces troubled. Out of the corner of his eye, Matt registered Zander coming in from the other room, moving with an easy, animal grace. But Matt’s attention was fixed on Meredith. He couldn’t believe she was a vampire. And they hadn’t known.
“I can hear your heart thumping, Matt,” Meredith said, not raising her head. “You’re scared of me. ”
It was the flat bitterness in her tone that got Matt moving toward her; she was one of his dearest friends, he couldn’t let her sound like that, feel that way. She looked up at him, her gray eyes wide and wet, and warmth flooded him.
“I’m not scared,” he said, reaching out for her. She flinched away for a second and then leaned into his hand, her body as warm and solid as it had always been. “Meredith, it doesn’t matter. ” She gave a tear-choked snort at that, and he reconsidered, squeezing her shoulders. “Okay, of course it matters, but you haven’t changed. You’re still the same girl who shared your lunch with me in kindergarten. ”
He could remember her so clearly at age five, tall and solemn, dark hair pulled into pigtails. On their first day, Matt had forgotten the lunch his mom had carefully packed for him, and he burst into tears in the cafeteria. Meredith had been there, calm and compassionate, giving him half of her peanut butter sandwich, a handful of grapes, breaking her cookie neatly in two. Matt had tagged along after her for the rest of that whole long confusing first day, confident that Meredith would look after him.
