"Like what?" Elena asked.
"Relaxed, I suppose. Ever since we met, you've been in the middle of some crisis or another." He raised his hand and brushed a curl away from her face, gently touching her cheek.
Elena was vaguely aware of the waiter standing by the booth, waiting for them to look up, as she answered with just a touch of flirtation, "Oh, and I suppose you had nothing to do with that?"
"I wouldn't say I am the one who's been most to blame, no," Damon said cool y, his grin fading. He looked up, his eyes sharp and knowing. "Hel o, Stefan." Elena froze in surprise. Not the waiter, then. Stefan. One look at him, and she winced, her stomach dropping. His face could have been carved from stone. He was looking at Damon's hand, stil stretched across the table toward Elena.
"Hey," she said tentatively. "How was your study group?" Stefan stared at her. "Elena, I've been looking everywhere for you. Why didn't you answer your phone?" Pul ing out her phone, Elena saw that there were several messages and texts from Stefan. "Oh, no, I'm so sorry," she said. "I didn't hear it ring."
"We were supposed to meet," Stefan said stiffly. "I came to your room and you were just gone. Elena, people have been disappearing al over campus." He had been scared, afraid that something terrible had happened to her. His eyes were stil anxious. She started to reach out to comfort him. The fact that she'd lost the Power she'd had so briefly was hard for Stefan to accept, she knew. He thought her mortality made her fragile, and he was afraid he'd lose her. She should have thought it through, should have left him more of a message than a quick text saying she would return soon.
Before she could touch him, Stefan's gaze turned to Damon. "What's going on?" he asked his brother, his voice ful of frustration. "Is this why you fol owed us to col ege? To zero in on Elena?"
The look of hurt that crossed Damon's face was only a subtle shadow and was gone so quickly that Elena wasn't entirely sure she had actual y seen it. His features settled into an expression of lazy disdain, and Elena tensed. The peace between the brothers was so fragile - she knew that - and yet she had let Damon flirt with her. She'd been so stupid.
"Someone should be keeping her safe, Stefan," Damon drawled. "You're too busy playing human again, aren't you?
Study groups." He lifted an eyebrow scornful y. "I'm surprised you've even noticed that there's something going on around this campus. Would you rather have Elena alone and in danger than have her spending time with me?" Tense lines were forming around Stefan's mouth.
"You're saying you don't have an ulterior motive here?" he asked.
Damon waved a hand disparagingly. "You know what I feel for Elena. Elena knows what I feel for Elena. Even that sports-loving Mutt of yours knows how things are between us. But the problem isn't me, little brother - it's you and your jealousy. Your wanting to be an 'ordinary human'" - Damon made quote marks with his fingers - "and stil carry on with Elena, who is hardly ordinary. You want to have your cake and eat it, too. I haven't done anything wrong. Elena wouldn't have come with me if she didn't want to." Elena winced again. Was this the way it was always going to be? Was any minor misstep on her part going to set Damon and Stefan at each other's throats? "Stefan...
Damon," she implored, but they ignored her.
They were glaring at each other. Stefan stepped closer, flexing his fists, and Damon clenched his jaw, silently daring Stefan to make a move. For the first time, Elena saw a resemblance between them.
"I can't do this," she said. Her voice sounded smal and soft to her own ears, but both Salvatore brothers heard her and whipped their heads toward her with inhuman speed.
"I can't do this," she said again, louder and more firmly this time. "I can't be Katherine."
Damon scowled. "Katherine? Believe me, darling, nobody here wants you to be Katherine." Stefan, his face softening, said, "Elena, sweetheart - " Elena interrupted him. "Listen to me." She wiped her eyes. "I've been walking on eggshel s, trying to keep this -
this thing between the three of us from tearing us apart. If anything good has come out of al the stuff that's happened, it's that you found each other, you started being brothers again. I can't - " She took a deep breath and tried to find a sensible matter-of-fact voice somewhere inside herself.
"I think we should take a break," she said flatly. "Stefan, I love you so much. You're my soul mate, you're it for me.
You know that." She looked up at him pleadingly, silently begging him to understand.
Then her eyes moved past him to Damon, who was staring at her with a furrowed brow. "And Damon, you're part of me now. I ... feel for you." She looked back and forth between them, her hands clutching each other. "I can't lose either of you. But I need to figure out who I am now, after everything that's happened, and I need to do it without worrying about destroying the relationship between you.
And you need to figure out how you can be friends with each other, even if I'm in both of your lives." Damon let out a skeptical noise, but Elena kept talking.
"I'l understand" - she gulped - "if you can't wait for me. But I wil always, always love you. Both of you. In different ways.
But for now, I just can't be with you. Either of you." She was tearing up again, and her hands shook as she wiped her eyes.
Damon leaned across the table, a smal twisted smile hovering on his lips. "Elena, did you just break up with both of us?"
The tears dried up instantly. "Damon, I never dated you," she said angrily.