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you are the one I treated the the worst--only because you loved me the most
Elena watches the feathers floating around them; their soft wonder, the way they hold light. The way Bonnie holds light. Her best friend’s eyes fill up with unshed tears, and even when she lets them go, Elena is sure Bonnie is holding back. She always has. Elena draws in a breath that is too big for her chest, and pushes their past back to the recesses of her mind. She doesnt want this moment, brief as it is, to be about their pain. Even if there is so much of it between them. No, Elena wants to remember Bonnie like this--her dark hair kissed by the sun, the light from her bedroom framing her body like some angelic being, the way her brown skin warms up like gold.
She tucks her hair behind her ears, and smiles up at the feathers, “Do you remember Ivory Johnson’s party?”
Bonnie is thrown off by this train of thought, obviously counting their seconds. But she shrugs, her curiosity besting her reason. What’s one more indulgence, huh? “Yeah, I think so? I kissed Jimmy Harmon during 7 minutes in heaven and Caroline made fun of me for weeks because our braces locked”, she rubs the back of her neck, the memory still embarrassing. They sit in it, the innocuous feeling of innocent memories that don’t bite, like everything else between them. Bonnie holds it, their history, out of this frame, so that she can have one last good memory of her best friend. Elena holds it, too, but closer to her chest. It’s maybe why her breath wont fit in her chest--because Bonnie is sitting in there instead.
“God, I hated that game”, Elena says, still lost in all the light in the room. Lost, to Bonnie’s eye, in this memory. Lost, truly in the space Bonnie occupies in her chest, “I wanted to go home so bad. We called your Grams and she was there in ten minutes, remember?” Bonnie’s chuckle is soft and short. Elena watches Bonnie’s face, thinking back on it, but she’s still occupied with their dwindling time and Elena can tell. Elena doesnt want this moment, and the way they hold the other as well as they always do, to end. But the memory is over, and when the silence settles, both of them are reminded that all their memories are not as innocent as this one, and bringing one forward can threaten to tear the whole wall down.
Bonnie intends to save the moment.
She always does.
She is unprepared for Elena’s hands on either side of her face, her lips warm and chaste against hers. The sensation juxtaposes her cold hands and Bonnie feels a little lost in it. When she pulls away from her, she does not remove her hands and Bonnie looks on, eyebrows furrowed, waiting on why.
“Bonnie Bennett you loved me better than anyone else in my life”, Elena can feel the tears at the edges of Bonnie’s eyes, but she wont do anything to disturb them. Elena would like to give Bonnie something, after everything Bonnie has given her, “I wish that I could have been better to you.”
Bonnie maybe moves to escape her friends hands and gaze, but she can’t. It is not necessarily force that keeps her. Maybe just Elena’s eyes, more honest than she’s ever remembered, “Elena…”
Elena’s eyes are glad that Bonnie has let her capture her. She is still trying to save the moment, after all, “You’ve carried us, all this time. You carry me , even now, when I know I dont deserve any of it. And you recreate that magic that made me love you a little more and I couldn’t look past myself”, now her own eyes are wet, but this isn’t her moment, so she doesnt go to wipe the tear away when it falls. She keeps her eyes and her hands on Bonnie. Her best friend, her hero, her entire life, if she hadn’t been such a coward.
Bonnie does not flinch when she leans in, and presses another kiss to her lips. Elena hums, in Bonnie’s silence. “I had always been jealous of Jimmy”, she says, wanting to revere this moment, but keep her eyes open. Bonnie has not flinched, or made a move to move away. Her heart is still, her eyes wide with the wonder she can only associate with Bonnie. She’s saving the moment, again, because this is perfect .
“Live a life worthy of you, Bonnie Bennett”, Elena presses her thumb to Bonnie’s bottom lip, and Bonnie smiles, small, against her skin.
They watch the feathers, still floating in the air around them. Soft, in their wonder. Holding light.