We all have have fucked up things that have happened to us or have encountered. Maybe I knew how to hide some things after all, Stefan thought that I had been living the perfect life without him, oh how I wish that would've been true. Now that he's out, Stefan is only seeing me as the woman I became after going through the things I did. I get it, I look perfectly fine, my life is great and I'm happy now. He wouldn't have recognized the teenage girl that he once loved if he had gotten out earlier, that girl was a complete wreck. My growing up may have been less worse than Tessa's but I went through shit as well, hell and back is what it feels like. I still have nightmares about losing the baby and the beating, sometimes its about the rape. Yet I don't let those things cripple me any longer, Elena Pierce chose to pick herself up and get through the darkness. I thank God for my friends and brother. I owe Caroline and Matt my life.

"It wasn't always good times Stefan, it wasn't always sunny for me being some glamorous model in New York. It was long hours, no food with pills shoved in my hands to stay awake. It was being grabbed and fucked with, it was being raped by two men who were sick in the head!" I let it all out and just decide to say fuck this secrecy shit! We're in the south anyway, let's air our dirty laundry for everyone! "I picked up all of the broken pieces and got my head on straight. I chose to over come the horrible things that had happened to me, you weren't here to hear about it or witness it, so you don't get to tell me that I don't know a fucking thing about horrible shit." Then I leave the room in search of my shoes knowing that if I stay near him I may crumble. But Stefan is hot on my trail as we enter the living room and I stop, his arms wrap around me and I get pulled back into his hard chest. He's either crying or fixing to let tears fall, I can tell in his breathing. This is too fucking weird for me to handle right now, I can't take it. Its a fucking roller coaster that just wont stop! "We were going to be parents?" His voice cracks slightly, I nod my head. Fuck. "You didn't want to see me or speak to me, told Damon not to tell you anything that involved me, so I begged him not to tell you that I was pregnant. I said that if you cared about me at all, then you would want to have something to do with me." I whisper, I know he hears me by how he tenses up. I turn to look at his face and he let's a few tears drop, I see sadness and rage in his eyes. I motion towards the couch and soon I'm in his lap. His grip around me is best described as iron clad. "The week I found out I was pregnant, I only had 3 days to get used to the reality of it. I was severely depressed and even though you were gone and wanted nothing to do with me, I felt happy for the first time since you were arrested." I wipe my eyes free of the tears that had gathered and slowly started to leak out. "I went to the store one night because I had a fucking craving for Pizza sticks from the hot box and a blueberry slushy, I had stupidly walked there alone. Anyway I was pulled into an alley by some guy, was mugged then beaten. The store owner heard my screams and found me, when I woke up in the hospital with Bonnie telling me that there was nothing that could've been done I freaked out and had to be sedated."

"And New York?" he asks me in a raspy voice, I wipe my tears again then clear my voice. "Caroline and I were roommates in college, we were approached by a guy in a bar one weekend in Atlanta. We were still in college and went on a vacation, somewhere we had never been before. She grew up in a small town in Texas, similar to here in Shallow Springs and had only left there for college. We both ended up going to Duke in North Carolina, ended up being roommates and we clicked then became best friends. Anyway, after working with the agency for almost a year while studying our courses online, we were doing a show out in L.A., at the after party she and I were fucking wasted. After having more than a few drinks and some pills, I went upstairs to look for the bathroom because I felt sick. My boss followed me and his friend joined him up the stairs, I had been talking to the other guy in only a friendly manner all night and they took me against my will in the fucking bathroom. The sleazes raped me and if it wasn't for Caroline coming to look for me, who knows." I say with a shrug. "I was roofied on top of already being fucked up." Suddenly my leg is burning from his grip, "Did he get sentenced?" I nod staring blankly at the floor, "Yes, I didn't want anyone to know so Caroline's dad helped me stay out of the paper's and media, that's why Damon didn't know. Caroline would've taken it to her grave if I had let him go free, she's loyal." Stefan nods his head and sighs loudly. It feels good to tell him this, but I feel like he doesn't deserve to know it. I'm the one who is obviously the fuck up here.

I look at him and see that he's battling a raging war on the inside, maybe I should drop it. "Tell me about your almost suicide Lena." Closing my eyes I take a deep breath, "After that I threw myself into pushing all that had happened out of my mind. I was addicted to the pills they were giving me and I kept working under my contract even though Caroline broke hers and begged me to do the same. I couldn't stop though, anything to forget about it all, pills, money and studying my ass off. Clothes, cars you name it I was owning it. After a while I broke the fuck down and decided to take a break thanks to my agent and Caroline talking more sense into my head, she went back to Duke and I came home. I couldn't cope, everyone around me was happy and I wasn't, I wanted to just fade into darkness." Stefan pulls me closer to his body and lays a kiss to my shoulder. "Stefan, I was withdrawn, moody and distant. I kept thinking that I should be here with a child that I'll never get to hold, that the next time I have consensual sex I'll only think about the rape, I was failing all of my classes even though I was trying my best to study and do the online classes, but it was just too much."

"Christmas was just not great that year when I came back, Damon and I got into a fight, so I went to the nearest bar that I knew and got hammered then on my way out I ran into Tessa of all people." I don't hide the hate in my voice, fuck that cunt! Stefan's eyes turn dark, he has light green eyes that are the most beautiful I've ever seen and they turn a scary dark shade of the color. "Tessa said that you would be so happy to know that I lost the baby, that there was no way in hell you could've ever been happy about it since you never wanted kids. She laughed at me, then told me that when she heard about the miscarriage it was like music to her ears." Stefan wipes away my fresh set of tears and pulls my face to his chest. His heart is beating wildly, the skin on his hard chest is radiating heat like you wouldn't believe. "So in my drunken stupor I believed her, I drove home found Damon's .38 revolver and put it to my head. I was holding a picture of you and me in my hands bawling my eyes out. I took one last look at your face and then Matt came around the corner of the kitchen and saw me. He flew into a panic, he told me that finding his sister dead and hanging from a tree was the worst day of his life and that he couldn't watch me do this. That no matter what had happened I could tell him and he would help me in anyway possible to get through this dark time in my life. Matt saw that I was holding the picture." I close my eyes remembering how I was literally fixing to end my life, I wasn't fucking around. Had Matt not have came in, I would be in a coffin right now.

"I'll never forget his words, 'Look at Stefan, Elena look at his face, he will always love you and to find out that you're gone would absolutely kill him. None of us could picture you out of our lives Elena, you're too fucking important and too loved to take your life. We're going to get you through whatever it is that has you wanting to put a bullet in your skull." By now we're both a crying mess, Stefan's stroking my hair while his hot tears fall onto my head and mine are on his skin. This is just weird, Stefan has never shed a tear to my knowledge and it scares me. "So I finally gave him the gun and broke down into a sobbing wreck, when I had finally calmed down enough to speak I told him everything that had happened with my boss and his friend and the run in with Tessa. I told him about the pills. By the time Damon and Bonnie came home from the Christmas party at the shop, Matt forced me into telling them so I did." I raise my head to look into his eyes and he willingly looks down to me. "In the end, I went to counseling and rehab. I had the people I loved standing by my side and I sometimes have nightmares, but I picked my self up and dealt with it. I went back to school and got my shit together, I graduated back in May. Yes, I've done well for myself, being a model was awesome until it wasn't and now that my friend turned agent knows my past she's just waiting on my call to come to her brother's company. I haven't done this in years, but they want me." I clear my throat and blink back tears, "People like Tessa are jealous because I chose to overcome all the shit I was put through, so they want to bring people like me down." Stefan nods his head and his hand starts to caress my thigh where he has been gripping me, "I don't know what she did to help you get through your time in prison, but I don't like her. I never have and I never will. I wasn't going to tell you any of this, but I decided that if she ever brought it up that you would of course find out and she would've probably spun a different story. I should be the one to let you know about the baby, I'm not trying to get you on my side Stef, I don't need to say I won because this isn't some competition for your love, I just needed you hear the truth."

Clearing his throat Stefan sits me up so I can look him in the eyes. "I'm not in love with her Lena, truth be told I'm only with her because I feel like that's what I deserve. Scum with scum. Yeah we became friends when I was in that hell hole, but I don't love her. I'm over what she and Zack did, that was a lifetime and I just clicked, her life is a wreck and I do feel for her." He closes his eyes for a second and when they open I see tears. "Baby, I promise you that I would've loved our child every fucking day of my life, when she thought she was pregnant by me when we were together I told her that I didn't want kids. I just didn't want them with her fucking cheating ass. Of course that was just her trying to get me back with her and she apologized for her lies and cheating on her first visit." I smile sadly at his words and he continues, "I'm so fucking sorry that I wasn't here to be with you, I'm sorry that you've had to go through all of this. I swear baby I was just looking out for you, I thought that with you away it would be easy for you to hate me. I knew that I would eventually drag you down to my hell and you were too fucking amazing for that. In my fucked up head I thought it was what would be best for you, all I did was take away your choice in the matter. I fucked up again." Stefan looks away, but I quickly grab his face in my hands and hold his gaze. "Stefan, I tried to hate you, oh God how I tried and yet I can't because my love for you outweighs everything." Oh God, I love him still just like I always have.

"I will always love you, we may have only had months to be together but I have always fucking loved your ass. I was all about you since I was 13 and I couldn't believe that you actually fell for me later on." I can't hold it back, I love this man, faults and flaws, I love them all. Stefan is Stefan and underneath everything that makes him a bad boy, is one hell of an amazing person. "Yeah, I went through fucking hell when you got locked up, but I came out the other side better than ever. There is nothing that you could've done to prevent the things that happened anyway, you were gone and shit happened. It wasn't your fault and you have no reason to take the blame for what I went through." Stefan grabs my hands that are holding onto his face his eyes bore into mine intensely, "I still could've been there for you even if it was me doing so in prison. If I would've had known, if only I hadn't been bent on taking the fucking high road we could've gotten through all of our own shit together. We could've been a fucking family even though I wasn't around." Stefan stands and sits me back onto my couch and walks over to where his shirt is laying on my love seat. "I, I'll be back."

Then he's gone again and somehow I know he won't be coming back. Again my fucking heart is back to being broken by Stefan Salvatore.