Every lie is a secret I'll die to keep

Disclaimer: The characters and other things from The Vampire Diaries don't belong to me. Credit goes to the rightful owners.

A/N: This can stand alone but is intended to be a companion piece to "Every lie is a promise I don't want to keep." Would be good to read that too :) Hope you enjoy reading!

I hate you.

How could you?

I hurt you. I know. We both have to live with that.

But were you so far gone that you couldn't see the pain behind my words? That you couldn't hear how hard it was for me to sound sure, keep my voice from breaking when I told you that it was always going to be Stefan? Was it not punishment enough to have my own words slice through me? Did you have to be cruel enough to hurt me through my brother? Did you have to be the monster I've forgotten was part of you?

I hate you.

The panic that gripped my heart is still there, crushing me under its weight that I can barely breathe right now. The anger is overwhelming me and the tears refuse to stop spilling from my eyes, my sanity hanging by a thread. I want to scream as loud as I can until I feel like my lungs will give out so I can tell you what a bastard you are. I want to hit you and shake you until you feel what I'm feeling. I want this pain to go away. Please. Please. Please take it away.

You killed my brother. Whether or not he came back from it, whether you knew he would or not, what you did is unforgivable. It should be. It has to be. I need it to be.

If we ever needed saving the most, it must be now because I don't know how I'll get through this and wake up tomorrow like everything is still okay. I'm not. I don't think I ever will be because you also killed something in me tonight. I'll never be the same and neither will you.

I hate you.

I'm not blind. I want to be so I'm going to walk the easy path. I'll feed my anger by forgetting the remorse in your eyes, the doubt in the choice we made tonight to let go of whatever it was between us.

I will tell myself, long after the tears subside, that you did this. You have no right to comfort me, protect me or even just care.

You didn't just kill my brother, you abandoned me. You cut yourself out of my life and I still need you.

I hate you.

I'm not Katherine, I never will be. Because she never saw you, know how far you would go for the people you care about and she never really loved you. I can never be that girl, even if tried. I don't want to be.

Katherine cursed you with this existence, into a darkness you can't seem to leave behind but I'll always be the one trying to save you from it.

But you treated me as if I were her—unbreakable and numb. I don't play games, especially not with the lives of the people I love.

I hate you.

I'm a liar, I know that. There was no need to say it. All you had to do was believe me. We could have lived the rest of our days with that unspoken secret between us. You could have just left me in blissful denial.

I hate you. God, I hate you.

You made me believe in you, that I knew you and that you would never hurt me. I trusted you.

And you know what hurts so much? Is that I still do, that even in the haze of all my anger with you, I still understand you. It frustrates me that these tears are not just for almost losing Jeremy but because I can still feel your pain, the desperation from your kiss still lingers on my lips and it's clawing into my heart to know you will never completely heal from tonight.

I hate you.

You were right. I was scared that she would send you off the deep end.

You were right. You didn't need her for that because I managed to do that just fine.

I'm crying, fighting so hard to keep breathing, because I felt your desperation and I knew with certainty, with unwanted cruelty, the words that I needed to say. The words we both needed to hear to stop us from feeling something we shouldn't be allowed to even imagine.

I did this, I have a hand in all of this, but I choose to hate you for it, because it's easier not to feel—just like you said. I'd rather mourn the loss of you in my life than listen to that voice inside me that wants to forgive you. I never should.

I hate myself.

Because the truth didn't die with my brother and it's eating me up inside.

I hate you.

I'll tell myself there's nothing good in you. You don't want to feel. You want to be hated. It's easier that way.

I'll believe it all or everything I know will fall apart and I'll betray everyone I know including Stefan, who loves me honestly, in a way I sometimes feel I don't deserve.

Because if I don't keep lying to myself, I know I'll forgive you. I know that I'll look into your eyes and feel like everything that shattered in my heart tonight is falling back into place. I'll have to accept why in this moment my hatred for you is so pure, why I'm so afraid to look past what you did to me, to us. The second I stop, you will have to know why.

I love you.