Note: where I live they say that God grants to those passed away forty days on earth, so that they can say goodbye to their loved ones…

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She always liked the last light of a dying day; it's a liquid, orange color - so warm, so vibrant - that turns into gold everything it touches. She will not turn into gold, though; in fact she will not turn into anything but dust.

Her headstone is made of night-rose granite with a carved white rose on the side. The engraving farewell says Bonnie Bennett, August 14, 1995 – May 9, 2013, Loving daughter, Best friend, Forever our Halo.

She had watched as her dad picked it from a slick catalogue, his eyes red, his head low, the tip of his nose still wet from the last tear that had rolled down, as the clerk informed him that the regular price for that item was $2,231,00 but they were having a discount and so they could give it to him for only $1,876,00.

Her dad had looked at the man with a confused face like he couldn't understand what that really meant – he was buying a headstone for his teenaged only daughter, he had trouble enough understanding that concept to be able to do anything else.

Men can only do one thing at time, her gram always said with a comforting smile when her dad failed at keeping his promise to show up at her school recitals. He was so busy with work, with what he thought he was meant to do, and she had hoped and hoped and hoped for a little of his time, for a few words that could make it all right. Now she has no time anymore and he's left alone with all the words he never said to her.

Bonnie knows he was seeing those words as he stared at his empty hands during the visitation. She had stared at them too, wishing she could hold them and tell him it was going to be alright, even if probably wouldn't.

The people around her, whispering she was so young and I heard she was using drugs and overdosed, made her nauseous, the ones crying made her claustrophobic, even if breathing is not an issue anymore. And she couldn't take it.

It's pretty much everyone's fantasy, to watch their own funeral to find out who really cares about them, how the world would react to their absence. She got to live that fantasy, lucky her.

Bonnie had watched the quiet, elegant crowd gathering around her coffin as she stayed distant to not catch Jeremy's eyes.

It had been so hard to stay away from the only person that can still see and hear her – the only person that can still give her the illusion of being alive. But it would be a pointless torture for both of them, and the sooner he can come to terms with her absence, the sooner he'll find his way back to happiness. Moreover, she decided she can't give herself that, can't give herself the hope that there's still a chance for her, a chance for years and love and memories to fill a life with, so she stood there, watching her own funeral, her young body getting buried, Caroline's make-up melting down, Elena holding Jeremy like he was the last rope to tie her to sanity, Stefan's face twisted into an expression she could not decipher, Matt crying silently and holding his jaw to a point she feared he was going to break it.

And now that there are only the footsteps on the freshly turned over earth and her shiny headstone to keep her company, she waits. For the night to come, for her forty days to be over, because it turns out, life might end but people can never stop waiting.

If she concentrates really hard she can almost catch the smell of the fresh flowers on her grave, can feel the incision on the granite on her fingertips as she traces the elegant characters. She bitterly smiles letting her mind be tricked by the strength of her oh, so very human instinct to remain tied to life.

She's got her forty days to say her goodbyes, make sure people she loved know what she feels for them. Forty days to accept that this is not going to be her life anymore. Forty days to feel her senses slip away, her third eye opened up to stare the naked, eternal truth in the eye and be part of it. And sometimes she almost can't tell how many of them have already passed, because nothing in her can grasp time anymore.

Bonnie kneels on her grave, lowers her head pushing back her hair - like they could really fall on the wet flowers and get dirty – and tries to smell the scent that must surrender the place where her body lies.

"Girls always love to get flowers," he says, making her turn around with wide eyes, "But if that's what you wanted, you've gone a bit too far."

For a moment she feels so relieved, like against every odd she's been found, in a world out of reach, in a place out of time, and she thinks she's about to be pulled in again, but Damon is staring through her.

He's looking at her grave with a petulant expression as he holds the neck of a half empty bourbon bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other.

She crosses her arms under her breast and gives him a challenging look.

"What are you doing here, Damon?" she asks, even if he can't hear her. Force of habit.

"Thanks to you my house has become a center for grief counseling. They cry and whine all day long and I don't like my drink watered down, so right now you're the better company-"

"Like my fate wasn't bad enough," she mutters to herself.

"Congratulations, little witch," and he raises the bottle mimicking a toast.

Damon takes a step towards her headstone and she takes a step back, fearing he'll touch her. Stupid, huh?

He puts the glass on top of the dark granite and fills it up with the golden liquid as the sun disappears.

His pale, translucent skin appears whiter than usual. He looks so seraphic in this moment – "I drink to you and your brilliant plan to go and die at nineteen. Well done." - and more an ass than ever.

He sits down, puts the other glass aside and forgets it, drinking directly from the bottle. She sits too, resting with her back against the headstone, feeling the carved flower tickle her a bit, in the back of her mind she still wonders is it's only a trick of her mind or the very last alive part of her that didn't leave her yet.

They are right in front of each other and for a moment she could swear he's looking at her straight in the eyes. It makes her feel slightly tense, and she pulls at the fabric of her dress to cover her legs, like he could really watch underneath the hem at her naked skin. She's going to wear this damn dress forever, and she already hates it.

Bonnie can't quite understand Damon's presence there. She remembers when they found her body. She remembers watching Jeremy cradling her, and Elena crying on her knees. She remembers Damon's stark face as he stayed behind and spitted "Idiot."

Well, it's not like she had expected him to cry, but she thought he would have least had the decency to show her some respect, instead Elena had not found in him an ounce of understanding or support. He had lamented that such stupidity could not be missed and had left her to deal with her loss on her own.

He didn't even show up for her funeral.

"So what now?" he asks, "You only had one life to offer your country. And your ex-boyfriend, and the guy that collects empty cans on River Road. Such a heroine you are. Jeremy is going to cry over you for the rest of his life. Or probably for about two months, before a new chick flashes him her pink panties."

"You're not funny," she says, trying her best not to get angry. It's not like it will do her any good.

"You're not funny," he accuses her. Cutting smile in place, icy eyes shining as it gets darker around them. Damon looks away and takes another gulp of bourbon.

"So eager to sacrifice yourself on the altar of goodness," he says, sarcastically, chanting the words like he's reciting Shakespeare – straight back, chest out, head high. "The monolithic girl that rose above the world's baseness. So righteous, so untouchable," he says with a voice touched by a low vibration, like the one that comes from pounded metal, "Was your life that meaningless?" he asks, his voice suddenly a whisper, his pose slowly falling to a slumped figure.

If you could envision
The meaning of a tragedy
You might be
Surprised to hear it's you and me

Bonnie is fascinated by his sad blue eyes. His grin doesn't match them anymore. Suddenly he looks like a puzzle with a wrong piece.

"Forever our halo, ah" he says, with a derisive tone, "Do you know when you get to be forever something? When you actually get to live forever. All the rest is a pile of crap, honey," he says, drinking more.

"Are we at the terms of endearment now?" she asks, titling her head to the side, like in this position she can better see whatever it is he's showing right now.

"Always so full of shit. Would it have killed you to ask for help?" he's clearly irritated, "Now, because of you I'm kicked out of my own house and I'm stuck with a depressed girlfriend," he laments, "Not that she was so entertaining before."

"I feel your pain," she says sarcastically, patiently watching his childish complaints. He's probably not getting laid, the poor thing – well, welcome to the club.

When it comes down to it
You never made the most of it
So I cried, cried, cried
And now I say goodbye

"So, you're really not coming back?" he asks, suddenly sobered up, "Because I'm telling you, right now it would be a great moment to take it all back. If you do it later on it could be anticlimactic, and decomposition is quite the bitch. So they tell me, anyway," he adds with a shrug.

Damon blinks, looks through her, stares for so long that she can't move, pinned there, with her back on her engraved name.

"Com'on Bonnie," he says, like he's willing her to dig her way out of the coffin like it usually happened in those old horror movies. He so rarely uses her name that she feels uneasy.

"I'm not going to beg you," he adds, with a hardly warning tone.

"I'm really not coming back," she melancholically says, looking down, spelling the words like she's telling them to herself.

"I fucking hate you," he says, startling her, letting himself fall back on the grass, looking up at the first stars in the darkening sky.

And I won't be made a fool of...
Don't call this love

"Damon…" she calls his name but he doesn't move, so she kneels, crawling up to him. His face is blank, his eyes are distant, and she watches his long, black lashes, tempted to count them all, so that at least she'll get to know something certain about him. After all, he seems to get a kick out of taking away her certainty.

"I'm not coming back," she says, her face above his, her hair falling on one side like a curtain that shelters them both from prying eyes, "Do you care?" she asks, astonished by the ridiculous idea.

He sighs, rolling his eyes, turning his head to the side, avoiding her inquisitive look even though he is not trying to, in the first place.

"You're so not funny," he only says, tired.

Bonnie sits on her heels and then gives up on understanding him. It's not like it will change a thing, after all.

She lies down on the grass, next to him, looking up. The sky is so big and she can't help but wonder if she'll get lost in it when her time is over.

#

Note: the song used in this chapter is "The Tragedy" by Christina Perri. I wrote this in a moment when I could borrow a pc, since mine is broken, I'll see you again with more once I have new one or when I can borrow one again.