(Damon's POV – Flashback, the first real conversation after the gala)
It happened three days after the gala.
I told myself I wouldn't call her.
That I'd let the past stay buried where it belonged, under layers of duty and decades of silence.
But there are some moments you can't unsee. Some people you can't unfeel.
She'd slipped her number into my palm that night without a word, a quiet dare pressed into flesh. I carried it home like a secret.
I told myself I wouldn't use it.
But on the third night, I did.
Not because I was drunk.
Not because I was weak.
But because I was human.
And because I couldn't stop wondering what her voice sounded like now—when it wasn't guarded by laughter or distance.
The phone rang twice.
Then her voice came through—breathless and quiet.
"Damon?"
I didn't answer right away.
Her name sat heavy on my tongue. Serena. And saying it felt like peeling back old pages I'd once sworn never to read again.
"You free tomorrow?" I asked finally.
A beat passed. She hesitated. But then came the word that broke every rule I had drawn around myself:
"Yes."
—
We met at a quiet rooftop bar. No paparazzi. No noise. Just the city below and the wind above.
She wore something soft again. Pale blue. Bare shoulders. Hair down. No makeup. Like she didn't need to impress anyone—and never had.
"You look…" I began, but stopped.
She raised an eyebrow. "Older?"
"Dangerous," I said.
She smiled, slow and knowing. "Then I guess you should've stayed away."
"I tried."
She sipped her drink. Her hand trembled just slightly, and I noticed. She was nervous, even if she didn't want to be.
"You used to be easier to talk to," she said.
"I used to be younger."
"And less careful."
I looked at her. "I had less to lose."
Her eyes softened. "What changed?"
You did, I wanted to say.
But I didn't.
Instead, I said, "Everything."
The night stretched between us, elastic with tension. The past didn't stay buried. It rose in the spaces between our words. She asked about my life. I gave her half-truths. She asked why I left that night—years ago—without saying goodbye.
"You were sixteen," I said. "And I was already too far gone."
"And now?" she asked quietly.
"I'm still too far gone."
"But I'm not sixteen anymore," she said, leaning in, her voice barely a whisper. "And you're not pretending not to feel this."
I looked at her then—not as a girl I once knew, but as the woman who'd haunted my sleep for nights now. I saw her heartbreak. Her hope. Her defiance.
I saw myself mirrored in her eyes.
"You think I'm some fairytale you left behind," I said.
"No," she whispered. "I think you're the ending I never got to write."
Silence followed.
Heavy. Sharp.
God, she was right.
We could've been something once. Before the years. Before the damage. Before the guilt took root in me and made home in my chest.
"I never forgot you," she said finally. "Even when you made sure I had every reason to."
I reached for her hand.
Not out of lust.
But longing.
"I thought forgetting you would protect you," I said.
"You were wrong."
---
That night, I didn't kiss her.
I didn't sleep with her.
I just sat with her, beneath the moon, and let her fall asleep against my shoulder like she used to when she was young and fearless and asked the world too many questions.
And I didn't move.
Not for hours.
Because I knew—
This wasn't the end.
This wasn't even the beginning.
This was the pause before the storm.
The breath before the fall.
And I had no idea how to stop it.