never forget you || carolijah
Six years ago Caroline felt the pain of true heartbreak, of having everything just ripped out from under her without any sign or warning. She knew what it was like to be broken, of being shattered, of having every piece of her crumble; all because of one person. His name was Elijah Mikaelson. He was the love of Caroline's life, or so she always liked to believe. She liked to believe that they would get married, have kids, and grow old together. They were supposed to be right by each other, no matter what circumstances were thrown their way. That's always what he had her believing in too, until one day all of those beliefs just suddenly shifted. When everything she ever believed in all vanished.
If Caroline had to define her relationship with Elijah in one single word it would have been, perfect; that's simply what they were. Sure they fought, every couple always did, but they always got past it. Caroline found herself always happy with him, always found herself wanting to be with him; even if it was just in the most simple of moments. He consumed her mind, body, and soul. Sure she was only seventeen at the time and most people told them it was a teenage romance that they had, but they always knew it was far more than just a teenage romance. But the more she thought back on that, the more she started to believe those people and what they had told them. Maybe if she had just listened to them, she wouldn't have broke that night. The night where her whole life changed and the night her whole perspective on the world changed.
They broke up, but it was more than just a break up, it was her world crashing down on her. It was him telling her that he never loved her, it was him telling her that he cheated on her and that she meant absolutely nothing to him. She called him out on all of it, telling him she knew it was all a lie and that if he wanted to end them, than to at least be truthful with her. But he kept repeating the same things over and over again, until Caroline just started to believe the lies the spoke of. Caroline believed all of the harsh lies and it felt cold, she felt cold. She didn't know what was even wrong between the two of them that would cause Elijah to do the horrid things he spoke of to her. Why would he spend so much time with her if in the end, none of it mattered to him? Without needed to hear another word from him, she left, and she didn't look back after that, she couldn't look back. She couldn't look back at the only person who wasn't supposed to hurt her, that had betrayed her in more ways than one. She graduated from high school with a smile on her face, but from then on she lived her life with a fake smile planted on her face. Getting accepted to a college in New York was exactly what she needed to start over with a new life, one without Elijah Mikaelson.
Caroline moved to New York and has lived there for six years with a career as a real estate agent. It wasn't her first choice in a career, she had always wanted to be a broadcast journalist, but the new career choice was something she needed to do. She was great at her job, and she loved it with a passion, it was the only thing in her life that made her happy and distracted. Her relationships with guys tended to be an on and off sort of ordeal since she never let any one of them stay long enough around her to where she would get hurt again. Whenever she felt herself start to develop actual feelings for someone, she would drop them. She just wouldn't allow herself to get close to anyone, not again.
Entering the local coffee shop, just as she had every morning before work, she grabbed herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the same booth she did every morning. It was her daily morning process, one she never broke because she needed something steady in her life, and this was it. But what she didn't expect to happen was for somebody to break her steady and to appear, even after six years of not seeing this said person.
