Chapter 24 - ELENA COMES HOMENearly one year after Ruby walked into Maple Corner Diner, Elena stood in the old Brackett Street apartment.
The current tenants were moving.
The landlord had called Damon because the building was being renovated and several items from the attic had been found.
One belonged to him.
The blue-gray baby blanket.
The one Damon thought he had donated years ago had somehow been returned to the building’s lost-property storage.
Attached to it was the original shipping label.
Elena recognized her handwriting.
Ruby held the blanket.
“You sent this?”
Elena nodded.
“I came here too.”
Damon looked at her sharply.
“When?”
“Ruby was eleven months old.”
“You came to Portland?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you knock?”
Elena looked at the apartment door.
“I did.”
Damon stared.
“You weren’t home.”
“What happened?”
“I waited across the street.”
Her eyes filled.
“Then I saw you come back with a woman.”
Damon blinked.
“What woman?”
“I don’t know.”
He thought.
Then burst out laughing.
Elena frowned.
“What?”
“My cousin Natalie.”
Elena stared.
“She hugged you.”
“She was moving to Seattle.”
“You carried her suitcase.”
“I was helping her.”
Ruby looked between them.
“You didn’t ask?”
Elena covered her face.
“I was twenty-two, terrified, sleep-deprived, and apparently an idiot.”
Damon laughed harder.
“You vanished for another seven years because you saw my cousin?”
“No!”
Elena started laughing too.
“Vale was still the main reason.”
“Good clarification.”
“But yes, that moment convinced me you’d moved on.”
Ruby shook her head.
“You two are exhausting.”
Damon sat on the floor laughing.
Eventually Elena sat beside him.
Ruby wrapped herself in the baby blanket.
For several minutes, they looked around the apartment.
This was where Damon and Elena had once believed their story would begin.
Instead it ended.
Then began again nine years later in a different form.
Elena said quietly, “I spent so much time thinking coming home meant coming back here.”
Damon nodded.
“And?”
“It doesn’t.”
Ruby lifted her head from the blanket.
“What does it mean?”
Elena looked at her daughter.
Then at Damon.
“It means going somewhere you don’t have to run from.”
Damon reached for her hand.
Elena let him take it.
Their relationship had rebuilt slowly.
Coffee became dinners.
Dinners became weekends.
One night became two.
Neither wanted to recreate their teenage romance.
They wanted something adult.
Honest.
Sometimes painfully honest.
Damon finally asked:
“Do you want to try for real?”
Elena smiled.
“We’ve been trying for nine months.”
“I mean officially.”
“Do I get a contract?”
“I know a lawyer.”
Ruby groaned.
“Just kiss already.”
Both adults turned toward her.
“You were not part of this conversation,” Elena said.
“I’m the reason you’re having it.”
Damon could not argue.
He kissed Elena.
Not dramatically.
Not like people reclaiming lost time.
Like people choosing new time.
Ruby pulled the baby blanket over her head.
“Gross.”
Damon smiled against Elena’s forehead.
“Home?”
Elena looked around the empty apartment one last time.
“No.”
May you like
Then she looked at Ruby.
“Home.”
