Damon’s POV
Something about her had changed. At first, I mistook it for progress.
After weeks of fighting me over every little thing, after constant defiance and silence and hatred in her eyes every time I entered her room, the sudden calmness felt almost relieving. She stopped throwing sharp remarks at me every chance she got. Stopped arguing over food. Stopped demanding to leave every single day. Even the tension in her body whenever I entered the room seemed… quieter.
Not gone, never gone but different and I wanted to believe it meant she was finally beginning to accept reality. That Nathan’s absence was settling in. That she was slowly understanding he wasn’t coming back for her.
It should have made me feel victorious. Instead, it made me uneasy. I noticed it most in the way she wa
