52

He went away, and before Kara had a chance to compose herself, the beauticians arrived. She was shivering and trying hard to stop her eyes from tearing up. After all, a broken heart does not repair itself within a day, and hers was just absolutely shattered at this point. But she had learnt, no matter what she did, no matter how much she gave away to James, his insecurities are going to burn their relationship to ground each time.
The ceremony started, Damon came to get her from her room with a happy smile on his face. His hand slipped in her waist and guided her out. Then as they crossed the corridor and came to the stairs, his hand found its way to wrap around her fingers and clutch tightly. Kara's eyes slid to his face in surprise and found him already staring down at her.
They went down, the ceremony started. Damon slid a ring, a pink pearl surrounded by small diamonds that sat on a platinum band, on her finger and applause filled the hall. Damon bent down his head near her ear, his voice filled with so much delight that she did not even have to look at his face to measure the happiness, "You are mine now."
Kara could feel a burning gaze on herself throughout it all, like a hole getting drilled inside her brain while someone had set her on fire. She was uncomfortable and gave fake smiles. She knew whose gaze it was on her that she could feel without even turning around, but she did not look in his direction because she knew she will give up everything and run to him. And in this moment, she could not betray her dignity. She had given it up so many times just for him, but if she did it again, she will be putting herself in the mouth of flames.
When the ceremony was done Laura came to sit beside Kara and gave a kiss on her forehead lovingly, "Finally this old soul will be at peace after her death."
"Grandma!" Kara said in shock.
Laura just smiled at her, "I have been constantly worried about you Kara. About what is going to happen to you when I am gone. What if you are left alone in this world? You are my sweet child, I would never have been at peace without making sure you have a happy world around you for the years to come. Now that you have Damon, I can not even describe in words how happy this has made me. I thought you were never going to come back here. I know that both of my grandsons care about you, and this family a lot. But now my heart is at peace.
Kara looked at Laura with surprise, "Grandma, why did you think I would not come back here?"
Laura looked at her with pained expressions, "Honey, with that accident three years ago, did you think none of us knew what you were going through? I, Rita and Neil were so relieved when you came back home. We are so glad to see that the hate you had in your eyes three years ago for this place is no longer there."
Kara lowered her head but did not reply to Laura. She had not even realized that she had just went away to suppress her own pain but never even thought that Laura, Rita, Neil, Damon and James, all of them had gone through the same pain as hers. Her parents had been a family to them as well, even longer than she had even known her own parents. Rita, Neil and her parents had been high school bestfriends. They would have been in pain as well for losing their best friends in the accident.
"Kara, did Damon propose you yet?" Laura immediately changed the topic when she saw she had made a mistake by bringing up the topic of her parents' death at such an happy event. Her eyes twinkled with happiness when she leaned closer to her, "Tell me. How was it? Did he make it special? Have you cofessed to each other yet?"
Kara looked into Laura's expectent eyes nervously before her eyes slid to look around the crowd for Damon. When she did not find him, she looked back and Laura and fumbled to find an answer, "Grandma... yeah, actually-"
"I proposed to her, grandma. I told her my feelings and asked her to be with me forever."
Kara was shocked when she suddenly heard Damon speak while coming around. Laura smiled up at Damon but she saw the unease on Kara's face. She gave a weak smile to both of them before standing up and leaving them to talk with some guests.
Damon came to sit beside her, his hand slipped on her hand that rested in her lap and caressed the ring on her finger with gentle strokes. Kara suddenly looked up at the burning eyes she met were of James who stood right in front of her with a glass of brandi in his hand while his other one was in his pant. He did not say or do anything, he just stared at her blakly. She moved her eyes away almost immediately as she did not want him to see anything beyond that small light of surprise in her eyes.
"Damon," Rita came towards them with a glass of champaign in her hand, "honey, why did you tell Neil to pre-pone the marriage? How are we going to do the preparation of fifteen days within one week? It will be hard to shorten time of preparing everything so much."
Kara looked at Damon with an horrified gaze. She did not even know they had planned the marriage after fifteen days, and even more shocked that Damon had pre poned it? She knew marriage was going to be next thing after engagement, but she was not expecting everything to happen this fast.
Her eyes instinctively shot to James. He had his hand wrapped around the glass so tight that his knuckles had turned white while the glass looked like it was about to shatter in his hand.