This happened to me. All of this. This world. I lost my sister to it and for the longest time, I didn't even know it. I nearly drowned at the bottom of a river and have to live with the knowledge that the girl I've loved longer than I can remembered did die down there, because she wanted me to live. Do you know how hard it is to get out of bed knowing that, knowing-- [ that jeremy's dead. that tyler's gone. that tyler's mom, a woman who was kind to him even when she clashed with his mom, is dead, too. ] Knowing the things I now know.
Things get bad, Care. Worse than they've ever been. I've been through things, I've done things -- things I didn't really have much time to process before a bunch of robots decided they needed to add to their Mystic Falls collection.
[ none of which is her fault, and he sees where she's coming from. he understands, empathizes. he knows her, and maybe that's why it hurts so much to keep everything bottled up. especially when she was the first on his list of people to call when shit started going down. now he can't, because she doesn't know and he doesn't want her to know. ]
Your mom's fine. So's Tyler and everyone else. Things [ got better ] calmed down.