"I had wanted to tell you," she nearly frowned. "But, with the sire bond--I didn't.. think you'd believe me." She didn't blame him, but had hated that it caused as much of a rift between them as it had. Damon, still so loyal to Stefan in spite of how he felt about Elena, hadn't seemed to completely want to sabotage their relationship. Elena didn't think that he had, things simply had changed. She had, Stefan had, and more than any of them, Damon had.
"It's.. he was, I didn't know what to do. I was so scared then." She hadn't been lying about that when her humanity had been off. Most of what she had said had been the truth, brutal as it was for everyone to hear. When it had come to Damon, however, everything came from a place of resistance. He was the one she loved, that meant he would inevitably figure out the best ways to retrieve her. And he certainly had.
"Too afraid to admit how I felt about you. I never wanted to..." Be the girl that had feelings for two people at once? Elena didn't falter in her resolve, however. "The point is that's why I was so certain how I felt about you was real, because I knew how I felt before." She wished she had been brave enough to voice it to him then, perhaps everyone would have been a tad less critical of her feelings after the fact. It was too late for that.
"But, it's not a choice anymore," Elena said, pads of her fingers still gliding along the side of his face, "you don't choose who you're in love with. I love Stefan, I do, but it's not the way that I love you. You need to know that."