Caroline closed the distance between them and hugged him again as tightly as she dared. He seemed to be so close to breaking and she didn’t want to let him fall. She’d heard it all, the breath hitching, the change in his heartbeat after she’d made her suggestion. She knew it was throwing him for a loop, probably forcing him to look at Elena’s departure in a way none of them really wanted to and that was probably devastating.
“I don’t know if its the answer?” Especially because Elena wasn’t there to participate. “But maybe its what we need? Maybe we need to be able to mourn her? The girl we knew, the girl we loved.” Because sure, becoming a vampire enhanced who you were as a human, but Caroline knew she wasn’t that same girl she had been a year before. And there was no doubt in her mind that Elena would never be who she had been before as well. “We need to be able to say goodbye.”
How many times didn’t they get to say goodbye to the people they had lost? Maybe this time they had a chance to finally do so.