Mrs. Flowers clapped her hands to get everyone else's attention, her face stern and encouraging. "Children, you wil al have to be honest and brave," she said. "You must al truly admit to your worst selves in front of your friends, which wil be hard. And then you wil need to be strong enough to cast these worst selves of yours away, which may be even harder. But you love one another, and I promise we wil get through it."
A thump and a muffled shout of rage and pain came from a few feet away, and Alaric glanced nervously over his shoulder at the battle behind him.
"Time is of the essence," Mrs. Flowers said briskly. "Who wil go first?"
Meredith was about to step forward, clutching her stave for comfort, when Bonnie spoke up.
"I wil ," she said falteringly. "Um. I've been jealous of Meredith and of Elena. I always..." She swal owed, and then spoke more firmly. "I sometimes feel like I'm only a sidekick when I'm around them. They're braver than me, and they're better fighters, and smarter and prettier, and... and taller than I am. I'm jealous because I feel like people don't respect me as much as they do them and don't real y take me seriously like they do Elena and Meredith. I'm jealous because sometimes I'm standing in their shadows, which are pretty big shadows... metaphorical y speaking, I mean. And I'm also jealous because I've never even had a real boyfriend, and Meredith has Alaric, and Elena has Stefan, and because Elena also has Damon, who I think is pretty amazing, but who would never notice me when I'm standing next to Elena, because she's al he can see."
Bonnie paused again, and glanced at Elena, her eyes wide and shining. "But I love Elena and Meredith. I know I need to stop comparing myself to them. I'm not just a sidekick; I'm useful and talented, too. And" - she spoke the words Alaric had given them al - "I have fed the phantom of jealousy. But now I cast my jealousy away."
In the semicircle of candles, the flame of Bonnie's pink one flickered and went out. Bonnie gave a little gasp and smiled, half-shamefaced, half-proud, at Meredith and Elena. From inside the diagram, the phantom of jealousy snapped its head around and glared at Bonnie. "Bonnie - "
Meredith started to say, wanting to tel her friend that of course she wasn't a sidekick. Didn't Bonnie know how amazing she was?
But then Elena stepped toward the candles and shook back her hair, head high. "I've been jealous of other people in Fel 's Church," she declared. "I saw how easy it was for other couples to be together, and after al Stefan and I -
and Damon, and the rest of my friends - have been through, and even after we saved Fel 's Church and made it normal again, everything just kept on being so hard and so weird and supernatural. I guess I've been realizing that things aren't ever going to be just easy and normal for me, and that's been tough to accept. When I watched other people and was jealous of them, I fed the phantom of jealousy. I cast that jealousy away."
Elena smiled a little. It was a strange, rueful sort of smile, and Meredith, watching her, thought that, while Elena had cast out her jealousy, she was stil haunted by regret for the easy, golden life she'd once had ahead of her and that had probably been taken away forever now.
The candle was stil burning. Elena hesitated. Meredith fol owed her gaze past the line of candles to where Stefan and Damon struggled. As they watched, Damon heaved and rol ed Stefan under him, leaving a long streak of blood across the floor of the garage. Stefan's foot brushed the red candle at the end of the line, and Alaric leaped to steady it.
"And I've been jealous of Katherine," Elena said. "Damon and Stefan loved her first, and she knew them before so much happened to change them, to... warp them out of who they ought to be. And even though I realize that they both know I'm not Katherine and that they love me for who I am, I haven't been able to forget that they noticed me at first because I look like her. I have fed the phantom of jealousy because of Katherine, and I cast that jealousy away."
The candle flame flickered, but did not go out. Jealousy smirked triumphantly, but then Elena went on. "I've also been jealous of Bonnie." Bonnie's head shot up, and she stared at Elena with an expression of disbelief. "I was used to being the only human Damon cared about, the only one who he would want to save." She looked at Bonnie with tear-fil ed eyes. "I am so, so glad that Bonnie is alive. But I was jealous that Damon cared enough to die for her. When I was jealous of Bonnie, I fed the phantom of jealousy. But now I cast my jealousy away."
The golden candle went out. Elena looked almost timidly at Bonnie, and Bonnie smiled at her, an open, loving smile, and held out her arms. Elena hugged her tightly. Other than the grief she felt over Elena's parents' deaths, Meredith had never felt sorry for Elena. Why would she?
Elena was beautiful, smart, a leader, passionately loved... but now Meredith couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for her. Sometimes it must be easier to live an everyday life than to be a heroine.
Meredith glanced at the phantom. It seemed to be simmering and was now whol y focused on the humans. Alaric stepped around the candles toward the others, glancing back toward Damon and Stefan. Damon had pinned Stefan painful y against the wal behind Alaric. Stefan's face was twisted in a grimace, and they could hear the scrape of his body against the hard surface. But at least Stefan and Damon weren't endangering the candles for now.
Meredith turned her attention to her boyfriend. What could Alaric be jealous of? If anything, he'd been the focus of jealousy the last week or so.
He reached for Meredith and took one of her hands. "I've been jealous," Alaric said, looking into her eyes. "Of you, Meredith. And of your friends."