Chapter 31 Stella
Stella
We’ve been standing in the lobby of the detention center for two hours. No one will let me speak to Colt.
The police took our statements at the scene, but they still didn’t let Colt go right away. There were too many witnesses saying that he attacked Dylan unprovoked.
I called Beau and told him what happened, worried that if any videos of the fight leaked out, Colt would be in trouble with the school and the team, even this far away from Pennsylvania. Beau said he would handle it.
The only reason Dylan isn’t walking free right now is because he was in blatant violation of the restraining order I had on him.
Eventually, they let Colt go with a warning, since he has no prior offenses, and Dylan has a record of complaints filed against him by more women than just me.
I ask Colt if he wants to go to the hospital, worried that he got re-injured in the fight, but he declines, saying he’ll be fine with some Tylenol.
Back home, neither of us slept at all. We spent all night just holding one another in my bed.
I tried to talk to him about what happened, but he said he didn’t want to talk about it. He also said he was sorry for scaring me. That was the end of it.
Christmas morning, we join my family downstairs for what might be the most somber Christmas I’ve ever had.
None of my family is mad at Colt—the opposite is true. They’ve done nothing but sing his praise for defending me. But the air in the house is heavy with anxiety and something else I can’t quite put my finger on.
Rather than getting a flight home, Colt and I decide to drive my car back up to Pennsylvania on the twenty-sixth.
My family—sad that I’m leaving so soon—understands why I can’t stay.
The thought of being here with Dylan—and Josie—lurking in the back of my mind blankets the holiday in a dark shroud of hurt and resentment.
When we finally get back to campus, I drop Colt off at his apartment. I don’t want to leave him, but he claimed to be tired and wanted to rest tonight, and I need to go home and unpack.
Give him some space, I tell myself. We both need to process everything that happened.
Josie has been texting and calling me nonstop, and eventually, I blocked her number. I do not need that right now.
I texted Nora, who came over with a bottle of wine and cuddled up with me on the couch for a girl’s night in.
She let me cry it out—which I was in desperate need of—and then reassured me that Colt would be okay.
She also made sure to emphasize how sexy it was that he fought for me, especially since he was hurt and still went through with it, which made me laugh.
After a couple of days with only a few texts from Colt, I start to worry. I don’t know what about the fight would’ve upset him enough to cut himself off from me, but I don’t like it one bit.
I called him on the day of his follow-up visit with his doctor, and while he answered, he wasn’t very talkative. He told me he got the all-clear to start going back to the gym and driving, but he still wasn’t cleared for any contact sports.
I asked him if he wanted to come over since he could drive again, but he opted to stay home instead, claiming a headache.
Colt
I can’t face Stella after what I did in Georgia.
I don’t feel bad for giving that prick what he deserved, but I hate that I ruined her holiday with her family.
Since getting back, all I can do is think about the memory that came back while I was wailing on him. My fists were flying, but in my head, I was hitting someone that wasn’t Dylan.
I was hitting a nurse. Fresh stitches and bandages covered my forearms. I was in an all-men’s mental institution.
After my dad died.
After I tried to kill myself.
And I was beating the living shit out of a male nurse.
The security guard pulling me off of him felt just like the way the cop pulled me off of Dylan the other night.
I don’t have the full context of the memory, but the flashes that keep replaying in my head make me sick. My vision was red. No thoughts were in my head. I just kept hitting.
The only conclusion I can come up with is that I’m really fucked in the head, and everyone’s too scared to tell me.
Something about my dad’s death must have broken me in a way that I changed completely.
When I went to my doctor’s appointment, I contemplated asking the doctor to put me back on my antidepressants, but I changed my mind at the last minute. Medicine can’t fix me.
I stare down at the scars on my arms, running my finger over them. What if I’d had the right idea before? What if the world is safer without me in it?
What if Stella is safer without me?
No matter how many times I try to talk myself out of it, that niggling voice always comes back, telling me that I’m fucked up. Dangerous. Too aggressive.
The boys, the team, are all over at Booker and Drew’s house for a New Year’s Eve party. Beau had asked if I wanted to go, but I told him the noise probably wouldn’t do my head any favors.
Instead, I opted to stay at the apartment, alone with no one but my thoughts for company.
Stella
When Beau texted me that Colt wasn’t going to the New Year’s party, I had officially had enough of his silence.
I told Beau to leave me a key to their apartment and that I was going to go over there myself and talk to him.
I drive to their place and let myself in. The whole apartment is dark; not a single light on in the entire house.
“Colt?” I call out, getting worried.
I wait, not hearing any sounds. I flip the light switch in the kitchen, but nothing looks out of place.
Slowly, I make my way down the hall to Colt’s room.
“Colt?” I ask again, pushing the door open. His bed is empty. I head toward the bathroom door, which happens to be closed.
My mind jumps back to that night I found him having a panic attack, and my heart speeds up. I don’t like this at all.
Opening the door a crack, I find that the light in here is on.
“Colt?” I say a third time. On the counter, I see a razor…a razor that’s been dismantled. My stomach drops, and I rush in frantically, opening the door all the way.
Colt is sitting in the corner of the room, across from the toilet, just like where I found him all those months ago.
He’s shaking, holding the blade in his hand, but I don’t see any blood.
“Colt, I need you to put that down, baby,” I plead, not daring to move an inch in fear of startling him. I imagine this is what it feels like to corner an injured animal—wild and scared but also in desperate need of help.
His head is leaning back against the wall, sweat beading on his face.
“I can’t do it, Stell. I did it before, but I can’t make myself do it now,” he whispers.
“Tell me what you mean. Talk to me, Colt.” I step closer, crouching down beside him, careful not to make any sudden moves. Miraculously, my voice remains steady.
“Two years ago, I tried. I thought it would be better for everyone if I tried again, but I can’t do it.”
I look at his arms, the only marks are the old ones from the liquor cabinet. No new marks have been made.
“Can I have the razor?” I ask gently, and he lets me take it from his grasp. I drop it in the toilet and flush, unable to think of a better way of disposing of it without leaving his side.
“Tell me why you think we’d be better off without you,” I say, turning back to him.
“All I do is hurt people,” he says, as if that’s the only truth.
“Colt, do you know how you got these scars?” I ask quietly, realizing that he may not remember.
“It’s obvious where they came from,” he replies.
“No, Colt, it isn’t. Because you didn’t try to commit suicide. You got those scars by accident. You never tried to hurt yourself before.”
He finally opens his eyes and looks at me, as if I’m lying to him.
“I promise, you told me yourself. You cut your arms on glass after punching through a liquor cabinet. It was an accident.”
“But…the medicine. The mental hospital.” He shakes his head as if he can’t figure out how the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.
“You’re right, you were put on antidepressants because you were sad about losing your dad.
But it never drove you to self-harm. You sent yourself to the mental health facility because you were sad and needed a change of scenery.
The doctors and therapists there helped you through your grief, but you were only there for a week.
“You didn’t do anything wrong or bad to end up there. You didn’t hurt anyone.”
“I did. I remember. I hurt a nurse. I punched a nurse while I was there.”
This brings me pause. “You never told me about that part. I’m not sure why you would do that, but I know you well enough to know you probably had a good reason. Maybe we should call Beau?”
He shakes his head, leaning back against the wall and shutting his eyes again, as if he can’t stand to look at me. “Don’t call him. He’s been through enough. Don’t call him.”
My heart breaks at the crack in his voice. Tears well in my eyes as I realize I’m way out of my element. I don’t know how to help him.
But I remember what the doctor said that day we were leaving the hospital. Traumatic brain injuries can cause mood swings and behavioral issues. He’s not acting like himself right now, and I realize he may have gotten re-injured in the fight with Dylan.
“Colt, how long have you been feeling this way? Like everyone would be better without you?”
“I—I wondered about the scars since the beginning. And I thought about how I was always being a burden to you. But Beau said you’d never leave me. Then, after the fight, I realized I was dangerous, and that I should just finish what I started two years ago, but I can’t.”
“Because it’s never what you wanted, even two years ago,” I tell him.
I lean forward and wrap my arms around his wide shoulders.
“You can’t do it because it was never in you to try, baby.
And Beau was right, I—I’ll never leave you.
And, when I’m done being worried about you, I’m going to be very mad that you thought you could leave me, too.
“Remember what I told you in the hot tub? We communicate, Colt. We talk about how we feel. You aren’t alone, and you aren’t dangerous.
You protected me. You’ve always protected me.
I fell in love with you because you have always been my safe place—from day one.
Do you hear me? I love you, and I am not afraid of you. This darkness in your head isn’t you.”
I grab his face in both my hands, forcing his red-rimmed eyes to meet mine. “This isn’t who you are.”
Slowly, as if waking up from a nightmare, he nods his head.
“Do you remember how the doctor said head injuries can cause mood swings and personality changes?” I ask him.
He nods again.
“Good. Then I need you to know that that’s what this is.
That’s what these thoughts have been. You just told me you never had them before the accident.
I just told you that you never tried to kill yourself.
Do you understand, Colt? Your brain is playing tricks on you.
But we need to tell the doctors so they can help, okay? ”
He nods one more time, closing his eyes as tears stream down his cheeks. Finally, he falls forward into my embrace.
I called Jill from Colt’s phone and told her what happened. She and David rushed over to take him back to the facility he’d gone to two years ago.
Before they left, I asked them about why he would hit a nurse, knowing he wouldn’t ask for himself; he’s still not convinced he isn’t an aggressor.
“After a few days there, Colt, you saw that nurse trying to get handsy with one of the boys. Your doctors told us you saw the nurse trying to take advantage of the other patient, and you stopped it.”
I had looked at Colt then and whispered softly, “See? You’re a protector. Always.”
He looked a little lighter after that and let the Warrens drive him away.
Beau was distraught when I told him the state I had found Colt in. He blamed himself for going to the party and leaving him alone, but I assured him it wasn’t his fault.
The past month, Colt gave us no signs he was struggling. He had been acting like his old self. That’s what’s so dangerous about brain injuries and mental problems. The hurts they cause are silent, up until they aren’t.