Chapter 5 #2
Cole’s hands on me. Dogs barking until I did not think they could bark anymore, but they would still keep on, and when it finally stopped, I wondered if I had gone deaf or if I was now tuned out of their sound, the invasion finally accepted in my body.
I ate like a dog and licked my blood with my own saliva.
I stayed up, held at gunpoint, and shivered my way out of sleep.
I peed in a bucket they let me use outside the cell once a day, and once I saw a knife on the floor that could help me stop the pain.
I wanted to reach for it, but it vanished as my mind shook me back to reality again.
I saw the depth of who I was, and it wasn't pretty, and I wasn't strong enough to stay confident and cocky like people in movies.
I was nothing like that, nothing but short.
Inferior. Small. So small, sometimes I didn't want to live anymore.
I read about writers talking about a storm that made them who they were, but could this storm have taken away who I was and never give it back to me ever again?
Have I lost myself in the blizzard for no one to find me ever again?
Would…he ever want to find me again? Thick, large palms meet my scalp, hesitantly spreading fingers, waiting for my distress to stop them.
I close my eyes and drop my head back. The crash never comes.
It is all in your head. All in your head.
I am so tired, Tristan.
Behind my eyes and into my bones.
Fix me, please.
Fix me.
Tristan
If I were a betting man, I’d say God is watching me, having the time of his life while I’m facing the biggest temptation of my existence without having the right to look at it.
Well, joke’s on him, because I have already memorized every inch of Ella in all those times I got to spend in her company before today.
Minus the bloody dark V scarring her shoulder, but I’ll admit, even with the worst kind of mark on her skin, it does nothing to affect her breathtaking beauty, nor the spell she definitely has on me.
I’ve done my fair share of hard things in my life.
Losing my dad. Check. Solitary confinement in juvie causing all sorts of hallucinations.
Check. Descending into an underground maze filled with rats to save the woman I love?
Been there, done that. Oh, and let’s say love right away, because in my thirty-two years on this earth, I’ve never been so eager to wash anyone’s hair.
And also because not only is my phone ringing and my life’s work sinking like the Titanic not bothering me in the least right now, but my sole focus is here, with her, making sure I give her my undivided attention so I can fix this monumental fuckup, this magnitude-ten mistake I made, and regain her trust.
And then, later, when she is clean, fed, and asleep, I’ll worry about myself and my company and my thousands of employees and dozens of shareholders and all their families waiting to know if they still have jobs, and whether the market still believes in the Ashford brand after I literally sold everything I could to the first bidder because time was of the essence.
So everything can wait. I’ll have my mental breakdown scheduled later, thank you.
I’m carefully trying, the best way I can, to massage her scalp and wash her hair while ignoring her nakedness, which is turning out to be way harder than I thought, but for my woman, I’ll keep myself in check.
I’m expecting her to gasp and push me away, snap her little fingers, and hit me with her silence.
Only she doesn’t. One step forward, two steps back.
It looks like we are going to do this dance for the foreseeable future, and patience, who used to be a long-gone friend, will have to become my best ally.
I haven’t told her yet that, to keep her doctor allowing me to visit, I had to bribe the fuck out of him since, according to him, I’m not family, and also explain that we are undergoing a police investigation after a hostage situation and that we need his discretion.
No idea whether it is his conscience or the two thousand in cash I slid into his coat, but he agreed to give us space.
I also haven’t told her that Matt, my personal bodyguard, is outside the door, making sure Cole or anyone from his clan doesn't come near her.
My lips remain sealed as I also refrain from calling her sweetheart for the thousandth time since it keeps slipping out of my mouth. Am I still…allowed?
All of this is new and foreign. My usual abilities seem useless, and I’m trying as hard as I can to tap into my, my…feelings, but I’m positive I’m doing a shitty job.
So all I can do now is tend to her and try my best not to have her push me away. That would be a building-sized kind of rejection, and I’m not sure I could handle it right now.
Time passes, and I wish it did not, because touching her, despite not being able to venture into the softness of her skin, is still time I would not want to spend any other way. Her hand rises from the water in the corner of my eyes, eyes that are religiously locked on her silky hair.
“Talk to me,” she signs, pausing. “About something that isn’t…
about something that makes you happy.” Ella escapes through books.
But she didn't have them with her there, or here. I could call Matt and ask him to bring her some, but I’m not sure she would be awake to read them.
Besides, we should be home tomorrow, where I’ll make sure she has all the books she could possibly want.
I have spent enough time watching my skyscrapers to know how many floors are in the dozens of buildings outside my office windows, instead of thinking about anything but work for the last decade, so I guess escaping isn't that foreign to me.
“What makes me happy,” I repeat, thinking.
You. You smiling, you laughing, you frowning at my chess set, and when you drink your tea even though it is way too hot.
You signing and being mad at me while being the perfect mix of stubborn and adorable, you being such a hard worker, and listening to your podcast while cleaning because multitasking is second nature to you.
You, collecting all sorts of knickknacks that don’t necessarily make sense but give you that sort of comfort I can relate to.
You, and the way you talk about life like it is a box of chocolates you are eager to discover, and our common hatred of bikes.
You breathing, existing, sharing oxygen with me, and not being afraid to put me in my place.
And if not you, then the possibility of it, of the hours slipping away until the moment we see each other, to the dumb teenage climb up the side of your house I did just to see you, to the split second I observe you existing before you see me, and the smile on your face when you finally do.
That’s what makes me happy. Although again, I don’t say that, because I don’t know how to say it without you running away.