50. Ella

50

ELLA

I fall back on my ass with tears spilling onto my cheeks and dripping from my chin, a shooting pain through my chest as my heart rips in two.

I don’t want to believe what I saw, but I also can’t get the image of the perfectly made-up hospital room from my head.

He could just be at a PT session, the sensible side of me points out. But as much as I want to hope that’s the case, I know it’s not.

The cards, the chocolates and candy, all the well-wisher gifts that had made their way up here are gone.

There is no evidence of his time here. No toiletries in the room I’m currently falling apart in, and none of his belongings outside of it either.

He’s gone.

He left, and he didn’t tell me.

I have no idea how long I sit there on the cold and hard floor staring at the toilet, but I’m still there, curled up in a ball, when Mom pokes her head inside.

“Ella, what’s— Oh my gosh,” she gasps, dropping beside me and pulling me in for a hug.

My sobs get louder the second I’m in her arms. I hiccup and cry, sniffle and wail as the pain only gets worse.

“Shush,” Mom soothes, rubbing up and down my back. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“H-how? How is it going to be okay?” I ask brokenly, my throat raspy and dry. “He’s gone, Mom. It’s over.”

She holds me tighter. “I refuse to believe that, Ella. That boy loves you.”

“Yeah, maybe he does. But it’s not enough, is it?” Saying those words out loud tears a few more strips from my heart. I’m pretty sure when I walk out of this hospital, I’ll leave the majority of them behind, and I don’t expect to ever get them back.

Colt has broken my heart before. I’m no stranger to this kind of pain from the man I fell in love with so hard and fast all those years ago that I didn’t stand a chance of stopping it.

“It’s only over if you give up the fight, Ella,” Mom says wisely.

It takes a few minutes of thinking about those words over and over in my head before I finally calm down and let her go.

Reaching up, I wipe my snotty nose with the back of my hand before Mom hands me a strip of toilet roll.

“Thanks,” I mutter, memories from the night he took me to the facility where their mom is floating around my head.

“I never want to cause anyone the kind of pain she caused us. It would kill me if I put you through even an ounce of that. ”

Those are the exact words he said to me that night. As he explained the real reason he’d always kept me at arm’s length.

It was fear.

It was never because he didn’t care for me.

It was his own fear that stopped him from allowing me fully into his life.

He knew he would hurt me.

But isn’t that what he’d always done by holding me back, by stopping me from getting to know the real him?

My heart pounds painfully in my chest. It’s battered, bruised, and tender as hell.

Can it take another beating?

Do I have the energy to continue fighting when I’m the only one who seems to be doing so?

He’s just gone through something hugely traumatizing . Of course he’s freaking out.

With Mom’s help, I get to my feet as my head and my heart continue to war.

My head understands—to a point—but it also knows that I need to put myself first. My heart, however? That fickle bitch has always only beat for Colton Rogers. What would it do without him?

Together we stumble into the empty hospital room just as a nurse walks in, her arms loaded with fresh supplies, ready for a new patient.

“Oh,” she gasps, startled by our presence.

“Where is he?” I demand brokenly.

Her expression softens as she takes me in.

It’s not necessary; I already know what a mess I must look like.

“Colt checked himself out against doctor’s advice this morning.”

I sway on my feet, but Mom is right there to catch me.

“W-what?” I gasp in utter horror.

She smiles softly at me, fully understanding my concern.

“Surely, he can’t do that,” Mom argues.

“Sadly, he can. He assured us that he’ll organize a team of medical professionals to monitor his continued recovery, but he is no longer a patient here.”

I stand there staring in disbelief.

He really just left.

“Do you know where he’s gone?” Mom asks as I continue standing there mute.

“Home,” the nurse says simply, before walking over to the cupboard to begin putting away what’s in her arms. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”

No sooner has she put everything in its place than she leaves again.

The silence that follows is deafening.

“So?” Mom asks, turning to face me.

It’s only over if you give up the fight, Ella . Her words from earlier repeat over and over in my head.

“I’ll call an Uber. We’re going to his apartment. It doesn’t end like this,” I say, mustering up what little strength I have let.

I could slink away and hide and prove him right.

Or I could fight. I could prove everything I’ve said to him since I came to Seattle is true.

I want him.

I don’t care about anything else.

I just want him exactly as he is.

With my hand clutched in Mom’s for support, we walk out of his hospital room and don’t look back.

The memories I have of this room are nothing but painful.

With my cell in hand, I call for a car to take me to him.

For the first time since I opened that door, a little bit of hope creeps in.

He’s gone home. He knows I know where to find him.

Sure, a message of warning would have been nice, but I can understand if he set his sights on going home and focused on that alone.

“It’s going to be ten minutes.”

“Gives you time to freshen up,” Mom says.

After a quick stop in the hospital store, I brush my teeth, ridding myself of the lingering taste of vomit, and fix my hair and makeup—I didn’t bother with much this morning, but what I did do is now smeared down my face.

I walk out of the bathroom looking much more put together. No one would know that on the inside, I’ve got bricks tumbling faster than I can control.

My stomach knots painfully as we step out of the hospital and find our car waiting for us.

Mom tries assuring me that everything is going to be okay again as we make our way across the city, but her words don’t register.

Despite going after him, fighting for him with what little strength I have left, I don’t share her optimism.

By the time we pull up outside his building, I’m trembling so violently, it’s hard to force myself to put one foot in front of the other.

In only minutes, we’re inside the elevator and riding toward the top floor.

Mom’s eyes are wide as she takes everything in. The luxury this place offers is a world away from our modest life and home in Texas.

I probably would have felt the same about it when I first arrived if I weren’t so blinded by the man who lives up here.

It’s not until I’m facing his front door and the biometric scanner that I consider reality.

He ran from the hospital. He didn’t tell me—and I’m assuming others because, in turn, they haven’t told me—that he was leaving.

Is my handprint going to work?

Will he have locked me out as well as run from me?

“Mom, I don’t know if?—”

“Ella,” she whispers, cupping my face. “Life is too short for regrets. Do everything you can do, seek the answers you need, or you’ll spend a long time questioning them.”

Blowing out a long breath, I stare down at the black panel before pressing my hand to it.

It beeps with an error, making my heart plummet into my feet. But then I realize that it’s because my hand is trembling so much that it can’t read my print.

Attempting to calm myself down, I try again, and this time…

“Oh my god,” I gasp when the little light turns green and the locks disengage.

“See,” Mom says, “All is not lost.”

Pushing the handle down, I rush inside his penthouse. “Colt?” I cry, scanning the empty living space before setting my eyes on the bedroom.

My legs move without instruction from my brain and I find myself running through the vast space, my need for him too strong to ignore.

My heart is in my throat, and a renewed sense of hope flows through me.

Mom is right. Everything is going to be okay.

I burst into the room like a mad woman. If he was sleeping, there is no chance of him still doing so as the door crashes back against the wall.

“Colt,” I cry again as my eyes lock on the bed.

The…empty bed.

My brows pinch in confusion.

She said he went home.

Spinning on my heels, I race into the bathroom. But that is equally as empty as the bedroom.

No.

This isn’t right.

“COLT?” I shout as I come running out of the bedroom.

Mom watches as I dart around the apartment, throwing doors open and looking inside every room, including the pantry.

But there is nothing.

All the fight, the hope, drains out of me, seeping into the floor and disappearing into the distance.

“Ella?” Mom asks when I walk back into the living room where she’s been hovering. “Where is he?”

I shake my head, confusion fogging my every thought.

“She said he came home,” I whisper as if Mom didn’t hear those words with her own ears. “I don’t understand.”