22. Love of my life

Brice's POV

"Brice, you look like shit. You need to get it together. It's been months already," Clara my agent who's also acting as my mom commented on my current well-being.

My real mom was nowhere to be seen since I was eighteen and she decided that I was able to stand on my own, and more so was my dad who's never been there for me my whole life. My life has been a whole bunch of screw-ups until I started writing and somehow years later, after too many minimum wage jobs, Clara picked out my work from her random piles and decided that I was going to be the next bestseller author.

My life has been a series of failures, disastrous mess, one thing after another. It has never been easy for me, except for my writing career. It was making me rich, but unhappy and somehow unfulfilled. I thought losing my fiancée was my breaking point. But somehow, Ella, the stalker beauty was pulling me down to another level.

If my state that of mind can be a measurement, then my very dark short writings were the clear testament of it.

"...and turn those dark writings into a very gory crime book, I think there are some psychos out there that might buy them." As if reading my mind Clara voiced her opinion.

"I'm going to the hospital again," I sighed, popped another painkiller, washed it down with bottled water, and decided to get up and leave my apartment. I was trying to lift the burden of my fucking gloomy life hoping by seeing her I'd feel better.

Though I know I'd feel crappy when I get back just like I have days before now. I'm a true masochist, I like hurting myself to the point that my heart might just give up on me.

"Mm...hm, you should, I've been telling you to give her a chance."

My chest still hurts every time I was taken back to that day. Gemma had called me, telling me to come to her show downtown. She had been trying to get me to understand her cousin, but her betrayal was hurting me so much more. I was feeling like a freaking girl who couldn't control her feeling, my rationality seemed to flow out of the window. And blamed her for everything.

Fuck!

For days, weeks and months I've been burying myself in my work, being across the country and away from her should've made me forget about Ella. I was trying to lessen the hurt, but my mind kept on returning to her.

Deep down, deep down, I kept on thinking could it be her? it's been years since I thought about Summer, she was supposed to grow old with me. Her murder was still an open case, it hasn't been solved to this date. The police were having a hard time cracking the case and her family had moved away from the grueling sadness.

And even if it wasn't Ella then what? will my stalker come after her if he or she finds out about my new love interest?

My mind was still thinking about the stalker when I reached the hospital. I looked around, making sure her brothers were not there. They were pissed when they find out that I was the person guilty of making their sister in such a bad place, hurting her physically and mentally.

They didn't care that I was hurt when I pushed her from colliding against the speeding car. In their eyes, I was the guilty person and I didn't fight back when they cornered me yesterday and punched me in the face. I deserved it.

I was so messed up, they didn't know that I'd take her place that night and leave her body unscathed. But the car was too fast and my body can only shield so much. We both fall and she hit her head hard, my shoulder was dislocated badly but the horror of waiting for her in the emergency unit was not one I wanted to endure again.

Meeting her whole family in such a dire situation was not ideal, but Gemma introduced me just before I wheeled out to surgery, and though her parents thanked me for saving her, her brothers were not welcoming. Somehow they knew.

The room was dark, visiting hours were over but the nurses know me, the guy who saved her life, supposedly. They didn't know that I was the one putting her in such a position in the first place.

"She was going to be transferred tomorrow," one of the nurses greeted when she saw me.

"Thank you for letting me know."

Transferred?

The question hangs but I decided to let go and walked into her room. I have been waiting on her for the past week, didn't want to wake her up, somehow I feel at ease just watching her sleep.

"Brice?"

I tensed the second her weak voice call out my name.

"Ella, I'm so sorry," the wall came down instantly upon hearing her raspy voice, didn't care that I had carefully built it to stop myself from falling for her, but the moment her sweet voice called me my will to leave her was gone. Instead, I was pleading for her forgiveness, pulling my chair closer by her side.

"What happened to you?" her hand touched my face and I took it and kissed it softly. Her eyes gazed at my shoulder which was still being braced by a sling after the surgery.

She didn't know that I was there.

"I love you, I'm so sorry, Ella,"

"I love you too... and, this doesn't feel like a dream." She looked at me and fresh tears fall from her eyes as she softly caressed my bruised face.

"Courtesy of your brothers, but don't be mad at them, it's my fault. I hurt you, I shouldn't do it, what I did... it's just that,"

She didn't look away, she was waiting for me to continue my explanation and she didn't back away when I kissed her softly on the forehead.

"I love you, Ella, and my inside is struggling with the truth. I didn't expect that you...and it's silly of me to compare you to my stalker. You're more like an obsessed fan rather than a stalker," I wiped her fresh tears and kissed her knuckles, rubbing them softly.

"...I know that now, I tried to put myself in your shoes, meeting me on a blind date, which I didn't put my picture in the first place. I'd do the same if I'm meeting a much younger Anne Rice or even JK Rawling on a random dating app."

She finally tugged her lip and shed another tear, "I'm so sorry,"

"Ssh...me too, baby, me too. But you're not crazy, Ella,"

We were having our moment when her brothers burst into her room.

"Shit! Hey, who the fuck let you in?! Grady call a security before I bashed this fucker head against..."

"Grady, no...Percy, please..." her voice was throaty but she silenced her brothers in a fraction of a second.

"Ella, you..." Percy was to her side.

"You speak..." and Grady was behind him, looking like they're almost in tears.

What do they mean by...

"You, I need to talk to you."

"Percy, don't please," Ella pleaded and I could see her big brother was about to give me his fist again. But we were all quiet when the machine attached to her was beeping louder and two nurses came into the room, along with a young doctor who was quick to send us out of the room.

"If you being here put her in worse condition," Grady move to my front, "I swear..." Percy was to my other side.

"I love her, it's my fault I realized that now,"

"If you didn't save our sister we might be in jail by now for dumping your body in the ocean or burying you in the woods," Percy was giving me his deadly stare, "...we still haven't decided on what's the best method in disposing of your body," Grady said pressing his words threatening me with his rage.

I should be scared, but after the hurt that I caused their sister, I was not fighting them. They can do what they want with me, I deserved it. And instead of defending myself, I asked them the question that has been bothering me.

"What do you mean by she speaks?"

Grady slowly backed away, he looked tired and decided to check back to her room. While Percy stepped back and told me to take a seat on the empty chairs just outside of her room.

"She hadn't spoken a word for about two months until today. We've tried everything. We came tonight to try again because she had finally spoken, earlier this morning to her doctor telling him about her decision."

"Decision?"

"...but we haven't actually heard her speak, not until just now..." Percy stopped talking when his brother returned from Ella's room.

"She's stable, but she's resting... we can't go in, not until tomorrow morning," Grady was to our front reporting on her condition, the man looked like he's about to crack when he took a seat beside his brother.

"What decision?" I asked again, feeling the sudden ache in my chest knowing something worse was behind their outrage towards me.

"She wanted to get checked into a psychiatric hospital, wanted to get herself better. Obviously to forget about you." His words were full of venom and I didn't know how to react to the news.

"You broke her, you broke our little Ella."