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It takes Paul a moment to realize what’s happening, but by the time he jumps up, Cam and I are already on him. With clenched fists, we start beating the living hell out of him. He staggers back, but Cam has a hold on his neck, yanking his face toward us so we can punch him over and over again until his face is bloodied and swollen.
A pained whimper draws me out of my haze, pulling me back to reality like a slingshot. My fist stops mid-air, and I look over my shoulder at Stella.
“Get her, I’ll take care of him,” Cam tells me, and before I can tell him he should be the one to stay, he is already dragging Paul out of the room.
Turning my attention back to Stella, I rush over to the bed. Now that I get a good look at her face, I can see that it’s swollen and red on one side, and her lip is split on the bottom, a small amount of blood trickling down her chin. Another wave of never-ending anger washes over me, but I rein it in, knowing that she needs me right now.
She is looking at me with an expression that has my chest aching. Her eyes hold an ocean of emotions, and I don’t know how I can hold my own at bay. Her whole body is shaking, and all I want to do is wrap her into my arms, tell her everything is going to be okay, and that I’ll never let her go again.
Before I can do that, I need to get this shit off of her and get her away from this place. I pinch the edge of the tape covering her mouth and pull it off carefully. As soon as she can, she starts talking.
“I-I’m sorry… I’m so sorry. Don’t hate me, please,” she says in between sobs. “I shouldn’t have left—”
“No one hates you,” I interrupt her rambling, undoing her restraints at the same time. “Don’t worry about anything right now.”
The moment she is free, she crawls onto my lap, buries her face into the crook of my neck, and her arms wrap around me so tightly, I don’t know if I could pry them off if I wanted to.
“Please don’t hate me,” she mutters against my skin.
“Stop saying that. No one hates you. I could never hate you. I…” The word is on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t bring myself to say it, even though I know it’s true. I love her.
For a long moment, I just hold her, wondering where Cam took Paul. The house is quiet now and I decide to take her out of here. Wrapping her up in the blanket from the bed, I cradle her against my chest and get up from the bed.
Gently, I carry her through the now empty house. When we get to the car, I realize that the other car is gone now, which means that Katie must have left. I somehow manage to open the door without putting her down. Placing her in the backseat, I’m still burning with rage. I really want to go and find him so I can inflict pain like I want to, but looking at Stella, I know I can’t leave her alone. She needs me right now, and knowing that she does is almost as satisfying as going after Paul.
Crawling into the car with her, I pull her shaking body onto my lap and wrap my arms around her. All my anger toward her dissipated when I saw her lying on that bed, completely helpless and mirroring defeat. Instantly, I knew I couldn’t deny my feelings for her any longer.
I can’t pretend that I don’t love her, because all along I knew things had changed between us. She’s no longer a person for us to keep quiet. She’s the person we share our hearts with.
“I’m-I’m sorry…” She cries, big, fat tears fall from her eyes and slip down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, I’ll be better. I promise.” She’s remorseful and ashamed, but the only person that should be sorry is Cam and I. Sorry that we pushed her to want to leave. Part of this is our fault, and I’m man enough to admit that.
She never gave us a reason to believe that she was lying, but we kept treating her like she did. We treated her like she was nothing more than our plaything, like she was a fucking prisoner in our home and all because we were too scared of losing her, of telling her how we really feel.
“You don’t have to be sorry. I’m sorry, and you definitely don’t have to be better. You are already perfect. We’ll be better. We should have been better all along.” My body is vibrating with anger for myself, for the situation we put her in. I want to break Paul’s fingers, one by one.
