Before she could meet the ground, I caught her.
She looked up at me with those eyes that forced me to feel alive. “Well, will you look at that? The Beast saves Cinderstella.”
“I’m sorry, Stella,” I said, on the verge of a level of emotion that I’d hadn’t felt in decades.
“For what?”
“For every person who’s ever hurt you.”
She lowered her head a bit. “That’s a lot of apologies,” she whispered, her voice so low that I would’ve missed her words. I would’ve missed them if I wasn’t wholly zoomed in on her. But I was zoomed in. I couldn’t tear my focus away from her if I wanted to.
“Who said those words to you?” I asked. “About you never being enough.”
“The three stepmothers from hell,” she replied. “They made me believe that everyone else’s feelings were more valid than my own.”
“So, you allowed any kind of treatment because you believed you didn’t deserve better.”
“All I wanted to do was make them happy,” she explained. “All I ever wanted to do was make people happy.”
“Even at the expense of your own happiness?”
“Always at the expense.” She removed herself from my hold, and I let her go.
I gave her a broken smile, and shit, I didn’t smile at most people. So, within seconds it dropped into a grimaced frown. Her thumb moved up to her lips as she took a moment to stare at me.
“It was almost there,” she whispered, brushing her lower lip with her finger. “Right against your lips.”
“What was almost there?”
“Your soul. Then again, I can also see it in your eyes.”
She turned and began walking away, limping as she moved.
“Your ankle,” I called out. Clearly, she was in pain.
She didn’t look back at me as she muttered, “I’m fine.” She left me standing there, wanting to murder every single person who led to the creation of Stella’s pain.
“Damian, Damian, wake up.”
I was shaken from my slumber and sat up straight and in defensive mode. The room was still dark, and no light was coming in from the windows, making it clear that the sun hadn’t awakened yet.
“What the hell?” I growled, rubbing the palms of my hands against my eyes. When I removed them, I found those brown eyes that’d been hypnotizing me over the past few weeks. “Stella, what are you doing?” I asked.
Her face was clean of all the makeup she wore that evening, and her eyes were filled with a concerned look. The defensiveness I’d woke with disappeared instantly when I saw her worry.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“My ankle,” she softly spoke as a tear fell from her eye. She wiped it away swiftly but sniffled a bit as she nodded her head down to her leg.
I grumbled a bit as I reached toward the lamp on my nightstand. As I hit it on, my eyes fell to her ankle. “Fuck!” I yapped, staring down at her ankle that was the size of a melon. It was black and blue up her leg. I could only imagine how painful that was.
“We gotta get you to the emergency room,” I said, fully awake, standing from my bed.
“Okay.” Tears kept falling down her cheeks, and she didn’t even try to stop their descent. It must’ve hurt extremely bad because Stella wasn’t one to show weakness. “Can you drive me?”
I hesitated. “I’ll call a driver to come take us.”
“No. It’s fine. You can drive my car,” she said. “The keys are in the front hall.”
I already had my phone out and had dialed my driver. “Yeah, Chris? I need you to come pick me up. We have to take Stella to the emergency room. All right.” I hung up the phone. “He’ll be here in about fifteen minutes.”
She parted her lips to disagree but then shut them. Obviously, the pain was too much for a witty comeback for her.
I looked down at her ankle. “We have to ice it.”
“Okay.”
“You should be off it, too,” I told her. “Can I carry you to the living room?”
She nodded, still with tears streaming down her cheeks.
I walked to my closet and grabbed a gray T-shirt, and slid into a pair of black sweatpants before moving over to her. I held my hands out toward her and paused. “May I?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
I wrapped my arms around her, making certain to be nowhere near her injured ankle, and lifted her into my hold. She didn’t tense up like I’d witnessed her do with other men. Instead, she leaned into me, allowing her head to rest against my shoulder.
I set her down on the living room sofa and headed to get some ice for her ankle. When I came back, she was relaxed on the couch with her eyes closed.
“Ice coming in,” I warned, so she wouldn’t be surprised by the coldness hitting her skin. As I set it against her ankle, she flinched a little before relaxing into it.
It didn’t take long for Chris to show up, and I carried Stella to the car. We rode to the hospital in complete silence. We sat in the waiting room for over an hour and thirty minutes. I was certain the front desk staff was getting sick of me barging up to their desk and asking what the hell was taking so long.
Stella told me it was fine, but it didn’t sit right with me. She had a whole elephant ankle, and they looked at her as if she had a scratch on her arm or something.
When it was time for her to go back to get checked out, a male worker came out to take Stella back.
Stella tensed up a little, then turned to me. “Will you come with?” she asked, clearly uncomfortable but putting on a brave face.
“Of course.”
I offered her my arm to lean on so she wouldn’t put weight on her injured leg.
The employee took us in the back, to where he, thankfully, offered a wheelchair for Stella to sit. I pushed it for her to the patient room that was given to us. The worker informed us that a nurse would be with us shortly.
I took a seat beside Stella. She kept fidgeting with her fingers as she grazed her top teeth across her bottom lip. When the nurse came in and checked out her ankle, we were relieved to hear that it was nothing but a bad sprain. They gave her some pain meds, wrapped it up, and a pair of crutches she’d have to use for a while.
When they left, we waited for the discharge papers. Stella and I hadn’t spoken a word the whole time. I wasn’t much for small talk, and she wasn’t either when she was sober. But when she looked my way, she said, “You don’t know how, do you?”
“How to what?”
“Drive.”
I shifted a bit in my seat and shrugged. “Grew up in New York. Never really had a reason to learn when the subway could get me everywhere I needed to be. And if that couldn’t, a taxi could.”
“That doesn’t really work out great for California.”
“You’re telling me,” I huffed. Even if something was only five miles away, it took about fifteen years to arrive. There were a lot of things about California that I hated, but the traffic situation was at the top of my list. At least in New York, the subways run on a consistent schedule, and we didn’t have to sit at stoplights or at a standstill on freeways.
Her head lay on the hospital pillow, tilted in my direction. She took a deep breath, turned away from me, and said, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I’ll teach you.”
“Teach me how to drive?”
“Yes.”
“No thanks. Not interested.”
“Do you know how much you could save on money instead of paying someone to drive you around nonstop? Plus, I know you hate people. Wouldn’t you like to drive yourself with no people in the car?”
“My driver knows not to talk to me.”
“Yeah, but you’re you, which means you probably hate having someone sitting in the same vehicle as you.”
Touché.
“Besides”—she shrugged—“I’ve been driving my whole life. I learned when I was eight years old from Kevin.”
I know she didn’t mea
n for it to, but that felt like a sucker punch. The man who was supposed to teach me things like that taught some other kids instead.
I knew in my heart that wasn’t Stella’s fault, but it still bothered me.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling me away from my thoughts. “That he wasn’t there for you.”
“How did you…?” I started, startled that she almost pulled my thoughts from me. I prided myself in my poker face skills. When things bothered me, I didn’t show it on the outside. My demons remained within.
“The corner of your mouth. It twitches when you’re sad.” She smiled a little. “You’ve been able to pick up cues about me as my husband, but I’ve also been noticing things about you as your wife.”
“What else have you noticed?”
“The wrinkles around your eyes deepen when you’re mad, and your nose flares up. If you eat something you don’t like, your jaw clenches. When you’re stressed with work, you release a row of heavy grumbles. When you’re nervous, you scratch the palm of your hand. When you’re worried about me… you hold eye contact.”
“What do I do when I’m happy?”
She frowned and tilted her head. “I’m still trying to figure that one out.”
“All right, lady and gent, you are all ready to go. Here is your discharge paperwork,” the nurse said, coming in beaming. “You be careful on that ankle, will you?” she warned Stella.
“I will.”
The nurse turned to me. “And you take care of her, mister.”
I looked over at Stella, who was looking at me. “I will.”
We arrived back at the property as the sun awakened the sky, and I walked Stella to her bedroom and helped her get settled into her bed with the crutches.
“Are you okay?” I asked once she was tucked into bed.
I did that.
I tucked her into bed.
Since when was I a guy who tucked people into bed?
What are you doing to me, woman?
“I’m okay. Thank you for everything, Damian.”
“Rest,” I told her, and then I said good night.
20
Damian
* * *
I woke to the smell of food. The smell of chocolate chips filled the space, and my stomach growled from the mere smell of the baked goods.
Rolling out of bed, I glanced at my phone.
1:03 p.m.
That was the latest I’d slept in in a long time, but to be fair, Stella and I didn’t get home from the emergency room until around six in the morning.
I pulled myself out of bed and paused the moment I heard singing outside my door.
There was a knot in my chest as the sounds emerged. “Wake up, grumpy face, time for your morning happy taste.”
It turned out the knot in my chest wasn’t a knot. It was my heart. My heart was skipping. My heart was skipping because of her. Stella singing outside of my door with a voice that reminded me of a heaven that I hadn’t even known I’d believed in made my heart skip.
Beat, beat, skip, skip.
All because of her.
I stood, walked over to my door, and opened it. There she stood with a tray in her hands and a lopsided smile plastered across her face as she balanced her body on crutches and held a tray of food in front of her, with a black rose sitting in a small vase.
“Jesus, Stella, what are you doing?” I griped, taking the jam-packed tray from her hold. “You shouldn’t be carrying all of this. How’s your ankle?” I asked, concerned that she was doing too much on her injury.
She pulled up her sweatpants and showed me her ankle, which luckily was down in size. Still swollen, but worlds of improvement.
“It hurts, but I’m okay,” she said quickly.
I raised an eyebrow. “Are you drunk still?”
Her head shook. “No.”
That muscle in my chest?
Beat, beat, skip, skip.
“You didn’t have to cook for me.”
“I owe you a lot more than a plate of food. This isn’t even just for last night. It’s for every day that led to today. Every moment you chose to be honest with me. Even when it hurt.”
The left side of my mouth twitched a little. “Can I tell you some corny shit?”
“I love corny shit.”
I couldn’t believe I was about to say what I was about to say, but I couldn’t help it. I cleared my throat, feeling ridiculous. “You do something to me that I didn’t know I was able to do anymore.”
“Like what?”
“You make me care again.”
She smiled, and man, that smile…
I felt a tug in my chest that I hadn’t even known I could feel, so I shifted the conversation to something not as foreign to me. “Did you take your meds?”
“I did.” She blushed a bit and shrugged. “Thank you for caring.”
“Thank you for making me.”
She nervously balanced on the crutches and looked down at the wooden floor. “Anyway, I wanted to bring you breakfast. I whipped up some pancakes with apple pieces and chocolate chips.”
“That’s my—”
“Favorite,” she said, nodding. “I noticed you make them every weekend. I doubt they are as good as yours, but I tried.” She blushed slightly as she raised her head, and we locked eyes. “I owe you the biggest apology for how I acted last night. I normally don’t drink,” she softly spoke, embarrassed and ashamed of herself.
“It’s okay,” I replied. “I’m more concerned about you being okay.”
She smiled the most broken grin I’d ever witnessed in my life. “I’m okay,” she lied. She turned to walk away, and I called after her.
I gestured toward the tray of food as she followed my stare. “There’s enough for two.”
Her full lips parted, and she narrowed her eyes. “You want me to stay?”
“Please. I mean, if you want.”
Please stay.
I gestured toward the tray once more. “As I said, there’s enough for two.”
Her saddened eyes glistened a little with light as she took in a sharp breath.
Then she walked past me, entering the room. She took a seat on the left side of the bed, and I sat on the right, placing the food right between the both of us.
We ate in silence for a while before she cleared her throat and said, “I need to talk to Jeff today. He’s been calling me nonstop, but I haven’t answered. I’m sure Kelsey told him that I knew what was going on.”
“I’m sorry you have to deal with this.”
“Don’t be. I was an idiot. There were so many red flags that I chose to ignore.”
“No. You were taught at a young age that red flags weren’t red. It’s not your fault for not seeing them. Speaking of… why were your stepmothers such monsters to you?”
“I don’t really know. Growing up, I looked up to them. After losing my mom, I think I secretly hoped I would grow close to them. Not for them to replace my mom or anything, but because I just would’ve loved to have another woman in my life to confide in. It wasn’t that at all, though. They put up with me because of Kevin, that’s all.”
“They sound awful. I can state for a fact that Rosalina is, but I’m sure I’ll think the same of the other two.”
“Yes. But still, I feel bad for them.”
I laughed. “You can’t feel bad for the villains.”
“Of course, you can. That’s what makes us different than them.”
“It doesn’t change who they are.”
“Maybe you’re right.” She narrowed her eyes as she poked at the pancakes. “I’m scared that I’ll never be able to tell the difference between what’s a trauma response for me or not.”
“You can do it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re you, and you can do anything.” That seemed like a line from a corny rom-com movie, but she could. “You just need to find the right people to help you. If needed, I’ll be your person. You can come to me when you feel ov
erwhelmed or confused about anything.”
Her face reddened as if she were embarrassed by what I’d offered. “No, Damian. I can’t ask you to do that for me.”
“I want to.”
“Why?”
“Because I like you.” She laughed, baffled by my compliment. I arched an eyebrow. “Why is that funny?”
“Because it doesn’t make sense. You don’t like me.”
“Yes, Stella, I do.”
“What is it that you like about me?” she asked.
“Even if I answered that—which I easily could—you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because how could you believe what I like about you when you don’t even know how to like yourself.”
“I like myself,” she claimed. “At least, certain parts.”
“Okay, great.” I slid my hand into the pockets of my slacks and leaned against the wall. “Then you tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“What you like about yourself.”
Her lips parted, and then she froze. I could almost see her mind working in overdrive, trying to quickly grab something—anything—to offer me. But nothing came. She shut her lips. Her eyes watered over. All I wanted to do, all I ever wanted to do lately, was give her comfort. That was eating at my soul because all I wanted to do was wrap her up in my arms and let her know that she was going to be okay.
“When did I stop loving myself?” she whispered. Her voice cracked, which, in turn, made my cold heart crack, too.
Western Waves Page 17