Romance: Love Left Behind - A Mystery Romance: (Romance, Mystery, Mystery Romance, Romantic Suspense)

by Paige Powers

  As a third beer was being opened, the phone vibrated again. This time it didn’t stop, meaning someone was calling. Ben refused to acknowledge it. But then it vibrated again. It was déjà vu, his phone ringing just like it had when he found out his Grandpa Cole had died. If someone else in his family had passed on he didn’t think he could handle it.

  When he removed the phone from the front pocket of his jeans and checked the text messages, all of the blood drained from his face. He went as pale as a ghost. Quickly he turned the television off and stood. Rushing around the apartment, Ben grabbed his gray pea coat, his wallet, and car keys. Then he ran from the apartment, the door smashing shut behind him.

  Chapter Ten:

  2014 –Starla

  It was summertime in New York City. Sun radiated off the windows of every tall building, basking the city in heat. The sidewalks were clogged with people in various states of undress. Guys wore khaki shorts and tank tops, while girls preferred short shorts and tube tops. Tattoos abounded on thighs, arms, legs, ribs, chests. Multiple smells of roasted nuts, hotdogs, and hot sewer air wafted through the city streets.

  In Times Square, the Naked Cowboy stood, strumming his guitar and taking pictures with tourists. Bright lights exploded over everybody. Words, news, and pictures streamed across various electronic screens.

  Starla could see movement from inside of the Toys ‘R Us, where a giant Ferris wheel spun. She wanted to ride it all the way to the top. It wasn’t like she could see New York City from the pinnacle; rather, she could experience every single one of the four floors in the Toys ‘R Us. It would be like going back to her childhood, reminding her of the times she had spent riding the Ferris wheel at the fair as she clutched Ben’s hand on her lap.

  But Ben was next to her now and he gently led her away, his voice full of other promises. They walked briskly down the street, hand in hand. When the crowd got too condensed, Ben pulled Starla to him, holding her close. He wasn’t going to lose her. For the first time in a long time, she finally felt safe. She knew that she wasn’t going to get hurt here.

  He brought her to the TKTS Steps in Times Square. Tourists could climb the steps and look out over a few blocks, over thousands of people all rushing together. Together they climbed, higher and higher, until they were on the top row of the steps. Then they sat down. Ben extracted his hand from her grip but then flung his arm around her shoulder.

  “Can we take a picture together?” Ben asked. With his free hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a black digital camera. “We haven’t taken a picture together in so long.”

  Starla nodded, scooting as close to him as possible. They were magnetic. They were Romeo and Juliet if the story had ended happily. They were the conclusion of every sappy romance movie ever shown in theaters, but it didn’t matter. Because right then, on those steps, life was perfect.

  Ben held the camera out in front of them to take the picture. Both of their smiles glowed like shooting stars. There was a click and a flash, and then the two of them were forever memorialized on film.

  Then Starla turned to kiss him and he disappeared from before her eyes. There was no puff of light or flash of smoke. He just vanished. She sat with her lips puckered towards empty air. When she reached out, she touched nothing. It was as though she had been alone the entire time.

  “Ben?” she called out, her voice wavering. But there was no reply.

  A dull beeping noise filled her entire existence. She figured it was a side effect from the terrible blow of loneliness. How could this happen? Was she going crazy? How could he be there one minute and then be gone the next? The feeling of safety she had felt drained out of her, creating a puddle beneath her feet.

  As her anxiety grew louder, so did the sound of the beeps. She called out for Ben over and over again, ignoring the uptight looks from others sitting on the steps. She struggled to her feet and tried to walk down the steps, but fell, rolling like a snowball until she collapsed at the bottom. Onlookers rushed forward to help. The beeping intensified and when she looked up, Blair was standing above her. There was murder in his eyes. In his hand he held a shining 9mm gun.

  “I told you that you belonged to me,” he said. The rest of the onlookers, spotting the gun, began to back away slowly. “I told you never to leave me, Star. I love you too much. You can’t do this. If I can’t have you, nobody can.”

  Face-to-face with her demise, she begged for forgiveness. Blair just shook his head. He raised the gun and pointed it at her forehead.

  “I never wanted to do this. This is all your fault.” With that, Blair pulled the trigger. The sound of the beeping drowned out the bullet’s explosion.

  She wondered if she was dead or in limbo. It had to be limbo, she figured, because her body wouldn’t ache so terribly if she was dead. The beeping noise was still there but much lighter. Whispers creeped through the air around her.

  “Is she waking up?”

  “Starla, can you hear me?”

  “I definitely saw her moving. Right? Did you see it too?”

  She wanted to tell them all to be quiet. The noises were exacerbating the pain that was ripping through her skull. If she wasn’t dead, she wanted to be, if only to rid herself of how absolutely awful she felt.

  Trying to open up her eyes was like trying to pry open an ancient set of windows that had been painted shut. Slowly but surely she forced them open, peeling the crusty lids apart. A rush of brilliant white light flooded her tender corneas and she slammed her eyelids shut again. If it was so bright, maybe she was in Heaven. But if she was dead, why were so many people talking?

  “You’re not dead,” a voice informed her. “You’re in the hospital.”

  She had to be dead. How else could these mysterious voices be reading her thoughts?

  Someone snorted. The same voice said, “You’re speaking out loud, Star. Wow. You must really be out of it.”

  Starla opened her eyes again, bit by bit, so that they could adjust to the incoming light. Looking around the room she realized that she was indeed in the hospital. Around her bed stood her parents, Katie, and, most surprisingly of all, Ben. He looked wretched. He had big purple bags under his eyes that made it look like he hadn’t slept in days. Concern twitched across his lips.

  Everything on her body felt sore. Besides the awful headache, her arms, legs, and chest felt like they had been run over repeatedly by a pick-up truck carrying a load of bricks. She lazily twisted her head to the right and was shocked to see the deep purple color of her skin. Spinning her head to the left, she noted that her left arm was colored in the same fashion.

  When she looked up with questions burning in her eyes, Katie just had to say one word, “Blair,” to make her understand what had happened. The memories came flooding back to her.

  Upon her arrival back from New York City, Starla had opened the door to an incensed Blair, screaming and asking her where she had been. When she told him that she had been working at the diner all day, he had punched her full-force in the nose, knocking her to her knees. He told her that, suspicious of her story, he had gone to the diner to see her. But obviously she hadn’t been there.

  As Starla tried to create some sort of explanation as to where she had been, Blair punched her again and kicked out her legs. For the next hour he enacted the most savage beating of their relationship onto his girlfriend. At the end of it, Starla lay unconscious and bleeding on the floor. It had taken Blair an hour and a half to call 9-1-1 and ask for an ambulance.

  The doctors and nurses at the hospital were fed up with seeing Starla come in all of the time with cracked bones and bloody noses. She could deny the abuse all she wanted while she was awake. But with three cracked ribs, bruises over most of her body, and her unconscious status, there was no questioning what had gone on. The staff of the emergency room called in Mr. and Mrs. Bluff. The news, however, quickly spread throughout the entire town. Katie had left work and rushed to the hospital as soon as she heard.

  “How did Ben en
d up here?” Starla asked weakly.

  Ben was shaking his head, a mixture of anger and distress fighting on his face. “Katie called me,” he said. “Katie called me and told me what happened. I came right away. I swear to God –” He paused, his body shaking so hard that Starla thought he might explode. He took a few deep gulps of air to calm himself before resuming, “I swear to God if Blair ever comes after you again, I’ll kill him.”

  “Where is Blair?”

  “He’s sitting in jail,” Katie piped in. “Nobody could deny what he was doing to you anymore. He’s going to go away for a long time, Starla.”

  The room began to swim in front of her eyes. Everything was getting hazy and Starla was so tired. “He’s in jail?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” Ben said, “and I promise you that nobody will ever hurt you like that again.”

  Her eyes fluttered shut and the world vanished as Starla fell into a gentle sleep once more.

  She was running through a field of wildflowers, deep purple wildflowers that swayed in the breeze. As she pumped her arms and legs, she realized that her skin bore no bruises or cuts. For the first time in years, her body bore no signs of the abuse and pain she had endured on a weekly basis. Seeing her body in its natural state made her feel whole rather than broken. She was free, free to live her life however she wanted to. Collapsing into the field, the flowers crushed beneath her to create a bed. Everything seemed so natural.

  Clouds shaped like butterflies floated across the wide expanse of vibrant blue sky. She had never seen such a luminous blue. She had the urge to steal some blue from the heavens and paint herself in it and dance around and around in the field until her legs could no longer stand it. She felt like Alice in Wonderland.

  A bumpy green toad hopped up to her, jumping onto her hand. “You can stay here,” said the toad, “and live here forever and ever. It’s a nice place, isn’t it?”

  “Oh yes,” said Starla. “But I’m afraid I can’t stay here.”

  “Why not? The sun is always shining, the flowers are always swaying in the wind, and there’s never a care in the world,” the toad replied.

  Starla thought about it for a minute. It was such a beautiful place. There was a peace that settled in between every flower and blade of grass like she had never experienced before. Thoughtfully she said, “I suppose I can’t stay here because I’ve got people who love me back in the real world. They’ve given up so much for me, so shouldn’t I be there for them?”

  The toad hopped back onto the ground. It landed with a squish in the dirt. With its beady black eyes staring at her, it said, “Any world can be the real world if you think hard enough.”

  The room was nearly empty when she woke up, except for Ben, who was propped in a barely-cushioned hospital chair. He looked exhausted.

  “How are you still awake?” Starla asked incredulously. “Not to be mean, Ben, but you look awful.”

  He gave a brief nod of agreement before saying, “I haven’t slept since I heard you were in the hospital. I drove down right away from the city and I’ve been here ever since. This is all my fault. If I never took you to the city, you wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  Starla shrugged as much as her broken body would allow her to. “That’s not really true. I knew it was coming eventually. There were many times when I should have left but I stayed. That’s on me.”

  “No it isn’t,” Ben argued fiercely. “Nobody ever deserves to be hit like this. Especially not you.” He stood up unsteadily from the chair and walked until he was right by the bed. Grabbing Starla’s hand, he said, “You deserve the absolute world. I want to give that to you, Star. I’m so sorry about what happened in the city…”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she interrupted.

  “But it does! It does matter. You were right about everything. I should have ended things with Mina on the spot. Instead I pushed you away the same way I’ve done over and over again. I chose someone I wasn’t in love with and I let you go back to your piece of shit boyfriend. It’s because I’m so madly in love with you that I don’t know what to do with myself sometimes. I’m so afraid of hurting you that you end up in these awful and painful situations where you get hurt even worse. But that’s all over. It’s over right now. Because today, Starla Bluff, I’m letting you know that there is nothing that I want more in the entire world than to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  Starla looked taken aback at the words coming out of Ben’s mouth. When she was younger she used to dream about this day. Right now it was all just a shock. In just a short time they had reconvened, had sex, and had explored the city. Blair was in jail. Her entire world was turning upside down.

  “So what now?” she asked. Those were the only words she could muster up the courage to say.

  Ben smiled and squeezed her hand, trying to send comforting vibes to the love of his life. “What now is that you recover and I take care of you. Then I’ll whisk you away to somewhere lovely. If you agree to it, I’d love for you to move into my apartment in the city. Mina is done. She’s moved out. I want you to come live with me so that I can love you and protect you forever.” He spoke fervently, his jumbled words spilling out and tumbling all over the hospital bed. “I know I sound a bit crazy right now and maybe I’m not making a lot of sense. But it’s because I’ve finally realized how my life is supposed to go. And that’s with you.”

  She squeezed his hand back. “You’ve hurt me a lot, Ben.” She paused. “Can you help me sit up?”

  He pressed a button on the side of the hospital bed. The bed screeched, a dull metallic sound, but then rose. Soon Starla was in a sitting position. She closed her eyes and breathed in. “It’s nice,” she said.

  “What? Sitting up?” asked Ben.

  “Being alive.”

  Taken aback, Ben couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He glanced around the room to see if any doctors or nurses were around. When he saw that they were not, he gently nudged Starla to the side and climbed into bed with her. She smiled and leaned into him.

  “I want to spend the rest of my life with you too,” she whispered. She planted a tender kiss on his collarbone. “Please don’t let me go.”

  “Never again,” he replied. “Never again.”

  Neither of them moved. They just sat in bed and held each other. As Starla drifted off once more into a restful sleep – the result of all of her pain medicine – Ben stared down at the girl he had once almost lost and thanked the universe for putting them back together.

  Love isn’t always easy. In fact, the right love is rarely easy. Love is something that you will spend your entire life searching for but might never find. The good kind of love comes to you but you can’t just take it. You must work for it. Loving someone is a full-time job. But when you find the person you are meant to be with, you will know. When you’re apart, every fiber of your being will miss them. Your morning thoughts and uneasy dreams will forever hold your face.

  Ben knew that he and Starla still had a long way to go. All that mattered in that moment was that they were finally together. No, love wasn’t always easy. But at the end of the day, it was worth it.

  Thank You

  I hope you enjoyed this story and would love to know what you thought about it. If you have a moment to spare, I would appreciate it if you could leave a review of this book at Amazon. Your opinion goes a long way in helping others decide if a book is for them.

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  Also, if you can, please help other readers find this book by recommending it to friends, readers’ groups and discussion boards.

  Please check out my other publication.

  Thank you so much.

  Paige

  Booklist

  Links to the other books by Paige Powers:

  http://www.amazon.com/Romance-Growing-Love-Paige-Powers-ebook/dp/B00MUEKFPY

  http://www.amazon
.com/Romance-Reflection-Love-Young-Adult-ebook/dp/B00NH192GC

  http://www.amazon.com/Twist-Love-Paige-Powers-ebook/dp/B00QPHUMPK

  http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Forever-Leap-Love-Book-ebook/dp/B00QO03ZXO

  http://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Kisses-Leap-Love-Book-ebook/dp/B00RJ3GGL8

  http://www.amazon.com/Romance-Roomies-Paige-Powers-ebook/dp/B00SC5UL9A

  http://www.amazon.com/Tough-Love-Paige-Powers-ebook/dp/B00RJ32ROS

  http://www.amazon.com/Romance-Healing-Love-Paige-Powers-ebook/dp/B00TCOZXRU

  http://www.amazon.com/Love-Changes-Leap-Book-ebook/dp/B00TFOPI36

  http://www.amazon.com/Romance-Broken-Paige-Powers-ebook/dp/B00TFTANF4