Stay with Me by Awesomekristii (jenna bush book club .TXT) 📖

DAMIEN

I couldn’t stop the worry flooding me when I couldn’t find Lilah anywhere near the table where I left her with Rose. I rushed towards it, asking the question stuck in my gut. “Have you seen Lilah?”

They raised their eyebrows at me in question and I corrected myself. “ Delilah.” They look at each other before shaking their heads.

“She excused to get herself an orange juice “ One of them piped in and I looked at the short hair lady. “Thanks.”

I walked to the bar, and found the seats in there all empty. Restlessness building inside me more and more at her absence. If only I hadn’t left her alone, but meeting with Ethan was important.

More important than Lilah?

I could hear my inner self asking the question and I couldn’t answer out of guilt. I didn’t imagine she would disappear in just few minutes. Or rather an hour I suppose. And yet again I felt the familiar feeling of guilt coursing in. 

How foolish was I to leave her alone?

I asked the tall bartender guy, and hoping he would have anything fruitful to share. I pulled out my phone and showed him the image of Lilah. “Have you seen her?” His eyebrows furrowed as he scanned the image, before slowly nodding his head.

“She was here for orange juice…” he pointed at a table just side of the bar, “There. She was sitting in there, and soon a man joined him.” And that piqued question in me. A man? Who was he? I didn’t waste a second to ask him about the man but he was clueless.

“I’m sorry sir, but I don’t know his name.” I almost punched the glass counter with the anger gripping me, anger on myself and the situation. Howe,ver I took a few deep breaths in, knowing the main priority was now to find Lilah.

“Can you tell me, where she headed to?” He thought for a while, and I felt my heart beat going erratic with each passing second. “I couldn’t guess correctly but I think I saw her walking towards the left corridor, the one with ladies washroom.” I didn’t bother a minute to rush out of there and almost ran down the dimly lit corridor.

Blood pulsing in my ears as I walked faster looking for any sign of her. Anything.

Until I came across a door at the end of the hallway, and low growls and shout piercing the atmosphere, damped down by the closed door. I wasted no second to push the locked door, kicking multiple times until it opened. I stumbled inside with the heavy blow, and what I saw made the blood in me running cold, numbness and bleakness know knocking from every door.

Delilah was laying on the floor, in nothing but her inner wears and bleeding. Lewis stood there shocked in his half opened pants, reaching his knees. And next I know I saw nothing but red.

Punch after punch fell over him from every direction I know, feeling the anger only overpowering me more and more. I couldn’t stop myself even when I heard people rushing in, looking at his battered and bloodied self on the floor and not until I heard the whimpers from beside me. And I was instantly back to the present, and meet with my Lilah on the floor.

I threw the piece of shit on the ground to deal with later, and rushed towards her opening my suit jacket. Covering her up with it, as I gathered her up in my arms, I couldn’t stop the tears leaking out of my eyes. She moved closer to me, her self feeling so lifeless, as I saw her half opened eyes, the earlier shine in them withered. Scratches and dry blood all over her arms and neck.

The blood trickling down from beside her head got my attention and I grabbed the entire bundle of tissues and pressing it against her head and seeing my hand going all red.

I didn’t take a moment to waste to walk out of there, and halfway met with Steven. Shock was visible on his face but he didn’t ask me anything, instead rushed me to his car as I settled in the back with Lilah in my arms, and Steven in the driver's seat.

Panic coursed my veins when I saw her eyes closing. “Please don’t close your eyes.” I tried to bring her closer to me as much as possible, trying my best to keep her awake.

And the next thing went in a blur when we brought her to the hospital, and directly to the emergency room. The staffs were quick not to question first before taking her for the treatment.

Looking from the little glass hole on the ICU door, my worst fear only worsened. I couldn’t stop the wetness on my cheeks, and the wrenching pain in my heart, as if it was tightened in a knot and someone was painfully tugging it and tightening more and more, vacuuming out the air from inside me.

I couldn’t sit, my legs walked outside the room's door when my eyes fell on the blood on my fingers, the blood from her head. And I found the intense guilt eating me up.

This was all because of me. If only I hadn’t left her alone, or more hadn’t even brought her.

My fingers, and scratched knuckles itched to punch the cold wall, and brought myself the pain I deserved to get. The pain she had went through because of my selfish need. If only I hadn’t brought her here.

I looked inside again, and saw the doctors working with cotton and scissors, the blood in them almost made me lose my conscience. Blood never triggered me until now when it’s of my Lilah.

Fuck!

I placed my palm against the wall, lowering my head in the restlessness and the helplessness I was feeling. I felt a hand on my shoulders and a figure stood beside me.

“She is going to be okay, En.” I looked up at Steven and saw the same sadness and guilt written all over his face. But that should be me who should feel this, when it was me alone who brought her here and left her alone.

I shook my head at him, feeling my throat closing up with lump as I struggled to voice out. “She is suffering just because of me.” I looked back and saw her lifeless self on the huge hospital bed. I closed my eyes tightly, and again the wetness caressing down my cheeks.