Page 122 of Tristan & Isabel: Apartment 11F

Chapter Twenty-One

ISABEL

The next few hours are a blur. There’s an ambulance and a hospital, police interviews, phone calls, hugs, and so, so many tears. I’ve lost track of those. It would be easier to count the seconds salty liquidwasn’tdraining from my eyes.

The Haverfords don’t even try to tell me to go home as we huddle in the waiting room of the ED. The cops are out looking for Pierce, while we wait helplessly for news of his victim.

I thought I knew pain. This isn’t it. This is a debilitating black hole that sucks the air from my lungs and the life from my veins. Four years ago, Tristan gave up his freedom for his sister. Four hours ago, he gave up his life for me. Since I learned the truth about the accident, I wondered how Kim could live under the weight of that reality. Now, I know. I would do anything to be the one fighting for my life on a hospital bed, while he sat out here desperate for good news.

His strange goodbye this afternoon has been echoing through my head nonstop. He must have known this was a possibility when he decided to confront Pierce. Pierce must have thought the same based on his actions. Maybe the knife was only supposed to be a prop, but hate turned it into a weapon that damaged several lives today.

Tristan was stabbed for me.

I still can’t wrap my brain around it. None of it seems real. All of it seems like a bitter nightmare brought on by warped fantasies I believed too much.

I finally got my love story.

My precious fairytale kiss.

The prince’s heart I’ve been chasing since the moment I saw its beauty.

Thisis my H.E.A.—stale hospital air that becomes less breathable with each replay of that awful scene in my head. It’s completely different now that I know the ending. Every word, expression, and ripple of lake water has new meaning. I can’t shake the image of Tristan’s powerful body lying motionless on the cold, blood-stained stones.

But it’s his eyes in those last moments that haunt me. I finally saw the love and hope I’ve wanted for so long—and it’s the hope that hurts the most. It’s the hope that has my chest caving in and my body crumbled on a chair. He finally believed in us, inhimself. I had his whole heart for a few precious seconds, only to have it ripped away. Maybe forever.

I choke back a sob at memories of the smile on his face as he faded. He was so beautiful in that moment. Peaceful in a way I’ve never seen. His last words, his last thoughts, were about me, and it was enough to make him face death with a smile. I know in my soul he thought he was dying and he meant what he said. He’d give his life for me.Again and again.

And I’m furious.

“Iz,” Kim says, reaching for me.

I pull away, firing an angry look through my tears. “It’s not supposed to end this way. Itcan’t. After everything we’ve been through… I don’t accept this!”

“I know,” she says, her own eyes heavy with grief. “He’ll be okay, Iz. They just have to stitch him up and—”

“You don’t know that! How can you know that?! You didn’t see it. You didn’t see him lying there like… like…”

Like he was gone.

Like we lost him forever this time.

Like I may never get to hold him and tell him how beautiful he is again.

I love you so much, Tristan. Please, please, please come back to me. You promised me. You fucking promised!

She looks away, and I’m already a mess when my watery gaze lands on their parents. Ben and Yolis appear haggard and in anguish beside her. They’ve said almost nothing this entire time, too numb and in shock to converse. I should feel compassion for two people I once viewed as family, but instead all I have is rage. Do they even know this isn’t the first time he’s been hospitalized for an attack? Do they have any idea that getting stabbed probably isn’t the worst thing their son has endured?!

“This is bullshit,” I hiss. “All of this.” I wave over the two of them when they look at me in surprise. “You don’t get to sit there acting like your world just broke apart! You don’t get to grieve a relationship you didn’t even have due to your own bad choices! You don’t get to decidenowthat Tristan is an incredible person you want in your lives, and mourn the missing yearsyouthrew away. Where were you when he was suffering in a prison hospital? When he was thrown into solitary afterhewas assaulted? Where were you when he needed just one damn person to believe in him and give him hope? To tell him he was worth everything, even though he’d been reduced to nothing? He needed you more than ever, and you just left him there! You just fuckinglefthim…”

I break down and slump into the chair. All the years stolen and thrown away. All the light siphoned from radiant souls. All the futures stripped of hope and possibilities. There’s so much evil in this world, so much darkness and pain. So many reasons to give up and decide it’s not worth saving.

And then the boy you hated trades his life for yours. For his sister’s. For anyone he loves because even in this dark, awful place there’s still a flicker. There’s still selflessness and kindness and sacrifice. There’s still hope that the most irredeemable can be redeemed, and sometimes miracles happen in the heart of tragedy.

A heavy arm circles around my back, but it doesn’t belong to Kim or Yolanda Haverford. It belongs to a person who’s been more of a father tomethan his own son.

“You’re right,” Ben says, his voice choked with emotion. “We failed him—Ifailed him. We abandoned him when he needed me the most. We lefthim there to suffer alone. It’s taken too much heartache for me to realize how badly I messed up. No, I don’tdeserve to sit here praying for the chance to love him like I should have.”

Tears drip down his face with those pretty words. Pretty, sincere words that mean jack shit if he never gets the chance to prove them. What if…

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