The Beauty in Between: Too Close (A Beautiful Series Novella) (14 page)

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Authors: Lilliana Anderson

BOOK: The Beauty in Between: Too Close (A Beautiful Series Novella)

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Pushing his
slumped body to the side, I did my best to cover Trina’s dignity
before lifting her up gently. I got her out there as fast as I
could. I don’t even remember her being heavy. I was so pumped up on
adrenalin that she felt weightless in my arms.

I drove her to
the hospital at emergency speed, dumping my car to the side of the
emergency entrance, knowing full well there was a possibility of
getting towed and rushed her inside.

“Please be okay
Trina,” I begged as I carried her from the car toward the emergency
room. “Don’t leave me Trina. I love you.”

Epilogue

“You can go in
and see her now,” Mrs Mahoney says as she touches my shoulder to
jolt me out of my thoughts.

“Is she awake?
Is she ok?” I ask wide eyed.

“She’s awake,
but she’s groggy. Come with me.”

I follow Mrs
Mahoney along the corridor until we find Trina’s room. It has four
beds in it, and Trina is in the one closest to the window at the
end.

Mrs Mahoney
pauses before opening the curtain for me. “I just want to warn you.
She's pretty beat up.”

“Ok,” I say
immediately, not really caring what she looks like. I only care
that she’s going to be ok.

She steps
aside. “I’ll leave you two alone,” she whispers.

I step through
the curtain and get my first glimpse of her. Tears immediately
spring to my eyes as I take in her swollen, bruised and bandaged
face and body. “Trina,” I choke out.

“You look like
shit,” she comments to me, her voice dry and scratchy sounding.

“Well, you look
gorgeous baby girl,” I tell her, moving to sit down next to her and
take her hand. “I am so so sorry Trina. I tried to get back in
there as soon as I could.”

“It’s ok, you
weren’t to know. None of us knew.”

We sit for a
moment in silence. “The police came while I was in the waiting
room.”

“What did you
tell them?”

“What I
saw.”

“Are they going
to arrest him?”

“I have no
idea. They’ll probably want to talk to you first.”

“Hmmm,” is all
she says.

“How do you
feel?” I ask.

“About as good
as you look,” she laughs before grimacing in pain.

“Do you need me
to do anything for you?” I ask.

“Just don’t say
I told you so.”

“Never Trina.”
I reach up and gently stroke the hair on top of her head and press
a soft kiss on her forehead. “Never.”

She closes her
eyes and hums contentedly as I continue to caress her hair. “Thank
you for saving me,” she whispers.

“Any time,” I
tell her, sitting with her until she drifts off to sleep. As I look
over her beaten body, I realise I’ve been kidding myself. While
I’ve been trying to convince myself that I’m not boyfriend
material, my feelings for Trina have only grown stronger.

Now I know. I
am one-hundred-percent, to-the-moon-and-back-again in love with
Katrina, and there is no point trying to deny it to myself any
longer. Now my only fear is – does she feel the same way too?

***

When visiting
hours are over at the hospital, I’m forced to return home and get
some rest myself. Having the person you care about in the hospital
is nothing like what they show in movies – you can’t just sit vigil
in a chair beside their bed and sleep uncomfortably when you need
to. The nurses don’t come by and go ‘Aw, he’s watching over her’.
They come by and tell you to leave – no excuse, or they’ll have
security escort you out.

In the long
run, it’s best that I go home. I need to explain to my mum what has
happened. I feel so bad when I walk through the door, because I
know my mum is waiting for me, and I’m looking pretty bruised and
beaten up, plus - I’m still wearing my bloodied shirt.

“Oh my God!
David! What happened to you? Is Katrina ok?”

She rushes over
to me and checks my face and hands, looking over me the way
mother’s do to check that you are all in one piece.

“I’m ok ma, but
Trina’s in hospital. That fuckwit Christopher beat the living shit
out of her,” I tell her through gritted teeth, trying my best to
keep a handle on my emotions.

“Oh my god. Is
this her blood?”

I nod,
swallowing a few times to try and keep my feelings under control.
But it's my mum. I've never been able to hide my emotions from her.
Never.

“Mum!” I cry,
my face crumpling as I grab a hold of her. She hugs me tightly,
running her hand up and down my back soothingly, while she shushes
me and tells me that it will all be ok. Once I calm down, we sit on
the couch together, and I relay the events of the night, including
how strong my feelings toward Katrina have become.

She sighs. “Oh
David. I know you love her. You’ve loved her for a long time. But
is now really the time to be telling her?”

“Yeah mum, I
think it is,” I tell her.

***

I was so
exhausted, that when I finally fell asleep, I managed to sleep
straight through my alarm and miss the first set of visiting hours
at the hospital. There is a good hour or two of time I need to kill
before I can go and see Trina, so I take myself to the local
shopping centre instead.

I’m really not
sure how I’m going to tell her that I love her. But I feel that I
at least need to get her something, to show her. I don’t trust
myself to just say how I feel. Words won’t be enough.

Flowers seem
like the obvious choice. Especially for someone who’s in hospital,
but I really want to get her something more as well. Walking past
the windows of the jewellery stores, I notice in one of them a
necklace that seems perfect.

Entering the
store, I ask the sales assistant if I can see it. It’s a spinning
disk with the letters I,O,E,O on one side and then L,V,Y,U on the
other. When you spin it with your finger, the letters come together
and form the words ‘I love you’.

“Perfect,” I
say, handing it back to the girl to wrap up, so I can purchase
it.

I pocket the
box and head to the florist to get Trina some flowers, then drive
over to the hospital. I swear I’m sweating pools from nerves as I
head towards her room, but as I make my way closer, I can hear the
slight commotion of raised voices.

Suddenly, Tom
exits her room in a hurry and almost collides with me in the
hallway.

His eyes drop
to the flowers in my hands. “Don’t give her those man, she’s likely
to throw them in your face. I think she’s pissed because we missed
visiting her this morning. Dad had to work, and mum had to go and
buy her some things to wear. All her stuff’s at the apartment, you
know. But now she’s in a foul mood,” he informs me in a low voice,
his eyes darting toward the door. “Those poor other women in there.
She started yelling, and they got out of there as fast as they
could with their IV poles dragging behind them.”

“What the hell
happened this morning then?”

“I don’t know.
We called her and told her why we were coming. When we got here,
mum was talking to her about moving on with her life and pressing
charges against Christopher, and she just went off the deep end
saying that she doesn’t want to move on, and she doesn’t want to
press charges.” He runs his fingers through his hair and shakes his
head, despondently. “I don’t understand it man. I mean, look at
her. Look at what he did to her. How can she not press
charges?”

I look over his
shoulder as Mrs Mahoney exits the room and shuts the door behind
her. “David,” she says as soon as she sees me. “Please see if you
can talk some sense into that girl. I don’t know what’s gotten into
her.”

“I don’t know
what good I’ll do, but I’ll try.”

I hand the
flowers to Katrina’s mum and enter her room. Walking quietly, I
move her privacy curtain to the side, the sound of the curtain
sliding along the rod alerting her to my presence.

She doesn’t say
anything, she just looks at me. Her face appears even worse than it
did yesterday as all the bruising has now set in.

“Having a bad
day?” I venture, moving to sit on the chair next to her bed.

“You could say
that,” she states, looking down at her hands.

“You want to
tell me what’s going on?”

She sighs and
shakes her head, tears coming to her eyes. “It’s just… I don’t
know. I just want this to be over. I don’t want to press charges. I
just want to get my stuff from the apartment and be done with it.
Is that so hard to understand?”

I shake my head
in response. I truly wish she would press charges against that
bastard, but if she wants it over and doesn’t want to deal with him
again, then yeah – I can understand.

“Then mum
started talking about how I’ll heal, and then I'll find someone so
much nicer than he was and I just lost it. How can she be talking
about me finding someone after what just happened? I don’t fucking
want anyone else!” she cries, tears starting to fall down her
cheeks. “I’m going to come out of this covered in scars David. I’m
not going to be pretty anymore-”

“Of course
you’ll be pretty Trina. You're gorgeous,” I interrupt.

“Don’t. Just
don’t David. Don’t even act like everything will be fine because it
isn’t. Just…just be my friend ok. Treat me normally. I’m not weak
because of this. But I am realistic. I’m going to have a massive
scar on my face, and I don’t need to be lied to and be told that
everything will be ok. Because it won’t. And I don’t need to be
told that I’ll find someone else, because I don’t want someone
else. I don’t want anyone. All I need right now, is for my family
and my best friend to be supportive of me. To give me space and let
me deal with this in my own way. Do you understand?”

“Of course I do
Trina,” I tell her, taking her hand. The necklace in my pocket,
suddenly feels hot, like it’s burning a hole into my leg. It seems
like it’s taunting me, telling me how stupid I was to think I could
walk in here and tell her that I love her and that everything would
be perfect. “Whatever you need, ok?”

“I need sleep
actually. I’m exhausted.”

“Ok baby girl,”
I say rising up from my chair and kissing her on the forehead.
“Rest well.” I make my way to the curtain and pull it aside,
pausing for a moment. “Trina?”

“Mmm?” she
hums.

“It will be you
know. In the end, it will be anyway.”

“Be what?”

“Ok, everything
will be ok, and you’ll always be beautiful.”

With that I
leave her to sleep. I say goodbye to her family in the hall and let
them know she isn’t going to change her mind about pressing charges
and then head home.

The necklace
taunts me the entire way to my place as I think about what a
colossal error I almost made. In my room, I place the box in my
desk drawer, vowing that I will wait until she’s ready to move on.
Then I’ll tell her I love her. I’ll tell her that I’ve always loved
her…

Read the next
chapter in David and Katrina’s story in A Beautiful Struggle.

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Books by
Lilliana Anderson

The Confidante
Trilogy

Confidante: The Brothel

Confidante: The Escort

A Beautiful
Series

Too Close: The Beauty in Between

A Beautiful Struggle

A Beautiful Forever

Entwined Series