Sepulchre There by the Sea - A Fairytale Green fanfiction

More Than Love - Part 11

Sorry for the late update :( I'm so fuckin busy it's painful.

Butttttt this chapter is 4.5k words so consider it reparations.

Anyways, be prepared to 1. have your Spotify or wtvr music app ready. I give you a play music cue in this chapter.

And 2. be prepared to be absolutely shocked <3

Ok bye have fun reading luv y'all

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It had been four days since I had gotten home from the hospital. During those four days, I remained a shell on the couch, my eyes glued to the TV screen, my hand stuck inside a large bag of chips.

Tyler assumed my work trip went shitty. He offered his comfort, and I hesitantly accepted. I was going to break up with him soon, and I didn't want to love him up before I left. It wouldn't be fair.

I wasn't breaking up with him because of Stone. I was breaking up with him because of me. Because of the absolute, mascara-stained, drug-ruined, ran-through mess I was. A full year of one-night stands that he didn't know about, a full year of white powder coating the edge of my nose, a full year of vomiting and failing and forcing shot after shot down my throat. A full year of fuck ups and fucking up again and again and again. If I stayed with him, he was bound to find out about that year. If I stayed with him, he would leave me when he inevitably finds out, and that'd be far too painful for my already broken heart to endure.

I felt his fingers trace my arm slightly, his head resting on my shoulder. My breathing fell heavy as I thought about every single chaotic event that had gone on since my discharge from the ER.

I had only seen Stone once. He had shown up at my door, and despite Tyler's protest, he made himself welcome and walked right in; to my surprise, turning to speak to Tyler, not me. However, I soon realized what he was doing. He held his hand out to me behind his back, shaking the thin flier he was gripping.

After grabbing onto it and hiding it beneath my sweater, he turned, gave me a nod, and patted Tyler on the back before leaving.

I could swear Tyler still winces whenever he bends down.

The flier was a brochure for a sobriety program in Bed-Stuy. With great difficulty and struggle, I called them up and booked a space. Two days ago was the first time I went in, and it was surprisingly easier than I thought. I made a new friend, Lil Tony, a sixty-something-year-old Italian man who nicknamed himself in an attempt to become the greatest rapper of all time.

He didn't quite understand that you have to rap to be a rapper. He genuinely believed that adding 'Lil' to your name was enough to cut it.

The day after that I was sitting in front of the TV rotting away, when a face appeared on the screen, causing my breath to freeze and my heart to halt. Jack Medinas, in all his disgrace, showed up under a news story of a big drug bust. According to the news, an anonymous source had left Jack on the steps of a police station, beaten and bruised, with nearly a full book of evidence of his drug dealing affairs on a small USB, stuck between his bloody teeth.

They had also asked for information on the anonymous source, but obviously, after I had digested the shock and color had returned to my face, I let a small smile peak through my cloudy mood and I snuggled further into the couch, knowing exactly what had happened. I was surprised to realize that I did not care. I did not care about Jack, or what would happen to him in prison. I did not care that Stone was likely the one behind this all, and I did not care that it was inadvertently my fault.

The Ella now, the one that didn't care about a man doomed to life in prison, the one that was facing sobriety with shaking hands, the one that was about to make the decision to leave her fiancé and her insanely secure life, was not the Ella who had met the tall hunk of a man in high school. The Ella now was not the Ella who had cried herself to sleep night after night because of her absent father and long-gone mother. I was not the Ella who I had always known.