The Darkness Of Healing // Ruel // English

Chapter 88

(Ruel's POV)

Yasmine is sick. She started shivering when we got into the taxi and drove to the hotel, after Lucas' team gave us permission to do so. It didn't take long as they had been monitoring her condition and saw she wasn't well. And something made me tell it was just the gunshot, the wound to the head. Something switched in her brain, a sense of Deja Vu. Because Yasmine didn't care about Ethan, but she cared about her brother. In both incidents, her head has blamed herself. The first time because everyone around her said so, the second time because it's programmed that way in her head by now. That everything that goes drastically wrong is her fault. But it's not, she couldn't have done anything about it either way. Not even her father's death.

Back in the hotel room I gave her a shower, and then crawled under the covers warm and clean again. To tuck her in and hold her. Her body couldn't stop shaking. She was burning hot, even though she didn't feel that way.

I canceled all the plans I had for today. Also the interview with the magazine that I had a shoot for earlier this week. I could sense that Nate was angry with me, though he was afraid to express it. He tried to understand why I did it. I had to be there for Yas. I couldn't run away from her now. Not if she herself believes it would be better if I did. That I'd be better off, but that's the biggest lie she could tell herself.

If she didn't sleep she apologized to me. For what she did wrong in her eyes, for the pain she saw in me. I couldn't respond to it. I held her words, looked at them, and didn't know what to do with them. I could accept it or brush it off, and either choice felt wrong. Because yes I sometimes worry about her and suffer because of it, but that's love. I think if love doesn't hurt then it isn't real. That it's not worth staying with that one. And Yasmine is in every part of me. Every piece is from her. Everything about me is hers too. I love her. We are a team that helps each other get through the day. Some better than the other. I'll never be able to love anyone again if I didn't have her. It is worth it, the pain she sometimes inflicts on me. It's not coming from her, it's the situation she's in. And now there should finally be some peace.

She told me everything that happened in the last two weeks. She told me about Lucas and how he was also present at the events we went to together. That it was not to endanger me, but to create safety. And while the hotel room confrontation felt like danger to me, I now understand why she did it all this way. It was never her intention to involve me. She just wanted it to be over because she wasn't fighting for one person. But for two. She protected me more than she protected herself. She even told me about the Sydney show, what happened there. And I'm thankful she kept that to herself, because I don't know what would have happened to me if I had known. I might have felt it. But feeling and knowing give a totally different reaction. I don't have to be afraid of it now. The AFP is handling the case. They're not coming back.

It hurts my heart to know what she's had to fight through. What she has to endure.

And here in the hotel room it makes me hopeless to see her this way. So small, fragile, actually already broken. But no more hopeless than I felt when I heard the shot go off. Never in my life have I been so scared. I couldn't lose her. I could fight with Mikaela when she pulled me away from Yasmine, I couldn't leave her, but both Yas and Mikaela did it for my own good. To not let me see what would happen down there in that hallway. Not to hear it, to feel it, to smell it. But my own life flashed by when I heard that one shot, the one I thought would have hit my girlfriend. For she stood there so strong and without any fear. And I had to trust her, but at that moment I couldn't. I freaked out. I wanted to kick, punch, scream, wriggle myself out of the woman's grip. Soon Mikaela was able to calm me down because the woman she was on the phone with could tell her it was Ethan. That it was Ethan who had shot himself in the head. She had followed everything on the cameras. And even though he was dead, I felt the urge to give him a few more good beatings. Purely for the courage he had to get Yasmine back into the circle she had indeed ended up in now. To throw her years in time.