Deeper Healing

39| Red

Nikolai Coleman

Isla plopped onto her couch with a heavy sigh, brushing her hair out of her face with both of her hands. "Geez, I'm so fucking exhausted I could pass out and why the hell does my apartment feel so empty?" she groaned, kicking off her ankle boots lazily. "I can almost hear echoes."

I drew the curtains open with a light sigh, enjoying the warm glow of the sun as its rays flooded in gently. After an entire week of heavy rain and occasional thunderstorms, everyone could use a sunny day for a mood lift.

I turned back to Isla, looking around her lounge with her last comment in mind.

"Of course, it's gonna echo," I said, sitting on an ottoman stool across from her and helping her remove her left ankle boot she seemed to be struggling with. "You barely have any furniture in here, Isla."

Her style was pleasantly aesthetic but highly minimalistic. She barely lived in her apartment after all so perhaps she just didn't care that much about furnishing it and making it more homely.

"It's tidier this way and I like my space," she responded, folding her knees back onto the couch and lying her head on the couch's armrest. "I already feel so lonely though," she pouted.

After being admitted to the hospital for nearly a week, Isla had finally been discharged although she was still complaining of headaches and nausea. I'd been around to drop her off, surprised entirely by her request to go to her apartment and not her parents' house.

"Your mom offered countless times to have you over and you refused every offer," I pointed out.

"Not after what she did to Leilani. We're not on speaking terms until she fixes everything back to the way it was otherwise no form of communication is happening between us," she deadpanned.

Even though a couple of days had passed already since Jennifer Edwards dragged Leilani at the hospital, I couldn't stop replaying the events of that day in my head and trying to put things together.

Leilani hadn't spoken much about it, asking me for time to organise her thoughts and I gave her the space she needed.

She already had enough going on with the investigation at her work and I didn't want to put too much pressure on her. I could find time to sit down with her, talk and figure things out now that Isla had been discharged and her pressure seemed to be reducing.

"I didn't expect your Mom to lash out at Leilani the way she did," I voiced out my thoughts, indirectly looking for answers to the questions I had swirling in my mind all week.

Isla hummed with a slight stir of her head. "Trust me, their strained relationship goes years back and you could never understand their issues. I thought Lani told you everything when you rushed after her that day like superman under the pretence of a business call."

I'd figured she'd known I had gone after Leilani that day given her attitude towards me when I returned hadn't exactly been warm and usual. She didn't approve of it entirely since naturally, she wasn't used to me giving any other female who wasn't either her or Olivia and Mom attention.

She'd make a scene if she found out there was more to my relationship with Leilani than what we let on so for now, I was avoiding the topic entirely.

"Someone had to check up on her," I responded calmly, praying she wouldn't get triggered into an argument.

She scoffed. "How gentlemanly of you but here you are, not even once offering me some recovery time at your penthouse!"

She stood up with a playful glare, throwing a cushion in my face which I caught before it hit me. "Screw you," she grumbled, pulling a face and walking away.