Robbers

forty - one

hello everyone, I just want to apologize for how long it has taken for this chapter to be posted. I've been very busy with classes and didn't want to rush anything and post a shitty piece of writing, so it took a little longer. I hope you understand!

there are only about 2-4 chapters left, one of which will be an epilogue type thing. I'm sad to see that this story is ending so soon, but I'm definitely excited to complete it! Robbers has taken up well over a year of my life, and I really really want to go back through and edit the entire thing because there are a lot of elements that I need to fix haha. anyway, I just wanted to let you all know how much is left of this story! Thank you guys for all your support and not giving up on this, I'm still blown away by the amount of readers - I thought this would never get anywhere. so, thank you a million times over and I hope you'll see this story through to the end with me :)

// forty – one //

Ella had turned numb.

She'd set the phone aside and stared blankly into the growing darkness of the hospital recovery room, clouds staining the room's air grey as a storm brewed outside the window. Something icy cold had settled in the space behind her ribs, just before her heart. The silence of the room had pressed against Ella's ears until she began to wonder if she'd gone deaf.

Six years. Six years.

When the time came for Ella to be released from the hospital, two days later, she scarcely felt a glimmer of relief. The intensity of any emotion other than shock seemed unable to register within her. Ella felt nothing. And she thought of nothing as she changed out of the hospital gown into a thick sweatshirt and leggings, her right arm restricted within the confines of a sling – thought of nothing but two words.

The two words Ryan had last spoken to her. Six years.

How could they take away six years of Ryan's life? How could they do that, when none of this had been his fault from the beginning?

And despite everything that had happened, Ella felt an enormous weight of guilt. She had robbed stranger's homes and gas stations, too, and she was getting away with it while Ryan was to stay in jail for six years. Ella knew Ryan would be furious if she felt even an ounce of guilt for the way things had turned out, but she couldn't help it.

Ella was equally guilty for Ryan's crimes.

Her parents were practically ecstatic when they picked Ella up from the hospital Tuesday afternoon. It made Ella feel physically ill to return their happy expressions and grins, because she didn't feel that way on the inside at all. She felt the opposite of happiness, even as they left the hospital behind in the rearview mirror of her father's Subaru. She felt quite dead inside.

Six years. An eternity. A gap in Ryan's life that would surely leave him hollow. And what would Ella do outside in the real world, while she waited for his release? What was she supposed to do without the one person who had consumed both her days and nights for the past three months?

The house was warm with familiarity when Ella entered through the threshold, even after the two weeks she had spent away from it. Nothing had been moved since she'd last seen the dining room, or the kitchen. Despite her absence, nothing had changed. When she rounded the corner to find Rosie curled up on the living room's maroon couch, bundled in a thick woolen blanket as she watched television, a lump formed in Ella's throat.

She felt something, then – a spark within the cold numbness that had taken over since Ryan's call. She was home again, and she felt safe. An impossible notion, considering all she had been through and everything she had done, but she felt it all the same.