Everybody has a crush. Everybody wants to be loved. Everybody will go to extreme measures to be loved.
Only James Hayes will go as far as kidnapping the man he loves, in return for affection.
No one can stop him from his love, not even his lover's...
"Mornin' Jordan," Ehtan's hushed voice cooed, as I felt his warm hand gently shake my shoulder.
Sitting up, I slowly blinked the groggy film of sleep out of my eyes.
"What time is it?" I asked, watching as Ethan stripped out of his navy blue t-shirt, replacing it with a white button down.
"5:30... In the morning," he mumbled, texting someone on his phone.
"You have your first court case today," I heard Ingrid call from the bathroom.
"Which one is it?" I asked, carefully grabbing a glass of water on my bedside table, ignoring the little tubes and needles protruding out of my arm.
"The Defense case..." Ethan mumbled. "Hey, Ingrid,"
"Yeah?"
"JoJo said he's gonna meet us at the court house."
"Who's that?" I asked, pulling the sheets closer to my torso.
"Oh, my husband... Tom is going to meet us there too. He went home to get ready. We got you a big support group for this case," Ethan explained.
"Like who?"
"Well, Ethan's husband, your friends Sonja, Tucker, Mark, and us... Of course," Ingrid said, exiting the bathroom. Her soft curls were pulled back in a half-up, half-down style, so you could see her face. She wore a black dress, that clung close to her body.
I've never seen her in anything else besides jeans. She felt like a best friend to me at this point. So did Ethan. After 1 week of telling your most traumatic stories to strangers, you get pretty attached to them.
They made a promise to me that with every story I told, they'd tell one back. Ingrid was full of stories, but the only story I heard from Ethan was how he proposed.
"I got you this suit, I hope it fits. It's going to be hard to get it over your casts, but we'll make it work," Ingrid smiled, walking over to my bed.
"Why did I need the casts? I was doing fine with bandages..." I mumbled.
Ingrid stayed silent, looking up at Ethan for reassurance.
"Jordan... You got pretty upset after I left the first day of questioning. You ripped open all the stitches on your leg, hurt your arm even more, tore the skin on your burn..." he said quietly, staring at the ground. "They put you in casts so you wouldn't hurt yourself more."
"Oh... Sorry."
We all sat in silence for a while, as Ethan scrambled to throw a black suit jacket over his shirt.
"Welp, I'm going to help him get ready..." Ingrid said, staring at Ethan.
"What?" he questioned, slinking his tie around the back of his neck.
"You're married... Go in the bathroom or something," Ingrid muttered, pulling the sheets off of me.
"Whatever," Ethan laughed, rolling his eyes. He followed her orders, going into the bathroom to continue getting dressed.
Ingrid stayed quiet as she took my hospital gown off, replacing in with the suit. The suit was a little loose, but it worked well to cover my casts.
"How do you usually style your hair?" she asked, handing me her phone on selfie mode, so I could examine my own reflection.
I had gained back a little big of weight, but my cheeks were still sunken in. Heavy bags hung under my eyes, my lips were cracked and faded. My hair had grown out so much, I looked like I did back in my skater days.
"Um, it usually isn't this long..." I mumbled, lifting my good arm to run my fingers through it.
"I'm not good at cutting hair..." Ingrid giggled, fluffing up the matted strands with her fingertips. "It'll look pretty good... After I run a brush through it."
She quickly scurried around the room to get me "fixed up." When she was finally done experimenting with my hair, it looked a little similar to Mark's when he had his floof.
With Ingrid's help, I swung my feet over the side of the bed, so I could sit upright. She crouched in front of me, pulling a slim tie through my collar.
Her lips lifted into a faint smile as she looped the tie into a tight knot, inching it close to the top of the collar.
"How do you know how to tie a tie?" I asked, examining her every move.
"I had two brothers..." she murmured, straightening out the thin piece of material. "We don't talk much anymore..."
I swallowed the gathering saliva in my mouth, taking in a deep breath.
"Jordan, look at me," Ingrid demanded. "James is a psychopath. He likes to play mind games, especially with you."
"Yeah, I know..."
"You can't give him the power of knowing that he bothers you. You can't let him get to you," she said, her voice stern and steady. "He looks at you like you're his victim, but you're not. You're stronger than that. You're not a victim, you're a survivor. You're a champion; my champion. Okay?"
I took in a deep breath. She was right, in James' eyes, I'm a victim.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wow friends, I'm a smol lil bean and I did a thing. So, Ethan and Ingrid are new and original characters. You guys know what Jordan and Tom look like, so I know it's probably no problem to imagine how they look in your head, but you probably can't really imagine Ethan and Ingrid. SO as a solution, I took many hours to draw the dynamic duo.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
This is how I imagined them to look when I wrote them. If you have any ideas how they look, feel free to tag me pictures of what you think they look like, and I'll post them in this book! (Also, please notice I put a lot of time into this drawing and I'd appreciate it if you didn't repost it. Thank you!)
Hope you guys liked that, and now back to your regularly scheduled creepiness. -Taco❤️
