The car arrives at the clinic. I walk inside and see a lot of injured people. Some I recognize from earlier in the penthouse. Something terrible must have happened. I pray nothing serious happened to Stefano. I find a nurse who takes me to his room. I knock on the door before entering, once I set my eyes on him, some of my worries disappear, but I can still feel my eyes watering due to his injuries.
"Stefano, how are you feeling?" I ask, walking over to him to stand by the bed.
"I am fine, what are you doing here?"
Stefano is far from fine. He has a bandage around his right arm, a nurse is bandaging his stomach and I am sure he broke a few ribs. There are a few cuts on his face, but they will heal in no time. He looks horrible, I try to keep my tears at bay because of how injured he is. I wonder what happened.
"Samuel said you were at the clinic; I came as soon as I heard."
"As you can see, I am doing fine, no need to tell Aurora anything about this. I don t want her telling my mom to scare her."
"I think it s already too late for that."
I called Aurora on my way to the clinic to inform her something happened to Stefano.
"I am not surprised, you women don t know how to keep your mouths shut," he says, annoyed.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Exactly what I said."
"Forgive me if I felt it was right for your sister to know something happened to you."
"Next time, make sure my injuries are worthy of my family knowing."
"I will do that next time, what happened? How did you get injured?" I ask once the nurse leaves the room.
"We followed the man to an abandoned warehouse, and we were ambushed."
"Oh, they must have known you were following him?"
"Yeah, once we arrived at the warehouse, we were attacked. They must have made sure I kept taps on him so I would end up at that warehouse tonight."
"It makes sense, why he didn t kill himself like the other person."
"Yes, I can t believe I didn t think of that, fuck!" Stefano curses, annoyed.
"It is not your fault. Anyone could have missed it."
"Shut the fuck up, I don t need you reminding me of my mistake!" he roars in my face.
"I didn t mean to offend you with my words but that doesn t give you the right to talk to me like this." I understand he is angry because of what happened but that is no way to talk to me.
"I do not care, can you leave me alone?"
"Yeah, I can, sorry again if my words offended you," I say walking of the room.
Later that night, while I am sleeping, I hear movements coming from Stefano s bed. I am spending the night at the clinic even though Stefano disapproves. I couldn t leave him alone all by himself. I walk over to him from the couch to find out what s wrong.
"Stefano, is there anything you need?"
"No, go back to sleep," he says while he struggles to reach the glass of water on the table.
"Stefano, I am here to help," I say, handing him the glass of water.
"I don t need your help," he says, roughly taking the glass of water from my hand.
"You don t have to want my help to need it," I say noticing something on his head. "It looks like you need to change the bandage on your forehead. I think your wounds reopened," I say, moving closer to him to check the stitches on his forehead. He is bleeding through the bandage. "Let me get a nurse to clean your wound," I say walking out of the room to do that.
I look around the lobby, but I can t seem to find any nurse around. It s like they all suddenly disappeared. I decide to clean the wound myself; I find all the necessary supplies to do that. Once I have everything I need, I walk back to Stefano s room.
"I couldn t find anyone, so I will clean it myself," I say, moving forward to touch his face, he stops me by holding my hand. His hands spark a shiver down my spine once they come in contact with my skin. My body reacts differently every time it gets touched by Stefano s and I wonder why.
"Are you sure you can do it?" He asks, holding my hand in his.
"Yes, I can," I say.
"Alright," he says, releasing my hand.
I move closer to him, my face only a breath away from his. I can feel his breath fanning my neck. It causes chills to go down my body nicely. Suddenly I feel hot. I am sure the temperature in the room didn t increase. This is the closest I have been to him since our dance at Mr. Carter s ball. I feel him staring at me when my eyes meet his. I am surprised by what I see in them. For the first time, I don t see the usual dark blaze in his eyes. His eyes look like they are searching for something, I wonder what. I turn my eyes away from his eyes to his lips, and I wish I didn t. His lips are swollen and red with a small cut. This makes me feel sad such beautiful lips got injured.
"You have a small cut on your lips." Without realizing it I touch his lips, they are just like how I imagined, soft. How amazing would it be to kiss him?
"Ouch," Stefano says in pain, I got lost in my thoughts and started pulling his lips.
"I am sorry," I say quickly, removing my hands from his lips. I don t know what has come over me. This is the second time I am thinking of kissing him. How can I be thinking of kissing him? I need to get a hold of myself.
I quickly finish cleaning his wound and walk back to my couch to sleep. I try my best to forget what just happened, instead of what is happening to me.