Page 195 of Broken Saint

They both drag out our breakfast date for as long as possible, but eventually, they can no longer keep me from the hospital.

Kyan is fidgety and not in the kind of mood to be sitting in a hospital room, so Letty reluctantly agrees to drop us off and head home.

“You go on up. I’m going to get a coffee and read for a bit. Go and talk to him, yeah?” Mom urges as we walk through the hospital entrance.

I nod, my stomach twisting up tightly.

“Just tell him how you feel. Be honest, open. You’ll figure this out.”

Gripping onto the hope in her words as tightly as I can, I step into the elevator and ride to his floor.

Everything is the same as it has been every time I’ve walked these hallways. But this time, it feels different.

I hate it.

With my hand pressed against my swirling stomach, the waffles and bacon threatening to make a reappearance, I knock on Colt’s door.

There’s no response, which only makes my anxiety worse. But that’s got nothing on what I find when I push the door open.

The room is empty and pristine. The bed is made.

And there is no evidence of Colt ever being here.

Bile races up my throat, and it’s all I can do to run fast enough to vomit into the toilet instead of all over my feet.

50

ELLA

Ifall back on my ass with tears spilling onto my cheeks and dripping from my chin, a shooting pain through my chest as my heart rips in two.

I don’t want to believe what I saw, but I also can’t get the image of the perfectly made-up hospital room from my head.

He could just be at a PT session, the sensible side of me points out. But as much as I want to hope that’s the case, I know it’s not.

The cards, the chocolates and candy, all the well-wisher gifts that had made their way up here are gone.

There is no evidence of his time here. No toiletries in the room I’m currently falling apart in, and none of his belongings outside of it either.

He’s gone.

He left, and he didn’t tell me.

I have no idea how long I sit there on the cold and hard floor staring at the toilet, but I’m still there, curled up in a ball, when Mom pokes her head inside.

“Ella, what’s— Oh my gosh,” she gasps, dropping beside me and pulling me in for a hug.

My sobs get louder the second I’m in her arms. I hiccup and cry, sniffle and wail as the pain only gets worse.

“Shush,” Mom soothes, rubbing up and down my back. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“H-how? How is it going to be okay?” I ask brokenly, my throat raspy and dry. “He’s gone, Mom. It’s over.”

She holds me tighter. “I refuse to believe that, Ella. That boy loves you.”

“Yeah, maybe he does. But it’s not enough, is it?” Saying those words out loud tears a few more strips from my heart. I’m pretty sure when I walk out of this hospital, I’ll leave the majority of them behind, and I don’t expect to ever get them back.

Colt has broken my heart before. I’m no stranger to this kind of pain from the man I fell in love with so hard and fast all those years ago that I didn’t stand a chance of stopping it.