Love after loss

Chapter 18 - The douchebag

It was Friday night again and I still hadn’t heard anything from Tom. He wasn’t answering my phone calls and barely responding to my texts. I looked up at the clock. 8pm. I was leaving for the airport Sunday afternoon. I couldn’t make him wait another 3 weeks until I was home for this conversation. I was sure the reason he was avoiding me was because he knew what I was going to say.

I picked up my keys and headed out the door.

‘I’m coming to your apartment Tom, we are going to have this conversation whether you like it or not’ I thought to myself as I got into the car.

I knocked on his door a few times. I knew he was home as I saw his car in the lot when I parked. 

No answer. I tried again. Harder this time and finally heard his voice the other side of the door “Coming, just a sec”

After a few moments the door opened to Tom wrapped in a robe, looking disheveled.

He looked at me surprised his eyes going wide “Elle what are you doing here” his voice sounded strange. A little too high.

“We need to talk, can I come in?” I asked stepping forward

He tightened his robe around himself “Oh well, it’s not really a good time right now, can I come see you tomorrow?”

I was about to respond when I heard a woman’s voice call out from inside the apartment “Who’s at the door?”

Understanding hit me. And for some reason I was mad. I couldn’t understand why, I was here to break up with him after all but realising I was being ghosted after he gave me the ultimatum. He was the one who wanted more. Who told me I could think things over and he would wait for that answer because he wanted something serious. What the hell.

“What the hell, Tom” I glared at him. 

He stepped outside the door and closed it gently behind him. “Elle, I’m sorry. Let me get dressed and we talk about this properly”

I scoffed incredulously at him and turned on my heel and walked away. I jammed the button to the elevator but he was following me “Elle, wait, please”

The elevator was too slow so I quickly made my way to the stairs but he caught hold of my sleeve. “Elle, I really am sorry, I should have told you I was seeing other people”

I shook his grip from arm but as I did I lost my footing on the top step and painfully tumbled down the stairs.

I heard Tom shout my name and I was vaguely aware of him running down towards me before I closed my eyes and everything went dark.

I woke up to a paramedic shining a light in my eyes while another examined my painful swollen wrist. Tom was pacing next to them in them in the cramped space between the flights of stairs and when he saw my eyes open he stopped and let out a sigh of relief. 

“Miss, can you tell me your name” 

I nodded and it sent a shot of pain through my head. “Elle Miller” 

“Elle, you’ve hit your head pretty hard. We’re going to take you in to the hospital to be checked over. Do you think you can walk?”

I started doing a mental once over on my body. Flexing muscles as I went. Surprisingly the only pain I could feel was in my wrist and my head. 

“Yes” I answered the paramedic who then helped me carefully to my feet and in to the elevator. 

“I’ll meet you at the hospital Elle” Tom had said as the elevator doors closed between us.

When the ambulance got to the hospital, I was taken straight through to see an ER doctor. My wrist wasn’t broken just swollen from the impact of me trying to save myself in the fall. It would go down in a few days. And apart from an ugly bump on my forehead and mild concussion I had gotten away without any serious damage. 

I was moved to a bed bay where I was asked to wait for a few hours so they could check on my concussion before letting me go home.

It wasn’t long after I was moved that I heard a familiar voice but one I wasn’t expecting. 

“Elle are you awake?” Garret poked his head round the curtain a moment later looking worried.

“What are you doing here?”

“The hospital called me, I’m your emergency contact. Oh god look at your head” he sat next to me on the narrow bed and gently stroked my hair away.

“It looks worse than it is” I smiled up at his concerned face. I had forgotten I made him my emergency contact after Derek died. 

He cupped my cheek lightly in the hand he’d used to bush my hair over “What the hell happened to you”

“Turns out you were right, he really was Dr Douchebag...” I filled him in on all that had happened that night and by the time I had finished I was allowed to go home.

“Come on, lets get you home, I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day” he slipped his hand into mine and led me out the hospital.