After Love

Dakota Stelter and I tumbled down that steep ravine together. I lay there bleeding and broken, only to watch my boyfriend scoop her into his arms and walk away without a backward glance.

He left me. In that moment, in every way that mattered.

While everyone fussed over Dakota's scratches, no one even checked if I was still breathing. When I was finally rescued and recovering at the hospital, my boyfriend didn't even visit.

I was hurt. So I moved on. Piece by piece, I rebuilt myself without him.

But then he became distraught. Suddenly, he was sobbing, telling me he had always loved me.

Bella Valdez should not have gone down that steep slope.

Dakota Stelter, however, had grabbed her hand as she fell, effectively dragging her into danger. It took a tree to break their roll.

Bella crashed into the trunk hard. Sharp twigs sank deep into her feet. Dakota, meanwhile, had Bella to cushion the impact. So all she got were a few shallow cuts.

By the time Damian Fox arrived, Bella was crying as profusely as she was bleeding. Before she could call out to him, though, she saw Damian carry Dakota in his arms and turn his back against her.

He vanished into the horizon. He hardly acknowledged her existence.

She was later rescued by park rangers after they were notified by her best friend, Claire Jenkins. By that point, she had already blacked out.

-

Bella opened her eyes groggily. She could make out a man's blurry silhouette on the chair next to her sickbed. Sunlight illuminated his profile, cluing her in on his identity.

Her heart skipped a beat in surprise. "Damian?" she asked softly and in anticipation.

He responded with a glance. He frowned worriedly. "Bella, you're up?"

She nodded and pursed her dried lips. "A glass of water, please…?"

He was about to pass her a glass when his attention turned to his phone. He started texting instead, as if it were an urgent message he had to respond to immediately. "Hold up. I need to answer this right now."

Bella gritted through the pain from her foot and considered him. Suddenly, she felt anxious. "Say… What's so important?" she asked tentatively.

He did not look up from the screen. "It's Dakota. She's coming to visit you."

Bella furrowed her brows. "What's she doing here?" she sneered.

Damian frowned and put his phone down. "To apologize to you. She didn't mean to drag you into that accident."

"Oh, she 'didn't mean to?'"

His expression hardened a little. "Yes! It was an accident! Can you not hold a grudge against someone who didn't mean to? Jeez."

Bella took a deep breath. The pain in her chest felt worse than her injury, somehow. She closed her eyes and lay down. "Fine. She can come if she wants."

A while later, someone knocked. A figure made her way inside slowly, her walk aided by a stick.

Dakota's eyes were red with remorse. "Bella? I'm