"I just hope that they don't wake her up", I turn to Chloe, confessing my fears to her.

"Me too, me too, but you heard the nurse. She won't be up before morning because of the drug. She is probably deep in her sleep, so don't worry", she tells me, and I focus my gaze on Stella one more time before the storm starts. It is easier when you can prepare for a storm, but you never know when the one is about to happen. They are always unexpected.

"So, where is that bitch?" I hear a voice, that voice, and shiver, scared. But I am not scared for myself, but for her. What if they wake her up? She will be so confused. I want to talk to her alone, to discover a reason why... See, my diary, I am not sure what had happened really.

Chloe has not told me why Stella fell in a pool. She just said it looked like she was walking like she did not know that pool was in front of her. And considering the drugs the doctors found in her organism, it is logical that she might have been hallucinating and wasn't able to think straight. But a bad thought crossed my mind more than once while we have been here. What if she wanted to end her life? What... What if she wanted to do the same thing Emily did? What if she wanted to stop the pain that was tightening her chest, and make the load on her back fall because it started being unbearable to hold it any longer? I am so scared. And I need to know what happened, and what she was thinking with her little head and her smart mind which only holds fear and dark thoughts.

So, I have been preparing, and trying to figure out how to start that conversation, and not scare her or make her angry, so she chooses to close her heart, and then I will not be able to unlock it and see what kind of fear it is holding. What kind of secrets she is hiding down there in the kind little heart of hers.

And Scott entering this room like a tornado, with Alexia behind him, who is looking at her red long nails is not helping at all.

"Here is your daughter Mr. Edvardson", the same nurse who announced beforehand their arrival, says.

"She isn't my daughter, you bitch in white!", he curses and stands in front of the bed where Stella is laying. I quickly wrap my arms around her body, prepared to keep her safe if he decides to do something to her.

"She is in big trouble and I shouldn't had never let her go whenever she had went." I try not to pay attention to his grammarly incorrect choice of words and mistakes he made in tenses, but I just cannot. It makes my ears bleed every single time he opens his mouth.

"Mr. Edvardson your...", she pauses before she can say again something wrong, and I thank God. She just cannot remember that we are only foster kids. Bastards, like Scott, loves to call us. And sometimes I have a feeling like I am a one. Just like now.

"In Stella's body were found some illegal substances..."

"Drugs you mean!" He turns to her, anger all over his face, as his fists are squeezed. Oh, God, this is not good. I turn to Chloe to see that she think the same, while her body is shivering and she is trying to make herself invisible pushing herself in the corner, trying so bad to disappear. Oh, no she must be remembering her dad now. I have to protect her as well.

I try to tell her with my glance that everything is going to be alright, but I am not even sure myself, so that must be the reason why she is not buying my lie, still shivering, as her eyes are dancing between me and livid Scott.

"Yes, sir." The nurse seems scared of him, but who wouldn't be.

When his brows knit together and his eyes get dark, as well as, his fists get squeezed, I just hope that they do not collide with my face. But many times my hopes would just get vanished and his fist would collide just with something I feared it wouldn't. They hurt me so many times. But I got used to that. I am just scared that those fists which can throw some really hard punches do not harm the pretty face of an angel I fell in love with. The angel who is trying to act like a devil. Like a black angel who deserted its clan. But I know that angel. I know its real heart and I know that it did not abandon just its clan, it abandoned its hopes and went with the demons in order to erase the pain its wings could not take anymore. And those wings broke. And now my angel cannot fly anymore. But I will do anything to help her build her beautiful wings again. I will take her to see those stars she is in love with, and find her mom's one.

Yeah, I know. I know everything. I know why she has those nightmares and why she lost faith in people. Before you get all over me, my diary, calm down first. She is the one who told me this. That day or was it a night, when I ended up in the hospital, stabbed with a knife by my... She thought that I was asleep, so she opened to me and told me her fears. She told me something else, too. That she loved me. But like a brother. And even though my heart wanted to break I did not let it do so. She did not choose me, and I have to respect it. I love and care about her no matter her love interest. Unlike someone who looks like me, and the same blood as mine runs through his veins. I just hope that one day he is going to learn that not every girl we fall in love with is supposed to return those feelings we have for them.

Unfortunately, our hearts sometimes fall for the wrong one. But sometimes we get lucky and our hearts fall for the right one. And that always seems to happen after the big amount of the wrong ones. So, we have to be patient. And that person who resembles me does not have the virtue of patience. Maybe, but just maybe one day he will gain it.

"Fucking bitch!", Scott's angry voice snaps me from my thoughts and my instinct tells me to quickly jump on him when his hands reach for Stella's faint and still unconscious body. I just pray that she is going to be unconscious for a while, I know that may sound bad, but I do not need her to see this man first when she opens her emerald eyes.

I push him and just when I want to yell to leave her alone, his not so soft hand touches my face. But it does not caress it, quite the opposite. It makes a wound and I can feel cold blood on my bottom lip. 

I just pray that Stella does not wake up in the middle of this mess because that would be so stressful for her. Especially the blood on my lips that I can taste in my mouth.

"How dare you lay those gross hands on me, you bastard?", he screams at me, his face red. And here it is. His favorite nickname for me. Bastard. You see, my diary, I got used to it. Maybe I have even grown to love it. Bastard. Interesting word.

But I quickly come back to reality. In a reality where I have to protect the girl, I love with my whole heart which is trying to heal and deal with the death of the girl I loved so much, the girl who took her precious life, and I was not there, not helping her, not erasing her pain. Nothing. And I blame myself for her death. Yeah, I do, my diary, even if I can see how you are shaking your head right now. If I did not trust everyone, if I were more careful I could protect her from my brother. Instead, I refused to see my brother as a monster, just like I refused to do the same thing, only in Stella's case. I repeated the same mistake twice. But I intend to do everything to keep her alive. This time no one is dying.

And that party almost ruined my effort. And, no I do not blame Chloe. It is not her fault. She just wanted her best friend to be next to her, as she would start a new life, make new friends and live better without her father who used to abuse her for so long. Maybe it was just meant to happen. You see I believe that the more we try to escape something the more we actually run to it. But not when it comes to being alive. Stella is going to stay alive, and she cannot run from it to di...

"How do you dare come at her unconscious body?", I ask him, furious. "And do not yell, she is sleeping!" I frown trying to order something from this man from whom I should listen to orders. It should be the other way around, and I know that well, but now I cannot let him hurt Stella, and scare her. The thought of her wide awake, her emerald eyes petrified...

"Do not?"

"Don't." I roll my eyes. I really cannot sometimes with his unknowledge of English grammar. But, he surely knows how to curse.

"So you are telling me what to do, boy?" He approaches me and I gulp, feeling shivers appearing all over my body.

I can sense the next punch coming.

"I-I...", I stutter, the courage I have had two seconds ago, vanishing, as he lifts his big and strong palm which is the epitome of pain for me. I squeeze my eyes, shutting them, and wait for the punishment to come. I was a naughty boy, I disobeyed him.

"Naughty boy. You shouldn't have done that."

"I am sorry, dad. Please it will not happen again."

"You said that the last time, too. You have to be punished."

"No!", I scream, as I feel his belt on my back. It burns. It burns so much. I can feel the fire spreading through my back and the flame threatening to swallow my tiny body.

But this time I do not feel anything.

I open my eyes when I hear some strange voice yelling.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

I see a man in his mid-thirties and I confuse. Who is he? He catches Scott's big hand that was threatening to hurt me and prevents him from punching me, punishing me.

"Jason!", Chloe yells and runs to him. I forgot that she was here. She must have been so terrified while she was watching Scott threatening me. God, I failed to prevent her from having to see this, and she probably got some flashbacks of her own dad doing the same to her.

I forgot that I was here, at the hospital with her, and our friend who almost died, the friend I love. I came back to that little house of ours when I was five. It felt so real. I could see dad so clearly. Drunk, angry, with the belt in his hands, like it was a sword which he was going to use to stab in my back. And that is exactly how I felt each time the belt would collide with the sensitive skin on my back.

"Chloe!", the woman with light brown hair hugs her, and Chloe rests her blonde hair on her chest. Okay, are these people her foster parents? I guess so.

"Jason, that's enough!", the same woman shouts, still stroking Chloe's hair gently, while the girl is shivering, and I assume that her husband is the one who is holding Scott, while he frees himself from this man's grip, which seems to be pretty strong.

"Enough, Elen? You think? This man just wanted to punch the poor boy!" He slightly lets go of my tormentor, who has not stopped cursing, while the dirtiest profanities are leaving his mouth as he is spitting.

The man whom Chloe called Jason looks at me briefly, and his eyes soften before he focuses them on Scott. "Stay still whatever your name is", he orders him, and I watch Scott's angry face, becoming redder. "Where is the doctor?" He turns to the nurse who has been watching all of this, quietly and timidly at the corner, just how Chloe was before Jason came in. She is probably scared of the animal which is in a shape of a man.

"He couldn't come, because it is too late, so he sent me instead", she says, petrified.

"So, what now?", the woman whom he called her Elen, asks, still holding her foster daughter tightly, caressing her blonde hair that doesn't miss to remind me of Emily's.

"Excuse me, but who are you?", my foster mom asks, approaching Scott, taking his hand, but he flinches and pushes her. She just steps back, not being confused, she is probably used to him being aggressive. Especially after he beat her that day when he found out that he cheated on her.

"We are Chloe's...", Elen stops, looking down at the terrified little girl, whose eyes are widening with worry and fear.

"... parents", the blonde friend of Stella's, finishes.

"And why are you here?", Scott hisses. "You have no right to be here."

"Mr. Edvardson is right", the nurse chimes in, and Scott sends her a death glare, so she bows her head.

"My daughter saved Stella, so I think that she has every right to be here", Elen says, sternly, her one hand still on Chloe's hair, and the other wrapped around her waist.

"And we came to pick her up, and check on Stella", Jason adds, coming closer to his wife, frowning while eyeing Scott, and wrapping one hand on his wife's waist, just how she did with Chloe.

"And what are you to Stella?" Scott glares down at Chloe, who is timid, and she tightens the grip around her foster mom's body, shivering.

"A f-friend", she stutters, and a few tears shine in her eyes and fall on her pale cheeks, which are smudged a little from her mascara, because she has been crying the whole time while we were waiting to hear from doctors about Stella's condition.

She is scared. She is so scared of men, because... Because her father was an evil man who treated her so poorly, giving her a bad picture of all us men.

Both she and Stella had to experience the worst thing that can happen to a woman. Both of them had to obey a man and take off their clothes, expose their bodies to them, even though they did not want to. Both of them used to cry after those bad men in their lives would hurt them. Both of them had to shut their sobs, and kept quiet while instead, they wanted to shriek. From the top of the lungs, to scream.

Yet still, both of them managed to fake a smile and wore short provocative clothes even though they hated their bodies which were touched by those gross hands of evil men. Both of them tried to cry for help, by keeping quiet, partying like every normal teenage girl, having a boyfriend, and giving others the fake point of view of their lives which seemed so perfect and happy while looking from that light they gave us access to watch. But watching from that darkness, that only they could see through... It was only pain, sadness, and a lot of pain again.

And the two of them are friends who were the only ones who knew for each other's pain and weakness. They had that opportunity, that luck, to find one another in the middle of the chaos, in the middle of trouble called being owned by possessive men. They were holding each other's hands and tried to be next to one another. But when a man stepped between them, one of them shivered and bowed her blonde head down, timidly, scared to disobey him, and go through the trouble that she finally managed to escape from.

"Stella is not allowed to have any friends. From now on you are strangers. Understood?", he yells, waving his hands through the air.

"You have no right to yell at my daughter!", Jason shouts and grabs Scott by his collar of his leather jacket. I do not miss hearing how he called Chloe his daughter. Scott would never call Stella his daughter, neither would Alexia. Same goes for me. We are only bastards for him.

But then the two really strong men enter the room, frowning and rolling the sleeves up of his black uniform.

"Security, take them all out!", the nurse demands, and quickly Jason is pulled and Scott is pushed to the wall.

"Okay, we can go on our own", Chloe's foster dad slightly pushes his wife who is still holding Chloe in her embrace. "Come on. Come on. Don't worry, Chloe. Everything is going to be okay."

"Yeah, Stella is going to be alright", Elen comforts her as Chloe lays her ocean blue eyes on mine. A tear fall from one of them, as she mouths:

"Take care of her, please."

"I will", I mouth back, and nod, wanting to tell her not to worry. I will take care of her with my life, I want to add, watching her foster parents who are way nicer than mine, take her out, and they soon disappear leaving me alone with mine not so nice ones.

"Wait, we are her fosters, dude, chill!" Scott is trying to push security off him, failing as the strong built-up men keep pulling him.

"You can come the day when she will be discharged", the nurse says, still standing in the corner, like it can keep her safe from an animal that is outside of its cage.

"And that is?", Alexia asks, while petting her husband's shoulder as she wants to tell him that they need to go now.

"We will contact you." Better do not, I add in my head.

"C'mon!", the man in black uniform orders me, pushing my back slightly.

"No! Can I stay?", I look at the nurse, my eyes pleading with her.

"C'mon, bastard! Why would you stay with that bitch?", Scott yells from the hall, because the security men are still pushing him toward the exit, while he is trying to grab the wall or anything that can save him from the people who are probably supposed to put the animal in its cage, again, not scared that it could bite them, maybe.

I try not to pay any attention to the word he chose to call her. To call my princess, who is now sleeping, her now dry black hair spread all over the pillow, with those pinks highlights she has been having for more than a year, but I have grown to love them. Her hands are on either side of her body, and she looks like she is waiting for her prince, just like in that cartoon Sleeping Beauty the only difference is their hair color. Too bad I am not her prince.

"I want to be next to her when she wakes up. And I have been calm, not making any noise until they came", I say a little sternly, pointing to the door where Scott cannot be seen anymore. I am grateful for that, but I know that even if he was here, he would hurt me, because of the security guards. "I will just be here, quiet, I promise. I just want to be next to her when she wakes up. If I leave with them now, they will not let me see her tomorrow, and then she is going to be so confused and sad."

Or is it already tomorrow? I plead with her, trying to make puppy eyes because people always seem to fall on them. And I remember how Stella, too, once used puppy eyes on me.

I could not refuse whatever she was asking from me. And I now remembered what she asked. She was pleading with me to come with her to that party at Maya's house. She was desperately trying to tell me, to show me actually, that he was hurting her. And later when he took her hand, right after she wanted to try cocaine, her eyes were calling me, but I turned on my heel and left. I refused to believe that my own brother was using her that way. I refused to believe that he would do that again. After Emily, he promised me that he would not hurt any woman. But he lied. And I believed him, and let him take Stella, leaving her in the hell, to be burnt by his touch, and his hands on her soft and sensitive skin. Goddamit, how stupid and blind I was. Why hope and faith can blind you the same way love can? Why?

"Okay, stay", the nurse announces and wakes me up from my reverie. "But I allow you this, only because I made a terrible mistake by calling your foster parents here", she emphasizes the word foster now, and I am grateful for that. "You were right when you said that they would be angry, but I thought that they would be angry like worried for their daughter. But this was more than angry. This...", she exhales tired and probably relieved that they had left.

"Nevermind. Do you want anything? Coffee or anything to eat?" She nods in the direction of the strong men in black who almost took me away from the broken girl whose shattered pieces I want to put together as if they were a puzzle I was playing with when I was a child.

"Um, no thank you. I will just stay here. Can you turn off the lights?", I ask. "Maybe they are bothering her."

"You care about her as if she was the real sister to her, huh?", she smiles. More than that, actually. See, Myles, everyone is telling you that you should love her as a sister. The universe is warning me, yet I cannot help it, but love her as if she was something more to me.

Yeah, but does it matter do I love her as a sister or as something else? It should just matter that I love her.

Seems like the universe agrees to this answer and leaves me alone, realizing that nothing can stop me from loving and caring for this girl who dyed her hair just to forget her painful past and that the mask she chose to put on get well with her new look.

"Of course I can." She turns off the lights and darkness snaps me from my fight with the universe which is trying to warm me. And I should have listened to the universe when I had second thoughts on my brother. But I have not listened to it.

"Try to rest now. I'll bring you something to eat." With that she leaves, and I stay in the dark, the only light is coming from the moon and the only sound is Stella's heart beating on the monitor. The heart which is not beating for me, but for someone who hurt her, and shattered that little thing in the pieces, which are laying on the floor now, and I'm desperately trying to pick them up and put them all together, so it can finally beat with no pain. So she can finally be happy, and not scared that someone is going to break it again, because I will make sure to keep her heart wrapped in a soft blanket, so it does not get cold and to keep it safe from people's stern glances that can break it again because it is so sensitive.