Persistence

Chapter 8
Todd was so unimaginably furious with Aiden that he had to leave before he would accidently kill him. He slammed the door behind him as he left to head back through the complicated set of hallways.
“Get the fuck off me!” Aiden screeched at Nichole.
He shoved her away as she frowned in disapproval to her appearance of only a Victoria’s Secret bra and thong being rejected. Of course she was incredibly gorgeous if you were interested in a woman with an entirely breathtaking body that came with the absence of a properly functioning brain. In her spare time she also enjoyed slowly becoming a passive aggressive gold-digger. Why did girls think that being completely and irreversibly idiotic was cute or sexy?
Aiden zipped his jeans up as he stumbled out of the bedroom and ran after Todd who had now slammed his way through the front door and was heading for his car.
“Todd!” Aiden yelled at his friend who was attempting to leave the property.
Todd ignored him, sliding into this car, and jammed his key into the ignition to revved the engine and bring his vehicle to life.
“Listen to me!” Aiden yelled as he abruptly stopped in front of the hood of Todd’s car to prevent his body from creating a permanent dent in front of it. Todd did not respond in the form of speaking but chose to instead lightly touch his foot to the gas pedal and almost run over the feet of his now loathed best friend. Aiden jumped back in response so as not let such things happen to him. Todd then peeled out of the driveway and sped off down the road ignoring his friend’s heinous attempts at following the car by running on foot behind its trail of rubber left on the disappearing street behind him.
Aiden continued to run for as long as he could but had to stop, and rested his hands on his bent knees and desperately gasped for air as he bent over. He looked over to notice a fellow neighbor staring, wide-eyed at him standing in the street from. His anger and frustration showed when he screamed, “What the fuck are you looking at?!” at him. The curtains closed faster than he had thought possible, and the figure disappeared from sight. Aiden stood up straight and roughly ran his fingers through his golden brown hair scraping his nails against his scalp. Todd was furiously racing through the streets back to the hospital by now and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. He began to skulk back to his house, his stomach uneasy at how his love would be dreadfully misled. Would she believe Todd? Should he even bother going down to the hospital to explain himself?
Aiden sat down on the curb of the street and put his head in his hands again as he thought of a memory of his fiancé. His eyes closed as he consumed himself in the daydream.
“Aiden, God damn it I don’t want to talk about this anymore!” Emma screeched.
“What are you so mad about?! All I said was that I was thinking about you today!”
“Aiden, I told you when we broke up. I can’t deal with our relationship like this. Every time it’s the same thing. It’s like a cycle with you. You ask me out because I’ve fallen completely in love with you, then you get all weird after some ex-girlfriend calls and dump me! I’m not going through that again, and if you really loved me in return like you say you do then you’d understand that and not make me attempt to endure that kind of pain again.” Her eyes were starting to water.
They had both shown up at the same party not knowing each other was there. In actuality Rory was behind most of it. She knew what they had couldn’t have just died off into oblivion, so she decided to invite both of them at the last minute. It’d been about three months since they broke up for the third time. She had figured it’d been long enough. She couldn’t stand seeing the pain in Emma’s eyes, the agonizing sorrow in Aiden’s voice. They spotted each other at the bar and Emma bolted for the door. Aiden had run after her and pleaded for her forgiveness. I believe you already know how she answered that unless you decided to skip a paragraph.
Aiden ran his thumb across her soft cheek to wipe a single silent tear away.
“Don’t touch me.” She snapped as he pushed his hand back.
Aiden ignored her words and placed his hand on her arm, looking up into her radiantly blue eyes.
“Emma…You’re right. I’m sorry, but I can’t accept that and move on. I can’t function without you by my side. You’re right about the cycle, but every god damned time I’m miserable with her and can’t manage to stop thinking about how I wish it was you. Emma I’m serious this time. I don’t want to leave you ever again. I’m begging you.” He got down on his knees apologetically, held her small hand in both of his, and continued,” Will take me back and try just this one more time? I promise you all the happiness I can give you. Please, give me this one chance to prove myself. I can’t go on pretending you aren’t absolutely and completely the love of my life.”
Emma was now full out sobbing. She looked down at his pleading face, attempting to read if his sincerity was real. There was about a 30 second pause until she rolled her eyes, held her arms out and finally said, “Come here.”
Aiden got up, his smile gleaming more than ever, and wrapped his arms around Emma so tight that she could hardly breathe. She laughed and kissed him on the cheek. They continued kissing each other as they stumbled their way laughing and trying as well as they could to get to Emma’s car.
Emma crashed into the driver’s door and Aiden pressed her body to the form of it while still continuing to ferociously kiss his love. Emma put her finger between their lips to make him pause so she could turn and unlock the door.
Aiden leaned back away from her momentarily and asked, “So you still love me right?” he was still smiling.
“What’s done is done. Your past is her problem not mine, and yes, I still love you Aiden Morrow. I highly doubt that will ever change, no matter what stupid thing you do next.” They both laughed and Emma smiled glowingly, staring into his deep brown eyes.
Emma’s laugh echoed endlessly in Aiden’s head. She was so happy at the time; he hadn’t seen her smile that brilliantly or for that matter for length of time, since then. It was a simplistic happiness, but happiness none the less.
Aiden knew exactly what he needed to do now. He got up from the curb of the sidewalk and began walking toward his home. He was determined that Nichole would be leaving within about five minutes. He would try desperately to make Emma listen, since Todd would obviously get there first.
Back at the hospital, Todd was pulling into a parking space, still furious. Todd cared deeply for both of them, obviously not as much as he cared for his beloved Rory, but it showed how close he was to them both. He turned the key to turn off his car. He slid out, not even bothering to bring anything with him but his keys, and bolted toward to glass front doors of the hospital. He couldn’t even think straight at this point, his anger was taking over his entire being. It was surprising to him that he wasn’t shaking with his anger level being so insanely out of proportion.
He attempted to storm passed the secretary who was oddly not busy and head directly for Emma’s room. He had remembered the room number and pretty much didn’t give a damn about visiting hours or any other hospital rules.
“Excuse me, sir. May I help you with something?” the woman at the front desk asked.
“I already know the room number.” He snapped at her, refusing to even look down at her face for fear of accidently ripping it off.”It’s an emergency.”
“Well, our visiting hours are over. Who was it you were looking for? Maybe I can let you in. Seeing as this is important.”
“Emma, Emma Mo-Ross.”
The secretary looked back down, typing something, and said,” I’m sorry sir, but Miss Ross checked out about an hour ago.”
Todd’s eyebrows furrowed, “What are you talking about? She can barely walk. She couldn’t have possibly left on her own.”
“It says here she left with her fiancé at 5:48 today.”
“That’s impossible. I was just with her fiancé half an hour ago.”
“Mr. Hunter said he wanted to let her come home and be with him. He said she had missed him so much that he decided to take the next week off to stay home and care for her. I was there when they left.”
“Scott Hunter is not her fiancé! She’s marrying Aiden Morrow!”
Todd ran full speed up the stairs to Emma’s room ignoring the fact that the secretary was yelling at him to not go back since the hospital was closed for visiting hours unless one was a direct family member. He didn’t give a shit at this point, and continued running up the flights of stairs to reach Emma’s room. When he finally reached the correct floor, he was so out of breath from the eight flights of stairs that he could hardly remember the room number. He scrambled for it and darted into the room. It was empty. Great.
He searched the room for anything helpful to know where the hell she could possibly have gone with him. He reached where the bed was and noticed that Emma had left almost all her belongings there. Her book, cell phone, wallet, and purse still remained. That was odd. He looked down at the bed and now saw the familiar post it not that always brought dread and sorrow into the picture. He picked it up slowly, and it read, “I’m a daddy.”