Promises, Promises, Promises.

After grabbing my sheets and resorting to the couch in Ella’s room, and falling asleep, there were more than three different occasions where I had to stop her from screaming and waking everyone else up in the house. Her dreams must have been horrible, she was mumbling in her sleep, at one point she held onto me as if she never wanted to let go, and it assured me a little, that I shouldn’t give up so easily.

ELLA’s POV

When I woke up, my head pounded incredibly hard, my eyes hurt and it hit me, all those things last night really did happen. I wanted to cry all over again, but I knew it wouldn't help and I just lay there, looking at the boring ceiling, listening to the deep breathing of-

“Nick, what are you doing here?” I whispered, poking his side,

He grumbled and faced me, “You had me up all night, you were screaming and mumbling things I didn’t understand.” He says with eyes closed.

“I was… screaming?” I say, mostly to myself.

“Not that loud, but enough to wake me up. You fell asleep easily after I talked to you, you were crying too, your eyes are red.”

“I feel horrible, you didn’t get any sleep last night, did you?” I ask, looking at his tired brown eyes.

He shook his head, “That’s okay, if you feel better now, It’s all that matters.” He says, brushing a strand of hair away from my face like he did last night.

“But you don’t feel better-“ I say, but my memory flashed to last night, “Last night really did happen, didn’t it?” I asked.

He nodded, knowing it would hurt me doing so, but wanting to tell me the truth.

“How about we… watch a movie here, maybe order some pizza..?” Joe suggests, keeping me in the house against my will. I really did want to go outside, but this Jonas insisted I stay inside for the duration of my stay.

“Joe, I’m not going to stay inside for as long as I’m here, I can take the media.” I say, reaching for the front door, Nick and I planned to go to Starbucks

“I am not letting you go outside, Ella.” Joe says sternly, shooting daggers that made even me feel scared.

“Joe, I can take care of myself.” I whisper, with a convincing look on my face.

He sighed in defeat, “Make sure you take Big Rob with you, and if anyone dares to mess with you I swear…”

“Goodbye Joe!” Nick says over his shoulder while we take our opportunity to pass his block in front of the door.

“What the hell is up with your brother?” I say, climbing into the Range Rover while Big Rob started the engine.

“Must be paranoid.” Nick mumbled. I laughed at his choice of words, remembering the song they wrote called ‘Paranoid’ for their latest album and using the exact same sentence as a line for their song.

We backed out from the driveway, the silence of the car was unbearable but I guessed it must be awkward for Nick and Big Rob to be talking, there was nothing to say anyway.

“Are you feeling better today?” Nick asks finally, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, I talked to Joe this morning, he said ‘everything’s gonna be okay’. Those are the only 4 words that come out of his mouth when he’s saying anything positive to me. It’s always either ‘Don’t go outside!’ or ‘I’m doing this for you benefit, not mine’. I’m sick of it.”

“He’s just being protective, you know what he’s like.” Nick says, toying with the buttons on his phone and refusing to make eye contact.

“No, I don’t. But now I do.” I say with an annoyed tone, wishing Joe was actually here to hear what I thought of his annoyingly ‘protective’ behavior.

“If you just wanna go home, tell me anytime and we can leave, okay?” Nick says, after a while again.

“Did you guys have some sort of a family conference while I was asleep or something?!” I say angrily, “I can take care of myself.” I finish, lowering my voice.

Nick shook his head, “Alright.” He says in defeat, seems like I’m owning everyone today.

We had grabbed our drinks and sat down at an empty table, I was just afraid word will soon spread of our attendance. There was an uncomfortable silence as we sipped our drinks and stared out the large window.

“Ella, about a couple of nights ago, I’m… Sorry, I know it’s impossible for you to like me, I mean, you’ve just broken up with your boyfriend and..” He shook his head, lost for words.

“Nick, I know you’re sorry. This is the third time you’ve apologized, stop beating yourself up.” I say, smiling.

He shook his head again, as if he wasn’t believing what he was about to say, “It just hurts because…”

“Because..” I say, urging him to go on.

“Because I see that look you give Joe, like you favor him more than anything else. Like, you might be in love with him or something.” He says with a frown.

I shook my head in disbelief, "Nick, I love you all and I don't favor Joe more than you." I reassured him, patting his arm.

"So you're saying you like me more than you like Joe, huh?" He says with a sly smile, I rolled my eyes and shook my head, and shortly after my phone started buzzing and ringing, "Excuse me for a second.." I said, getting up and grabbing my phone, walking over to the exit.

The screen read: "DAD" and I didn't delay another second in picking it up.

"Hey dad, you haven't called for a couple of days, how's everything?" I say to the other line.

I heard shuffling of papers and some men talking in the background, "I've recently received another letter, Ella. I'll be calling your brother, I was just checking to see if everything's okay. Denise and Paul called a couple of days ago about what happened - So sorry to her about Nate, darling."

"Dad, I'm sort of over Nate now," I say, taking a glance at Nick, who was checking his phone, "But you were sent another letter, please say you've already caught the man, dad, I don't want to worry about us anymore."

"You don't have to worry, that's my job. I was just checking in to see if you were safe, where are you?"

"I'm at Starbucks with Nick, but don't worry, Big Rob's just in the car in case we need him."

"Good to hear, anyway, I have to get going, I've got a big meeting in 10 minutes." He says, taking a pause, "We miss you."

"I miss you too, dad." I say, looking around at the streets littered with people and the beautiful weather.

He hung up and I walked back to our table, "Who was that?" Nick asked, taking a sip of his drink.

"Just dad, He was sent another letter, he was just checking if we were okay." I say, smiling nervously and taking a sip of my drink.

"No one's ever going to get to anyone in your family, Ella, I love you, and we're going to keep you safe."