Isabella POV I woke up feeling like I was ran over by a trunk.
My head felt like I had been forced to carry a heavy load.
My mouth tasted weird like a mixture of soured food.
The worst pain was between my legs.
“What happened here” I shifted under the blanket and felt nothing.
No fabric against my skin.
I slightly lifted the blanket just enough to confirm what my body had already told me.
Confused, I sat up so fast that my head slammed hard on the headboard, and that hurt like a bitch.
But that’s not the problem right now.
Forgetting about the pain, I pulled the blanket tight against my chest.
My eyes moved across the room, took in the room, the dark walls, soft morning light peaking through the gaps from the curtains.
Nothing about it was familiar.
I tried to remember what happened, but my mind was completely blank.
Panic rose inside me, I looked around to find anything that would help me remember, then my eyes settled on the strange man sleeping beside me.
I almost groaned out loud.
I could feel a strong headache coming, not because of yesterday’s alcohol but because of the stranger.
I looked at him closely, he was the handsome stranger from the club yesterday.
The same man that I had embarrassed myself in front of yesterday.
Now sleeping peacefully, as if he was the reason for my confusion.
His chest rising and falling slowly, with one arm placed on his forehead.
Signing, I jumped out of the bed, but that was a bad idea because I was hit with dizziness but I needed to escape before he woke up.
I looked around the room, saw our clothes scattered everywhere on the floor.
Signing to myself.
“What in the world’s name happened here,” I thought to myself.
I picked my clothes quietly and rushed to the bathroom, busied myself while thinking of how I ended up here.
I remembered the embarrassing things I did yesterday at the club but not how I ended up with him on the bed and sore too.
“What is wrong with you?” I whispered to myself.
I looked at myself in the mirror, not recognizing the pathetic girl, love turned me to.
Vanessa and Matteo’s betrayal does not hurt as much as the thought of love hurts.
Love makes you blind, stupid and pathetic, just like me now.
My hair looked like a bed nest, lips swollen, definitely from a kiss.
“But who kisses like a vampire?” I asked nobody in particular.
“Definitely him, because what is this?” I turned the tap on, splashed some water on my face, still complaining of my swollen lips.
I gripped the edge of the sink while my mind went down on the activities that happened yesterday at the club, trying to piece together what happened yesterday night.
I remembered the bar.
The shame of climbing onto his lap in front of his entire table.
The corridor.
My own voice requested something from him that I would never have asked if sober, not in a hundred years, or years to come.
I remembered exactly what I had asked him.
I did not remember what came after.
My stomach twisted.
I tightened my grip on the sink and forced myself to think but the hangover did not seem to allow it.
But I can’t argue about one thing, that whatever had happened in that bed, I had clearly permitted it .
Every ache in my body told me that I was never forced.
Shameless.
I finished dressing as quickly as possible.
After checking myself one final time, I pressed my ear against the bathroom door for any movement.
Silence.
I opened it slowly.
He was still asleep peacefully, as if he did not put someone in total confusion.
I tiptoed across the room, picked my handbag on the floor near the door, and let myself out without a sound.
The hallway outside was too quiet.
I had no idea where this was or how I had ended up here, and honestly, I did not stop to find out.
I walked fast with this fear that he would drag me back if he noticed, I’m not beside him.
Fortunately for me, I found the elevator, and rode down with my arms wrapped around myself, trying to get my wits together.
There is no need of replaying yesterday’s scene because my head is still blank.
Stepping outside, I was hit by the cold morning air.
Definitely what my mind needed at the moment.
I quickly stopped the first taxi I saw.
The taxi pulled over, I quickly gave the driver my address, the moment I climbed in.
Only once the car pulled away did I remember my phone.
I searched through my bag and found it, dead, the same as it had been since last night.
I pressed the side button and waited while the screen slowly came back to life.
The notifications arrived all at once, without giving me a break.
I stared at the top of the screen, my heart beating fast, with thoughts of different scenarios.
*40 missed calls.* I swallowed hard and scrolled down.
Every single one, all forty was from my grandmother.
My fingers went cold around the phone.
Beneath the missed calls notification sat one message, sent at 2:14 in the morning from my grandmother.
“Isabella, where are you?
Matteo came here an hour ago.
He is not himself.
He kept saying your name like a man who has lost his mind.
I am scared, dear.
Please call me the moment you see this.” I read it twice.
Then a second message appeared beneath it, sent only minutes ago, while I had been sitting in that bathroom trying to remember my own night.
“Where are you, young girl?
Matteo has refused to go.
Come and take him away”