Bound in Love

Chapter 47

"I know what you tell me." He spoke to both of them as Chris sat on his chair again. "I know you have been through a lot, but I also know what the reality is. I have to obey the protocol."

"It's not fair." Chris punched his own desk and looked in Eric's eyes. "My tests and Ellie's come clean all the time."

"Chris, you have a suicide attempt in your file and Ellie drug abuse." He was blunt.

"Because you wrote it that way!" Ellie raised her tone. "Drug abuse?" She questioned him with shaking voice and cleaning her face to dry it. "Really?"

"What is then?" Eric confronted her. "What is it that you had been doing until three weeks ago?"

"Trying to cope with my feelings!" She yelled and gasped for air at the same time. "Do you think it's easy to go through what I have been through?"

"It's still drug abuse, Ellie." Eric reinforced not showing any signs of being intimidated by her sudden rage. He was used to see it in patients.

"Babe, sit." Chris grabbed her wrist and pulled her down. Ellie looked at him with her eyes filled with tears.

"He's taking our baby girl away!" She cried as if asking him for help.

"Calm down, baby." He held her face between his hands and looked deeply in her eyes, though he was falling to pieces himself.

"Heaven is going to stay with your mother. You can see her any time you want." Eric started to fill them with the details. The worst was yet to come though. Chris and Ellie looked at him at the same time.

"It's not the same thing!" Chris responded. "It's not even that. She belongs with us. We are her parents. She is our daughter. Ours and no one else. We love her and she is well taken care of."

"You have until midnight today to deliver Heaven." He said, knowing it was best to tell the worst part at once.

Chris and Ellie stared at him without making a sound, but the painful look in their eyes was so intense that he couldn't stare back at them and he looked away. The place fell silent. Only their heavy breathing was heard. Their hands glued and fingers intertwined. As they heard Heaven's cry in the living room, their lips trembled. They were in shock.

"Please..." Ellie decided to beg with a barely audible voice.

"It's a court decision..." He grabbed a letter from inside his bag and put it on the desk. None of them grabbed it though. "Heaven is staying with your mother until I liberate you."

"No." Ellie affirmed and got up. "No." She shook her head and Chris got up to. "No one is taking my baby away from my house... no one... GET OUT!" She yelled at the top of her lungs and Chris pulled her to him.

"GET OUT!" She yelled crying, holding onto Chris. "GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!"

"Sush..." He whispered caressing her hair and kissing her temple, but he was crying too. "Calm down, babe."

"Chris..." She whimpered.

Eric got up, grabbed his bag, and walked to the door. He looked back and he was going to speak again, but they were destroyed. He knew it and he decided not to say anything but to fulfil Ellie's request. He left. As they cried holding onto one another, Chris had his eyes settled on the letter Eric left on the desk. Ellie, sensing he was doing so, pulled away and they looked in each other's eyes.

"We should read it." Ellie stuttered as hiccups from the crying started to attack her.

"Yes." He nodded. "I was thinking the same."