a fortiori

Chapter 13

"Who the hell is 'James'?"
Cole said very defensively.

"I was her old boyfriend, who the hell are you?" James asked taking a step forward.
Cole pulled my body closer to him with his arm.
"I'm her current boyfriend." Cole said looking down his nose at James.
"Guys stop, just stop. Cole, James and I met a very long time ago and broke up a very long time ago. Don't worry so much about this." I looked at Cole's fearful eyes and smiled at him, hoping he understood.
He finally smiled back after pondering this situation and I took my hand off his face.
"Hey um maybe I should get going, we can talk later." James eyed Cole and then went toward the door.
"Cole? Honey? Can I go ask James what he wants? It will only take a second." James had already left the hospital room when I had asked Cole this.
Cole looked at me deceivingly.
"Zee, I don't want to be that boyfriend that feels like he has to cling to you or you will run away. I want you to feel free. Just don't go running off with someone like 'James'." He grabbed my hands in his.
"Cole, I'm yours, you don't have to worry." I let go of his hands and walked out of the room.
I noticed James about to step out of the exit doors when I yelled.
"James!" He turned around and smiled.
"Hey Liv. You sure this is the best time to talk. Cole seemed very protective." James said as he met up with me.
"Yea I handled it. What's up?" I asked sitting down in a waiting room chair. He soon did the same.
"Well, you know the other day when I said I was like 'a dog'. Well I didn't want to creep you out so that was probably a bad simile, but the reason I came back was to see if you... if you..." James stood up and grabbed his throat.
"James? James?!" I yelled as I patted his back.
He collapsed to the floor and no one saw. No one was watching.
"Help! Help please!" I was holding his hand. He gasped for air and he couldn't seem to inhale at all.
"Cole!!!!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.
Cole came flying down the hallway in a matter of seconds.
"Hey Zee! Is everything okay?" James was twitching on the floor as Cole approached me.
"No, everything is NOT okay. We need to help him. We need to help James!" I yelled as I looked at James' motionless body.
"Zee, who is James?" He looked down at me like he actually didn't know what I was talking about.
"James. The boy right here—" I looked down and he was gone.
James was gone and I didn't even see how he left. Or who took him for that matter.
"James." I started to weep and I wasn't sure if it was because James may have just died. Or if it was because of all of the unanswerable questions I had flying through my head.
"Olivia I am going to go get one of your doctors and then we can figure this out okay?" I looked at Cole. He genuinely thought I was crazy.
"No. No! I am not going anywhere. If anything I am leaving this place. You can come if you want, but don't go around saying I'm crazy." I stood up and walked back to my room to pack up my things.
After that I walked quickly out of the building.
I wasn't sure if security guards were chasing me or even where Cole was. But I knew that I was going to get to the bottom of who or what took James.
As I was thinking this I looked at my phone. It was 12:03 pm. Plenty of time left in the day. When I turned the corner I ran straight into a man.
He was probably six feet tall, blonde hair blue eyes and he was without a doubt one of my old crushes.
"Ryan? Hey!" I spoke loudly.
"Hey Oli! What's new?" Ryan said to me.

Oh nothing just trying to track down my disappearing ex, I wanted to say, but instead I said:

"Nothing. Nothing at all."