Love Made Me Do It

6. Bad Things Happen

Isabella was busy nestling through her files, preparing for an upcoming investor meeting.

It had been three years of her handling the family business yet these things still got on her nerves because if anyone of her investor ever withdrew their money she had little to zero backup and besides she would be answerable to Alexander which she didn't want at any cost.

The entire office was hurdled up, working and rummaging through files and papers, their mails beeping with notifications with each time a presentation gets rejected or rewarded by their employer.

Isabella was a good boss usually but during these days, no one in her office wished to get inside her cabin including her own assistant; Anna.

While she was busy, the door to her room flew open as walked in a tall blond, taller than Isabella, her perfect waves covering her shoulders, her dark red lips complimenting her blue eyes, her chiffon top and pastel cotrise shorts.

She slumped down in front of her desk. Isabella saw her briefly but continued doing her work, clearly showing her priority.

Emerald sighed deeply knowing there was no use coming to Isabella’s office.

While another short, brunette, with a Versace studded face, Bulgari shinning ears, a Tiffany and Co. ensembled around neck and fingers, Gucci held in hands, Jimmy Choo scrapped in feet and Balmain sewed right over her body in a black flowy fabric walked into the office, with confidence and sobriety.

Her round face yet studded hazel eyes making her a perfect reflection of her mother.

"Oh seems like grandma is busy." She commented slumping right next to Emerald, making her snort in response.

"I don't even have the time to reply to your nonsense Crystal." Isabella replied.

"But you'd clearly make time if it were my brother." Crystal crossed her arms over her chest.

Emerald rolled her eyes getting up and grabbing a drink for herself from Isabella’s minibar right next to her table.

"I like what you do to this place every time I visit."

Crystal looked around complimenting the pastel blue walls that matched Isabella’s coat of a slightly darker shade.

Isabella decided to ignore her and continued her work knowing that nothing good comes off the visit of these two women.

"Don't forget to compliment your brother for that. He's the one who pays for it." Emerald added bitterly, opening a can of beer for herself and passing one down to Crystal.

Isabella’s blood boiled at their words but she chose to ignore them, given she knew they always did that to provoke a reaction out of her which they found amusing.

Crystal was Alexander's younger sister, a spoiled brat who only knew how to annoy everyone and get whatever, however she wanted.

While being daughter of the Mayhews' best friends, Emerald Cornwell was a spectacularly shining model and an upcoming actress who had already stared in supporting roles in many movies and was already shooting her first big break.

Crystal and Emerald were always close, and after Emerald's relationship with Crystal's brother Nicholas grew stronger and deeper, Crystal started growing more fond of her, even being more fond of Isabella but the two always seemed to gang up against the poor soul.

"What do you two want?" Isabella asked, closing the files in front of her.

"It's Friday night, you need to come with us. I texted about the girl's night out in the text group that you never reply to." Crystal concluded making Isabella gulp nervously.

Alexander had made it clear to her to ignore his sister no matter how hard she tried to push through her and even showed her clearly how much he despised her hanging with any one closer to his family, without him knowing it. But when it came to his orders, he would ask her to hang around whoever he wanted. 

Isabella had already faced the consequences once of not listening to Alexander, she didn't want to face it again. 

"I have a very important meeting tomorrow, can't miss it for the world." Isabella made herself clear with a stern tone.

"Woah! Hold it big girl." Crystal cut her off. "It's not an option... Besides why else have you kept your employees for this peasant business of yours let them handle it."

Emerald simply rolled her eyes knowing the pattern of this obnoxious argument.

"I can't seriously go out and party while my employees work their asses off. I need to be with them." Isabella said in a stern tone making Crystal roll her eyes.

"Alright fine, I'm going for now but join us by ten at the Palaice De Vile. I have a table for eight booked and you're the eighth one." Crystal said finished her drink off in a gulp and picking up her purse.

"You know what gets me in a foul mood and what I do when someone hurts my ego." Crystal said in a warning tone and left the office followed by Emerald.

Not much changed for Isabella, she was bullied by Crystal and Emerald even back in high school and she's been bullied by them even now. She was used by Alexander back in high school and she's being used by him even now as well.

She remembered the times when Crystal who was a spoiled brat used to rummage through her locker, leaving behind sticky notes with slurs and abusive words after the word about Alexander and Isabella went out like wild fire by Mckenzie.

Isabella used to open her locker and always get a flood of notes with words flowing out of her locker. Her only friend Sierra began judging her as Isabella even hid the truth about her and Alex from her best friend.

Isabella became isolated, her only friend wouldn't talk to her and already made new friends. She was judged by both girls who labeled her as a slut in toilet stalls and guys who began admiring to have a single night with her.

Mckenzie told the story that Isabella threw herself at Alexander and after they had s*x, she became obsessed with him.

It was sophomore year, where many kids prayed to make memories Isabella was left with nothing but bullies and isolation.

Isabella was sitting in the cafeteria alone, watching her only now ex-best friend, Sierra, who was sitting with her new friends from the physics club laughing and chiming. She looked at Isabella for once but rolled her eyes showing her annoyance with Isabella.

"Is that seat empty?" A voice startled her.

She looked up to see Jesse Payton standing in front of her.

He was a tall, bulky blond with a hint of grey in his green orbs. A quarterback who took over after Alexander. He was the worst among all the bullies, who ridiculed all the innocent geeks around the school.

Isabella realized she was gawking at Jesse with amazement, she shrugged it off and decided to tell him no but he already chased her off it.

"I guess not." He chimed gesturing someone over Isabella’s shoulder.

She turned around to see Jesse's group of bullies of three friends walking towards Isabella’s seat.

She felt Jesse slump right next to her, bumping right into her.

She startled pulling herself back. Her heart drowning in anxiety signaling something bad was coming in for her.

She felt another tap on her shoulder when Jesse's friend, Logan slumped on her other side, locking her in between like a sandwich.

While the other two, slumped on the opposite bench.

"So Isabella right?" Jesse asked with a smirking expression.

She gulped picking up her sandwich and trying to leave until her wrist was pulled back harshly by Jesse, making her slump backwards.

"It's rude when someone comes to sit with you and talk to you, you try to leave." Jesse glared a death stare at her.

Isabella squirmed as Jesse's grip tightened around her wrist, making her hiss in pain.

Her eyes began burning with tears and it was until Jesse threw a huge fit of laughter at her,"Relax honey, we're just kidding."

He let go off her wrist and she sat in utter silence, hugging her body close, her hands resting over her bare thighs, resistant to make any move.

"Your hair are so soft." She heard Logan whispering into her ear as he moved his fingers through her soft blond locks that she now had cut down, making bile rise up her throat but she held the urge to slap him back, afraid to get hurt in return.

She looked at Jesse, who had his jaw flexed hard at his friend.

"Leave you f*****g moron." Jesse yelled at his friend making everyone around the cafeteria look in their table's direction.

Isabella hid her face with her hands, embarrassed to be other people's gossip around the school again.

"Dude..." Jesse's another friend defended Logan.

"You too!" He yelled at an octave high voice making all his friend look at each other and understand that Jesse was in no mood to be fooled around with.

"f**k you man." His friend mumbled picking up their lunch trays and walking out.

Isabella maintained a distance from Jesse, having some space to sit away from him.

"Don't sit away..." He smiled sadistically, moving his hand towards her making her crawl back over the corner of the bench.

His hand reached for her thigh, desperately and squeezed it tightly making tears sprain down her cheeks.

"You still not over the Mayhew boy?" He smirked, with a cocky look.

Isabella removed his hand off her thigh and got up running towards the toilets.

She was scarred to take any step, knowing he would take his revenge at her if she humiliated him publicly or at any place. She was disgusted to have some other guy's hand touching her intimately when she didn't want to.

She went inside the toilet where she saw Emerald standing against the wall, with another Brunette who had her back against Isabella.

The brunette turned around sensing another presence in the bathroom and looked at Isabella. She was Crystal who was still in junior high but visited Emerald and Mckenzie on and off as they were, her parent's friend's children and hence closer like siblings. All falling within the same social circle.

Isabella’s face was already disoriented with tears and gloom filling her expressions.

She noticed Emerald who stood with the same face and expression, her face screaming the same pain as Isabella that something that she didn't want to happen, happened to her.

But Isabella ignored her and entered inside one of the stalls and sat down on the toilet seat. Letting tears engulf her in silent sobs.

She heard Emerald sniff and speak in a throaty voice.

"What happened to her?"

Isabella realized Emerald was referring to her.

"Still not over my brother. Another one of his trash. Sluts just cry alone."

Crystal spoke up loud and clear to make sure Isabella heard her. This only added more to Isabella’s tears.

"But you don't worry, I am here for you." Crystal gently patted Emerald's face and left the bathroom.

Ever since that day Isabella spent the rest of her high-school years in isolation even thou most of seniors who were connected with Alexander that already left but Crystal came in high school and that only made her even more isolated.

Keeping her pen down, Isabella took in a deep breath, noticing the time which was around nine. Crystal's ultimatum was ten so she still had an hour to think over it.

Her head was already throbbing harshly with another strike of migraine. The stress had began building up with her lowering blood glucose and salts levels as she had skipped lunch and it was post dinner time.

Her phone beeped with a text. She rolled her eyes seeing Alexander's number.

Alex: Go to the club with Crystal.

Her jaw flexed. Alexander would always choose the worst timings to appoint her with a task.

Isabella: Can't! Still in office. Two meetings tomorrow.

She sent in her excuse, which she never usually did and simply complied to Alex's commands but she was in serious haze this time too.

Alex: I'm sending Miller, he'll take care of work. I'll send Peter, go to the club.

Isabella wanted to throw her phone on the wall and yell in agony.

She looked at her work which was only a little more left and decided to keep her end high.

Isabella: I'll go on my own!

Keeping the phone down she began tidying up her work, giving it the final touches and calling her secretary to call it a day.

She sat inside her car, taking in a deep breath, gripping tightly over her wheels, taking in a deep breath.

She didn't want to go to the place and look around the faces of the same people that reminded her of nothing but the fact that her life is a horrific set of series of tragedies all piled up.

She couldn't remember the last time she was anywhere near to happy from the bottom of her heart.

Her phone beeped with a text. She checked to see it from Doctor Charles.

Dr. Charles: Heard about your last visit, should check with me next time.

She heaved a little sigh. Dr. Charles was her mother's psychologist and an owner of the facility where her mother was being treated. Among all the savages Isabella lived in, he only felt like a safe escape who was persistently polite and mannered towards her.

He had been keenly taking interest in her mother's case and his concern always made her feel secure that her mother was in good hands.

She began driving towards the club while her brain was still stuck at Dr. Charles's message. Her memory clouded with the rummages of how things ended up being the way they were.

After her mother sent her back to college to complete her degree, Isabella became extremely busy between her weekend visits to her mother and her weekdays visits to her professor and advisors.

Her health started detroriating badly, she started loosing weight, her hair thinning and bleaching out with prominence grey streaks showing off her brunette hair.

She had no time for makeup so dark circles prominently bedded her eyes, as her skin paled and thinned with prominent signs of Nutritional deficiency.

She made another weekend visit back home, where she saw her mother being in a much composed form and situation.

While she was restless, Pamela was beaming sign of moving on with a reflection of pure success after taking over her husband and smoothly running his business.

Isabella felt relieved seeing her mother moving around, going out with friends and working well, keeping her mind off any depressing thoughts.

While she was sitting at the kitchen table, her mother was baking her favorite shrimp linguine pasta.

Isabella looked around the house and it seemed to haunt her of her father's memories, striping her off the happiness she missed more than anything.

Her laptop screen popped with another notification from her advisor. 

Professor Hatton

He was a young scholar in his later twenties and already secured a good position as a professor and research head in her department. Girls all around the campus confused him as a student and tried making many passes on him but he was a strictly processional man and took a keen interest in Isabella and her work.

She opened the notification and it was another set of changes he required off her, before the final submission which was within less than a month.

Isabella mumbled curses at the asshole who had been giving her nightmares for her work. As the look of tension crossed her face, Pamela saw the extreme change in mood.

She had seen her daughter's health dropping down in the recent times and tried her best to keep her mental and physical health in check to make sure her daughter feel the need to compromise on anything, specially her dreams.

"What happened Honey?" her mother asked making her look up at her and realize she had completely forgotten that she was siting in the same room as her mother.

"oh nothing, it's professor Hatton back at it again." she shrugged her shoulders with a small smile.

"Oh that same hunky Professor?" her mother asked with a wink making Isabella gape at her.

"Mom! he's my advisor."

Pamela shrugged, putting the boiled pasta in the sauce. "Oh it doesn't matter. You're both adults."

Isabella’s eyes bulged out at her mother's suggestion.

"He's still my advisor." she concluded her final verdict.

"So what's his deal?" Pamela asked casually knowing exactly how to make a conversation with her daughter and make her understand things.

"He's just such a pain in the ass." Isabella mumbled letting go off her frustration, "He just keeps demanding these changes and he'd know I won't be available at weekends and he purposely asks me to make these changes over the weekend when I've clearly told him that it's hard for me to follow his schedule. I mean I get it he's a professor but I'm a human being too and I have a life as well."

Pamela smiled softly at her daughter," Oh honey that's the problem, you don't have a life. You need to get a life. "

"Mom!" she defended herself back.

"I talked to Cheryl the other day. She was concerned about you honey not being able to go out with them."

Isabella rolled her eyes, "Cheryl needs to understand that not everyone's life is as easy on the go like hers."

Isabella and Cheryl had a huge fight due to Isabella’s slacking attitude towards her health. Cheryl was concerned which lead her frustratedly stating that Isabella was torturing herself for nothing.

Which lead Isabella to angrily spit back at her the fact that Cheryl was a spoil brat who was only pushing through college to have free s*x before she ends up being tied in an unwanted marriage for her father's business.

She knew how sensitive this thing was for Cheryl but she was too blinded by her own rage. Maybe sorrow as well but Isabella was too adamant to admit.

"She was still concerned after your fight and that's why she called me." Pamela scolded her daughter. "She's a true friend and you shouldn't act this way towards her."

Isabella slided onto the counter, regretting her choice of words as guilt hit her.

"No one will be able to understand your sorrow until you won't share it with them."

Isabella’s shoulders slumped as she realized her mother's words intensity. Guilt hit her hard. She had been too blinded by her own sorrow and anger of her faith playing a dirty game of snatching away her father that she couldn't reciprocate what she had been doing to herself and people around her.

"Cheryl doesn't deserve what you did with her and she's a true friend don't let go off her." Pamela patted Isabella’s back as she sniffed back a cry.

"I'll try to make it up to her." Isabella promised with a hopeful smile.

"And you need to stay back at college for the time until you're done with your research and final submission."

Pamela passed down her verdict.

"But mom..." Isabella tried defending but Pamela cut her off.

"Your professor clearly doesn't like the idea of you having a weekend to enjoy, he wants you to work and you can't exhaust yourself with work and that much of travel. You need to go back college and only come back when you'll submit your work. Besides you just come her and ruin my freedom. Let me have some me time too."

"Seriously?" Isabella c****d an eyebrow at her mother's audacity.

Pamela shrugged and the duo behan laughing as that was the moment when that house felt a real sting of heartfelt laughter booming through those walls.

For the next entire months Isabella made up with Cheryl and Ansel and they hung out on weekends while she also managed with her professor's schedule and kept a good pace of work until the day she finally submitted her work and her professor called her in his office.

Professor Hatton never called anyone specially a girl, alone inside his office that also past lecture time but Isabella was an exception. He saw nothing but our brilliance of mind in that girl. Something that also made him admire her.

He was never much of a conversation person but when it came to that girl he could talk for hours and hours about things that were of his interest, like technology, politics, social mapping of the society. Whatever topic he chose Isabella was always peculiar with her intriguing answer.

Isabella entered his small office after a knock and approval. He sat behind his oak wook desk in his small eco-friendly, well planted office with small pots placed along the walls and even the small window adjacent to his desk that showed the view of the entire campus.

"Sit down." he offered Isabella who was no foreign to the environment of his office.

"I saw your final submission and I'm proud of the way you've crafted things. They're better than my expectations." he praised her which was a rare thing for him to do.

She smiled with pride and confidence.

"I wouldn't have been able to do it without your guidance." she admitted coyly.

He smiled, a genuine one, making Isabella realize that even with a small stature, a lean yet muscular physique, her professor was indeed a man with strikingly handsome features.

He picked out a brown envelope from his drawer and passed it down to Isabella.

If you don't mind, I took the liberty of sending your work down at Alma De laude Madame Currie research center in Switzerland."

Isabella’s big blue eyes bulged out at his words. She couldn't believe what he had just confessed to her. She felt startled at just knowing that he considered her work good enough to recommend it any further.

"I hope you don't mind?" He asked with a sly smirk knowing he had taken Isabella by definite suprise.

She shook her head, getting out her daze, "Of course... Of course not." she smiled, happy with how smooth things turned out to be. "But how come you've been able to reach there?"

Alma De Laude Madame Currie was the biggest physics research center in the world which centered with world's top scientists working in the field.

"I have an old aquintance working there."

Isabella felt impressed. Of course if her research got a wide base, Ben Hatton was going to scurry advantage of the situation too but he was famous for never taking any favors and he went all the way against his own rules for Isabella.

" That's not it, they have actually offered us a place at their discussion panel on research in August in New York and they would like to meet you. If they liked you they will offer you post grad scholarship with a job in their research cell in Switzerland."

Isabella gaped with happiness, not believing his own words, startled at her discovery.

"Oh my God!" she gasped out loudly, feeling on cloud nine. "You're not kidding me right?" her joy was beaming uncontrollably as she tried grasping for a concept of reality.

Hatton chuckled lightly, "I'm not mistakenly joking Ms. Grace. Your work was an exception, it deserved it. Now just be prepared for August. I can already see you in the research cell."

Isabella smiled back at him and thanked him endearingly leaving behind his office. She couldn't wait to notify her mother about her biggest achievement. She knew her mother was going to be the happiest.

That weekend she left for home and finally reached the small villa down the Parker Street, which was a shabby place where mostly small vendors and local business owners resided in their exquisitely comfy residences.

Opening the doors to her house she was greeted by darkness. It was almost six in the evening and she had seen her mother's Chrysler parked outside their house but she assumed her mother must have been with one of her friends.

She standing in the doorway when she heard a loud thudding noise, startling her that came down from the lounge area. She felt scared almost at lost of het heart at the loud noise.

She sensed it to be an intruder. So she immediately dialed in 911 and started walking slowly towards the source of noise passing down the narrow hallway towards the large carpeted creamy walled lounge that had royal blue rexined sofas placed in front of a large consoled LED flat screen TV.

"911, what's your emergency?"

The operator spoke up over on the other side.

Another crashing voice from the same spot startled Isabella as she gasped holding the phone closer to her ear, clutching it too tight to whiten her knuckles.

A loud scream like a groan filled in the entire house as her heart started skipping beats and her guts knotted with crippling anxiety clouding her brain.

The screams grew louder and louder and the operator sensed the voice coming over from the phone.

"Hello? What's the emergency?"

The female voice asked again.

Isabella stopped dead in her tracks catching her breath and leaned against the wall where the doorway to the lounge resided. She looked to her left, still keeping the phone to her ear and grabbed the vase placed on the single wooden console.

"I just came back home and my mom isn't there I guess and someone's in here, screaming." she stated down the entire scenario to the operator.

"Ma'am can you confirm who the person is?" 

She asked in a vivid tone.

Isabella gulped and cranked her neck into the doorway, to see inside the lounge which was completely darkened with only the light from outside illuminating the center of the room that was crowded with shredded pieces of glasses everywhere. Isabella could sense that someone tried breaking the showcase with all the pictures, frames, trophies, medals and awards on the left corner of the room. The coffee table was also broken with its glasses shattered everywhere and the wooden frame that held that glass broken down completely.

She took a step inside the lounge and flicked on the light buttons only to be stunned to see her own mother standing in the middle of the room, with her back facing her, over the broken pieces of glasses, her feet bare, prominent foot bloody steps printed all over the beige carpet.

Her eyes were widened with fear to see her mother in such a state.

"Mom!" she whispered reaching out for her mother.

Who turned around with the broken wooden foot of the coffee table in her hand as she baffled like a mad woman, puffing air of anger, the reason to which was oblivion to Isabella.

For the first time she felt an ominous fear creeping up her entire body, as if someone injected a syringe of oxytocin within her body. She was unaware of the reason yet her body felt paralyzed and crippled with anxiety.

Pamela's widened eyes with anguished anger, her distorted hair in a low ponytail, her tainted sweater with her own blood, her bleeding nose as if she was manicured down to a horrific exorcistic pathway.

"YOU!"

She screamed at Isabella charging at her with the wooden leg in her hands.

Isabella screamed and retorted back as she lost her balance and fell down on her butt but it didn't stop Pamela from taking slow strides at her, tainting the carpet with her bloody feet.

Pamela seemed numb, as if hypnotized and unnerved. Not caring what she did to whom. As if she couldn't recognize her own daughter that she loved with all her heart.

The same daughter she was once ready to kill for now she was willing to kill, with her own bare bloodied hands.

Isabella gasped rummaging backwards on her feet and butt.

"Mom! It's me." she yelled at Pamela, who's eyes widened at the mention of the word mother.

"Am I your mother?" Pamela yelled taking Isabella aback with her tone. She had never yelled at her in such a horrific way.

Pamela attacked her with wooden leg but she dodged it and landed on her back as she took a complete turn.

Isabella rummage back and crawled backwards while Pamela charged to attack again but began loosing her grip over the wooden frame that fell down right next to Isabella who gasped and looked up to her mother who became epileptic and shivered uncontrollable like having a seizure as her eyes darted back into her skull and her arms turned around.

It almost seemed paranormal as Isabela screamed out loud at her mother and rushed towards her as Pamela fell down and finally fainted.

______________________________

Isabella always remembered having this vivid dream. That she could never get it out of her memory. The dream of seeing herself in a black knee length dress at the back seat of a car, she doesn't know which car but she knows it parked wrongly in the middle of a hillside road. She felt oblivious of her situation and looked around only to find a man she doesn't recognize and couldn't figure the face out. But she knows he's a young man who laid against the door with his face covered in blood while she screamed at the man to wake up.

She doesn't know him but she still yelled at him to get up and then she hears a loud horn blazing at her with a blinding speed as she turns towards the other side only to see a fast lightening truck approaching her.

She screams, trying to get out of the car, opening the door but all goes in vain as she stays inside locked up until the truck gets closer and closer and until it finally....

Gasping out loud she got up, startled her eyes wide in shock, she looked around her and saw herself still sitting at the leather couch inside her mother's hospital room.

She took in a deep breath and saw her mother laying still in deep slumber on the bed.

The doctors gave into a nervous breakdown to her situation and reported her having a cerebral collapse. Which was a rare situation but common in case of isolated women like Pamela.

Isabella couldn't understand how1 come it only took her mother three weeks to turn into something so delusionally distorted.

Her mother was deep asleep, with nebulizing pipes surging through her nostrils and IV inserted over her left hand and blankets covering up til her chest, Pamela slept deep with pale skin.

She had woken up twice in the past two days but did nothing but screamed her lungs out calling for help. The most weirdest thing was the fact she looked at Isabella and cried out loud asking her to get away from this place as far as possible and Isabella couldn't put what was she referring to as.

The door to the room opened up as a young man suited in a doctor's coat, tall with broad shoulders, sparkling green orbs of eyes, rugged blond hair and a handsome smirk walked into the room. He didn't carry a stethoscope which showed he wasn't a usual general medic but a special doctor.

"Dr. Charles Louisville." He smiled and extended his hand at the confuse beauty who stood gawking him.

She extended her hand and shook it firmly.

"Isabella Grace."

"I'm guessing you're her daughter." he said with a calm smile.

Even though he seemed safe, genuine and honest but he also seemed cold in a taunting manner that Isabella couldn't put her heart to. But she blamed it on her disturbed mind that had faced a a lot in the past two days and she had been traumatized.

But she did notice how intriguing Charles looked her up and down as if taking her in and studying her static features and charming figure.

She nodded her head in agreement.

"Well Ms. Grace, You've reported, your mother never behaved this way before?" He asked jotting down some notes on his pad in his hand.

Isabella shook her head, "No she's never."

"You've never observed any unusual behavior from her as well?" he asked and her mind went back to the time when her mother pulled out a gun, ready to kill those men back when she was sixteen.

But it was to protect me.

She shook her head a negative again," No. "

"Well Dr. Prim here has specifically asked me to look into your mother's case. I can't assure you what happened to your mother would happen again or not and for that I would need a thorough study on your mother and we would to perform tests for that we would require you to submit your mother to my facility. I am a visiting doctor here and I'd prefer if would be in my institution where a much better care process would be applied in her case."

"Facility?" Isabella asked with a shaky voice, dreading her mother would need an innate surgery procedure.

"Don't worry, it's a mental institution. We take care and process mental illnesses of all kinds." He assured her and went towards her mother's table, reading through her files. 

Isabella was confused for a moment that the doctor was just giving his verdict with oozing confidence instead of actually getting any view from her as she suffered first hand off her mother's illness.

"She did wakeup twice though." She said looking at her mother.

"I know." Dr. Charles smiled turning at Isabella after examining the medications that were prescribed to Pamela.

"Why don't we transfer her to the facility and while she still rests we can perform our exams on her?"

Isabella looked around nervously not knowing how to put things up. She never thought she'd had to ever come to terms of submitting her mother to a mental facility.

" it's okay, I understand your concern." Dr. Charles smiled and walked upto her, he picked out a white card from his coat's pocket and passed the flashy thick material to Isabella.

"Come by seven. I'll show you the place around and once you are satisfied only then I'll ask you to transform your mother." He said with a warm assuring smile and walked out of the room leaving a confused Isabella behind.

___________________________

"And this is where your mother will be residing." Charles told Isabella as they walked from the white monochromed corridor into an oaked painted walled large private room, with small pots placed at different corners, a hospital bed cleanly placed in the middle, a large TV screen in front of the bed and a perfect place for a closet and bathroom.

"This is a private room, if expense is an issue I can show you..."

"No expense is not an issue, keep her here." She immediately cut him off.

One thing in the whole situation she was confident about was the fact that her father had left a lot to their names, with a good future plan and life and medical insurance policies and she didn't had to worry about any expenses at all.

"Very well then. Why don't you join me in my office so we can go through some paper work before shifting your mother here?"

She nodded and followed him down the large corridor, that lead down with different rooms, finally ending up in front of a large area separated by glasses walls.

She looked inside and saw a bunch of people in the similar clothed uniform, centered around an area which seemed like a small corner for entertainment. Some sat in front of TV in the corner, while some in front of a table in front of a static board game.

None of those people could be put into a single age group. They were all of different ages, some even around Isabella’s own age. But what triggered her most was seeing an old lady with black hair and wrinkled face in the two piece shirt and trouser uniform standing in a corner, as she kept mumbling things to her own self and kept hitting her head in a soft pace in the wall.

"This is...?" She asked Charles who had given her a tour of the entire place.

"The In-patient facility area. These people live here. But you don't need to see that."

She nodded her head, seeing her owm reflection through the mirror and shrugged every fear that gutted her body and followed Dr. Charles into his office.

He closed the door behind and offered her a seat in his large exquisitely ebony wodden furnished office.

After a while his assurance walked in and passed down certain files to him. She gave Isabella a questioning look and walked out.

Charles read the paper first and passed the papers down to Isabella.

"These are you mothers assurance paper. Just a safety precaution but you don't have to worry she's my responsibility now."

Placing the papers in front of her, he passed her down a pen.

Biting her bottom lip nervously, Isabella grabbed the pen with shaking hands.

Her breath felt constricted and fear struck her heart again. She read through the papers again and again but couldn't understand a single word written on them.

Suddenly the image of the old lady standing at the isolated corner flashed through her mind and tears started brewing her eyes.

She felt embarrassed yet helpless, but she couldn't stop herself from sobbing.

Charles got up from his seat and walked towards her, passing her down napkins and a filling her a glass of water.

"I'm sorry." She cleared off her tears and drank some water, dissolving the lump down her throat.

He smiled softly at her and sat on the chair right next to her.

"I know Isabella... I can understand you're definitely in no place to make such decisions. I learned about your father and I'm definitely sorry but you also need to take care of yourself you need to be strong for your mother but don't push yourself because that's what probably made your mother sick and we don't want you getting sick now do we? So it's fine to cry in front of a friend."

His warm smile somehow did resided some peace inside Isabella’s heart and she nodded her head with filled determination.

Grabbing the pen, she scribbled dowm her signature on the papers. Charles gave her a sad smile.

" I promise, your mother will be healthy soon and out of here in no time."

Isabella smiled with a determined hopefulness.

Isabella got up to leave but Charles grabbed her wrist just in time stopping her and getting up.

She felt a tingling sensation down her wrist but ignored it, the sensation wasn't foreign yet her brain was clouded with anxiety.

"If you ever need anything just know, I am here." He smiled clasping her hand in between her palms and she nodded with a small smile.

Just as Isabella exited the office, Charles leaned against his desk, watching her leave the vacinity of his office.

He turned around and saw the napkins that Isabella used to wipe her tears still wet and crumpled. The glass she drank with half filled. He picked up the glass and examined it closely tracing his fingers along the rim, where the light shined on the spot where her lips rested.

He smiled and positioned that point next to his lips and drank from rest of the glass. He picked up the tissues she used and kissed them softly as if kissing her soft cheeks.

He placed the tissues down in a drawer where a small picture of Isabella smiling, already rested down.

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