On her knees in the snow, Bella was sobbing unlike even she knew she was capable of. It was valentines and the day after she had buried her mother and Linus told her to stay there. Stay in that place where she couldn’t turn a corner without a bad memory pouring through her brain. The place she had to work up the courage to leave because she didn’t want to leave people behind. The place that had made her alone and bitter and violent and never sober. The place she knew she would kill herself if she had to live in even one more day. 

That town killed her soul and made her set the world on fire. And crouched there in the snow sobbing and wrenching all she could think was “why won’t he love me?” 

The memory of the day in the street when Linus yelled at her “I can’t love you like you want me to!” Played over and stabbed deeper into the spot where her heart has begun to grow back. This was a pain unlike she had ever felt. She felt the walls of her world slam into her and she almost fell into the abyss. 

But at the last moment her walls shot up and the fire relit and Bella stood up. Brushed herself off. She walked back into her fathers home, made 3 phone calls. And with that, she would be home by 4pm tomorrow.

Tears gone, stone faced, feeling nothing. Not numb. Just nothing. 

And as she sipped whisky with her dad another string fell away in the disentanglement of Bella and Linus