“How the fuck did I end up here again?” Bella thought to herself. She was sitting on Nose’s couch, cried out and exhausted. He had left her stranded in one of the worst cold snaps they had seen in years.

From the outsude looking in, it was probably all to clear how she got here. But in that moment while Bella was lost in her mind, she just couldn’t face the truth. She was stuck hours from home, after spending day looking for him only to discover, he hadn’t gone to work. He had gone to another woman’s home.

Just like that, he had gotten up, walked out never to be seen by her again. In that moment, it seemed incomprehensible.

Bella would soon learn, sooner than she imagined, the why’s and the how’s of it. It would be what would finally free her. Right now though, for her, that was far away in a place that seemed unreachable.

Lost in that thought, another string frayed in the disentanglement of Bella and Linus.