Everyday she would get these fleeting flashes of what she believed she was becoming.

The sacrificing mother, the one who could’ve done this or been that, an immense amount of what could have been, old too fast.

Literally right before her eyes and somedays Bella felt like she missed a large chunk of her own life.

Lost in insanity.

Forever a bystander watching everyone else go on without her, life evening out and giving them a break finally.

There is no discernable pattern either. No clear path that she should or should not have done. They were all the same poor, had similar mothers and did the same misbehaving, some poorer and wilder than she. Some worked less. Some didnt even work until they were well into out adulthood.

And yet, they all are better off than she was.

Bella did not understand it.

At all.

It ate at her more and more everyday. It was absolutely crushing and becoming something far too heavy for her to continue carrying.

She sat stealing jusdgemental stares at Linus. “Fuck what a waste” she thought. Then started the habitual pattern of blaming herself for the shitty taste in men and wondering how one person could be such a colossal bag of shit.

With those thoughts she burned away another string in the disentanglement of Bella and Linus