Let There Be Light Once More

by The-Good-In-Goodbye

Renee's death leaves Bella struggling to cope with her grief, living in a new city and connecting with her father. Can the friendship that ensues with a reserved boy help her smile once more? And what happens when the past comes back to haunt her?

1. My Father's Grief

A Daughter's Reflections: My Father's Grief

On the porch I met my father crying. It scared me. To wake from one's uneasy slumber to the sounds of a man's weeping was something beyond what physical pain could endure.

I had never seen him cry before and now, standing helplessly in the doorway, watching the agonizing cries of my father, crumpled and broken – I cursed myself for wishing him to cry when the news had come.

I had wished for such a thing when he whisked me away from the house where forbidden, sweet memories resonated around the walls of empty rooms. The car ride, silent. His face, blank, emptier than the darkest void in space; his emotions and actions so kept and controlled. It had hurt me even more to see his lack of affliction. I thought him a cold, callous man then.

But I understood him now.

He was a proud man and he let that pride consume him and suppress the unearthly sorrow he felt – all for the sake of keeping face in front of me. He wanted to be strong for me but he also wanted no weakness to escape from his contained form. Little did he know that it was that pride that I saw as his weakness.

However, only time could be the enemy of such pride, hacking away at his senses and control. Piece by piece, the chains in his armour were tainted and distorted, until now; now, when the chains could no longer fight such pressure, it cascaded, shattering his defenses, leaving the naked heart of an alone lover to weep.

All that time he was crying for her – I could see that now.

And yet, after all this time, weeks and weeks, did it finally sink in that she was gone? That she was lost to a world impenetrable by us, living souls? After years and years wasted away in bickering and separation, did he still love her? Were those weeks and weeks merely the too-late realization that those years spent angry, proud and bitter were the last?

There he sat, crumpled; heaving shoulders, infrequent breaths; the cries of a man sobbing profusely,

'Please, please,' his hoarse voice pleaded repeatedly. 'Come back to me.'

He grabbed the stairwell, heaved himself to his feet, wobbling slightly, and shouted into the aurora,

'Please!' he cried. 'Come back! Come back to me!'

There was no reply for there was none to do so.

Strength seeped from his veins and he sagged back to his knees, head in his hands.

'Come back,' he whispered.

'Come back,' he pleaded.

In the fresh rawness of dawn, when birds broke into song and started calling for one's mate, there sat a love, crumpled, broken and alone, crying out for his mate who could and would never return his call for happiness.