"I'm sorry we have to do this."
Isabella "for-the-love-of-insert-deity-call-me-Bella" Swan crossed her arms, glaring at the woman who had purportedly given birth to her sixteen years ago. They were nothing alike, and a swell of resentment gripped her tightly.
She said nothing in response.
They were standing in front of airport security, Bella's bags checked, her sole carry-on hanging from her one functional arm.
The newly minted Renée Dwyer went on, "I know you don't like me right now. I know you are angry. But this is for the best," she said with finality.
"Being abandoned by my mother is for the best?" Bella asked sardonically, not willing the woman to once again take the easy route of self-justification.
"I can't do this anymore," Renée said, without the charming temper explosions that had characterized these past chats, instead sounding completely wary and resigned. "You are out of control and I don't know how to help you. And considering what you recently did—"
Bella cut her off. "I told you I lied."
"Exactly! And that is the problem. I can no longer trust you. Where did my sweet little girl go?" her mother's eyes were starting to flow with tears, while Bella's identical ones were rolling.
"The sweet little girl that did all the laundry, cooking, cleaning, bills—you mean that sweet girl? She doesn't sound like a girl to me, more like your mother!"
"I can't control how you choose to frame your experiences, but we both know it wasn't like that," Renée snapped, her words likely rephrased from a self-help book.
"It was. You were never a mother to me, and at the first sign of trouble, you ship me off. I think that objectively makes you a shitty parent." Bella never thought she would say such horrible—true—things, and yet here she was. Changed, irrevocably, inwardly. And now her outward environment would be different, too.
"Fine, I was a shitty parent. Then you won't miss me, will you?"
Bella remained silent, the question too complicated to parse out verbally.
Renée continued, "You know I hate leaving with angry words, but you deliberately test me and I can't deal with this. Tell your father to contact me if I need to send you anything."
Despite this being the reaction the teenager sought, her throat closed uncomfortably. They stood, for a handful of seconds, at an impasse.
Bella looked down, and when she glanced back up, she saw the back of her mother as the older woman strode away with no farewell.
Bella wanted to crumble then and there. To sink to the floor, curl into herself, and weep with the loneliness and betrayal that circulated through her. But that was not a true option. She had to be strong. Had to protect herself, because no one else was going to do it for her.
Straightening with a steely spine, she fumbled in her bag for her ticket and ID, and joined the line of other people to begin her new, hopefully short-lived, chapter.