The End (Again)
She'd cried the day she ended things. Sobbed into my shoulder.
It took everything not to join her, but I couldn't let her see...
"Shh..." I'd soothed. "This is right, Bella. This is the right choice. This is what I want for you."
"It feels..." she huffed a muted sob. "It feels impossible to say goodbye. I don't... I don't know how. I'm sorry."
Everything in me screamed. The scaled, vicious creature that was me shrieked and clawed at the bars of his cage. Fight, it implored.
But I couldn't do that. At least not in the way the creature envisioned. Bella deserved so much better.
"Then let's not say goodbye. Let's be... friends."
I said it to ease her pain. I said it because I was still fighting.
"Friends?" It was as if I'd spoken to her in Russian.
"Friends." I nodded. "If you ever need a friend, if you ever want to... catch up" - how silly those words sounded - "I'm only a phone call away."
She didn't call me. Fourteen months later she called Alice and five minutes later Alice called me.
"Bella wants to catch up."