Suggested Listening: "Where Do I Even Start?" by Morgan Taylor Reid
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Fifty-four days passed, and Bella had more bad ones than good.
The pack still showed up. Each day, one of them was there, and each day, their eyes were a little more resigned - a little more hopeless as they found Bella exactly the way she was the day before.
Stuck. Still mourning. Barely breathing.
Going through the motions, but slipping farther and farther into a place that in no way resembled the life she had before.
She couldn't pull herself out of it. She barely left the house, even though it was the one place that made it worse - that reminded her the most. Everything there was an unintentional shrine - the photos on her bedroom dresser, Embry's clothes in the closet.
The small, emerald engagement ring Bella refused to take off the third finger of her left hand.
They had planned forever, but there was never enough money for the wedding Embry felt they deserved. Bella told him it didn't matter, but he always told her it did. So they consistently put it off. They waited, thinking they had all the time in the world. Finally setting a date on Maddie's second birthday the previous October.
Now, every time she looked it, all Bella could envision was a mild Saturday in September that she and her family would never see.
It killed her, but she couldn't release her grip on that life. She couldn't see past that day.
She couldn't see the life Embry would have wanted her to keep living.
The cost was too high. Too much.
But the person paying the heaviest price of all was the little girl Bella wasn't always able to be strong for.
Maddie had always been her father's daughter - quiet, patient. She'd come into the world with so little fanfare - two hours into labor, Bella barely made it to the hospital before she was holding her daughter in her arms. Maddie rarely threw fits and would be content to sit at the kitchen table in her booster seat for hours and hours, aimlessly scratching her crayons on a piece of paper. Fascinated by the colors and the movements, even if she was still too young to stay inside the lines. To create something recognizable.
Sometimes, Embry would color with her.
Like any child there were times when all Maddie wanted was her mother and no one else would do. But even when she was a baby, it was clear which parent was her daughter's favorite. At some point, Bella wondered if it should bother her, but she couldn't find it inside her to mind. She couldn't bring herself to argue when she'd come home from work to find Maddie curled up on Embry's chest, both of them napping on the couch. When his voice - the warmth of being cradled in his arms - was the only thing to stop her tears in the middle of the night.
Despite growing up without one, Embry was a better father than anyone could have possibly imagined.
And Maddie missed her father.
After the first month passed, the little girl occupied herself less and less. She smiled less, and clung to Bella more. She cried more than she ever had in her short two and a half years of life. Bella tried her best, but quickly lost hope when it seemed like nothing she would do or say could ease the little girl's need. Her tears.
It wasn't until Maddie started having nightmares that Bella felt like the worst mother in the world.
She would go to the little girl at first, holding her. Rocking her soothingly, Bella bit down hard on her to lip, drawing the pain away from her chest when Maddie would push one word out between choking sobs and deep hiccups. Wanting the one person who couldn't be there. Who couldn't make it better.
Some nights though, Bella would simply lay on the couch, streams of hot, wretched tears leaking from her eyes as she listened to her daughter cry. As she couldn't bring herself to get up, to try and soothe her, because she knew it wouldn't make a difference. She knew there were no words she could say to her little girl that would help her understand. That held any real comfort, even to the person speaking them.
Bella had no idea what to do or what could make it better...for Maddie, for her. What could fill that empty hole in their lives.
Especially when Bella continued to turn her back on every single person who tried to help, somehow convincing herself it wasn't what they needed. That it wouldn't make a difference.
One day, it was Quil who appeared in her kitchen.
He'd been there before...several times. He had been Bella's friend for as long as Embry had been a part of her life, and he was Embry's best friend, too. It might have explained why Quil always lingered long after Bella dismissed him, telling him to go home.
That particular day he asked Bella if he could take Maddie for the afternoon, claiming it would give Bella some time to get some things done. That it would get the little girl out of the house so she could spend some quality time with her uncle Quil.
Bella's answer was a swift, resounding "no."
It was the same response she always gave him.
Still, a buried, nagging part of Bella felt bad moments after she uttered the word. Quil's lips parted helplessly and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Taking a moment, almost like he was trying to think of something to say. Deciding whether or not to plead with her. To argue with her.
But he never did, his gaze falling instead.
Refusing to look at her as he turned and walked out of the house without a single word.
It was too familiar - the look on his face when he left.
She'd always liked Quil - nothing fazed him. His hopeless optimism was his greatest strength, yet it was something the pack had always discredited him for. They brushed him off, telling him he could never take anything seriously.
Bella never had though.
The same things that often drove the others nuts were the same things Bella admired Quil most for - making anyone around him laugh, being that source of light when everyone else preferred to be in the dark, being a faithful friend who never held a grudge and very rarely had a bad word to say about anyone.
He took life with a grain of salt, every single day, with a friendly heart and that same kind smile. It was a trait not many could say they possessed.
And for some unexplainable reason, Bella stood in the kitchen long after he left, trying to remember but unable to recall the last time she'd seen Quil smile - that optimistic grin she was used to. The one before everything happened and their lives were turned upside down.
She hadn't seen that smile since Embry went away.
And as much as it killed her to admit it, another part of Bella regretted telling Quil to leave.
The same part of her that thought maybe if she would have allowed him to stay, she would have seen it...that smile.
That maybe a smile was exactly what they needed in their dark, suffocating house.
How maybe one day of it would have made a difference.
AN: This one sucked a little bit to write...
Thoughts?