Her sobs grew, crescendoing to hysterical levels.
"Bella! Bella, shh. It's okay. I'm here."
I would do anything, be anyone, upend entire mountains - for this beautiful, sweet girl.
"For now. You're going to leave again." The words were blubbered mush, hiccuped and stuttered through.
My lifeless heart was in a vice, clenched to submission over what my actions had wrought upon her.
The reality of what I had enacted: my bare ugly selfishness, her abject despair, our combined destitution. It all congealed into a gob in my throat I couldn't swallow.
Could I ever undo this?