Page 56

Bella

Eight Weeks Later

Paint drips from my brush, red bleeding into gold on the canvas before me—like blood seeping into rusted chains. Harsh strokes merge with delicate swirls, a violent dance of realism and raw emotion that leaves me trembling and hollow.

The crown jewels shatter across the canvas, each gemstone rendered with painstaking precision before dissolving into turbulent swirls of darkness. Gleaming golden chains wrap around roiling storms of crimson and obsidian—beautiful and suffocating all at once.

The loft that was once my haven has become both sanctuary and prison.

Canvases line the exposed brick walls, a twisted chronicle of my shattered dreams—violently abstract emotions encircling hyper-realistic objects.

A shattered wine glass. A wilting rose. Each piece is more frantic than the last, as if I could somehow paint my way back to wholeness.

"What do you think, Gran?" The familiar whisper slips past my lips before I can stop it, hanging in the silence like a ghost. I step back, regarding my latest piece—Ares's compass tattoo, the intricate design from the ink that once rested over his heart.

I've rendered it a thousand times now, every iteration more frantic than the last, as if I could somehow find my way back to him through paint alone.

This time, the precisely delineated compass is shattering, its delicate lines disintegrating and bleeding into a churning storm of deep crimson and burnished gold. Like his heart breaking. Like mine.

The emptiness echoes back, a hollow ache in my chest that never subsides. Gran's gentle wisdom, her soft caresses and understanding smiles—all faded into whispers of memory.

"You'd tell me we did the right thing, wouldn't you?" My voice cracks against the stale silence. "Sacrificing everything to protect the people we love. That's what matters most."

Isn't it?

If we made the noble choice, the righteous decision, then why does it feel like my soul is being slowly torn apart? Why do I wake up clutching empty sheets, fingers grasping for the ghost of his warmth, his solidness, the rhythmic thump of his heart against my cheek that used to lull me to sleep?

My phone buzzes angrily, notifications from the group chat lighting up the cracked screen.

Good news, all of it. Emma's bakery got a stellar health inspection.

Amanda's boutique is back in the suppliers' good graces.

The complaints against Brian's club have been dismissed, his liquor license fully reinstated.

We should be celebrating. This is what we bled and suffered for—their businesses thriving, their livelihoods secured. My friends, my chosen family, can finally draw a full breath again.

But all I can do is sink to the paint-splattered floor, trembling fingers smearing streaks of gold and crimson across the hardwood. The brush slips from my hand, clattering against the surface in a jarring staccato that echoes my fractured heartbeat.

"Why?" The anguished whisper burns my throat like shards of glass. "Why couldn't we have both? Love and safety? Freedom and family?"

Why did those things need to be mutually exclusive? Why was happiness always a zero-sum game in my life?

The crushing weight of loss drives me to my bedroom, to the one thing that still holds echoes of unconditional love.

Gran's steamer trunk sits in the corner, its weathered leather and brass fixtures a testament to memories preserved through decades of loss.

My hands shake as I trace the intricate patterns on the lid, remembering how many times I'd watched Gran open this trunk, each item inside carrying its own story, its own fragment of a life fully lived.

The brass catches are cool under my trembling fingers as I lift the heavy lid. Her scent—lavender—wafts up, wrapping around me like a ghostly embrace. For a moment, I can almost feel her hands smoothing my hair, hear her gentle laugh, see her knowing smile.

"I miss you so much, Gran," I whisper, my voice breaking on each syllable. The carefully folded wedding dress on top catches the fading light, its ivory lace telling stories of dreams and promises. With reverent hands, I lift it out, letting the fabric cascade over my lap like captured moonlight.

Standing, I hold the dress against me, studying my reflection in the full-length mirror.

The yellowed lace drapes elegantly, a stark contrast to my paint-splattered appearance and hollow eyes.

A sob catches in my throat as Gran's words echo in my memory: "Someday, Isabella, you'll wear white and marry for love, just like I did. "

"That's never going to happen now, is it?" I whisper to my reflection, watching tears track down my cheeks. "No white dress, no happy ending."

The dress pools at my feet as I sink to my knees, the truth settling over me like a shroud. "Maybe this is just my fate—to love people who can't stay. To build a life out of fragments and echoes instead of forevers."

The pull out the trunk's content. Let it spill out around me like physical manifestations of memory.

Faded photographs curl at the edges, their images capturing moments of joy frozen in time.

Letters tied with faded ribbon hold secrets and stories I know by heart.

The small wooden box where she kept her most precious keepsakes sits among the scattered treasures, its surface smooth from years of loving touches.

Each item tells a story, carrying an echo of her voice, her laugh, her unwavering love.

I pick up a photo—Gran and me in her kitchen, flour dusting our faces as we laugh over failed cookies.

Another weathered photograph slips from my grasp and falls face-down onto my lap.

My heart stops when I turn it over—Mom and Dad, caught in a moment of pure joy.

Dad's looking at Mom like she hung the moon and painted the stars, while she's mid-laugh, her head thrown back, red hair catching sunlight just like mine.

They're wrapped in each other's arms in front of the old house, so young, so in love, so alive.

My fingers trace their faces through the protective plastic, remembering how Dad used to look at Mom exactly like that, even after years of marriage. The same way Ares used to look at me, like I was his entire world condensed into flesh and bone and heartbeat.

"You would have loved him," I whisper to their frozen smiles. "Would have seen past his name, past everything, straight to his heart. Just like Gran did."

The ache in my chest expands until it's hard to breathe, a physical pain that radiates outward with each heartbeat.

I can't have them back—can't feel Mom's arms around me or hear Dad's laugh or watch their love story continue to unfold.

Just like I can't have Ares. All I have are memories, fragments of happiness preserved in photographs and heart-wounds that never quite heal.

"It's not fair," I choke out, pressing the photo to my chest like I can somehow absorb their love through the paper. "Why do I keep losing everyone I love?"

The silence echoes back, empty as the spaces they all left behind. Mom and Dad's sudden absence, Gran's passing, and now Ares—a different kind of loss but no less devastating. All I have are these frozen moments, these ghost-memories of love that slipped through my fingers like water.

The photograph trembles in my hands as tears blur my vision.

In the image, Mom's wearing the necklace Dad gave her on their first anniversary—a delicate rose gold chain she never took off.

Just like I wore Ares's compass necklace until his mother ripped it away.

The parallel makes me want to scream until my throat bleeds.

Instead, I carefully return the photo to the box, my tears falling onto the wood. Some loves you can only keep in memories, preserved like pressed flowers between pages of what might have been.

With blurred vision, I carefully return the dress to the trunk, smoothing the delicate fabric with trembling hands.

That's when something catches my eye—a leather-bound book wedged into the corner, half-hidden beneath an old shawl.

The spine is unmarked, unlike Gran's other diaries that sit in neat rows on my bookshelf.

My heart skips as I pull it free. Another diary? The cover is worn smooth, the pages slightly warped as if it had once gotten wet and dried.

"More stories for me, Gran?" A watery smile tugs at my lips as I clutch the book to my chest. Even now, she's finding ways to keep me company through the darkness. If only she were here now, to tell me how to piece my shattered heart back together one more time.

I add the book to the stack of diaries in the living room, my legs giving out beneath me as I sink to the floor.

The weight of everything—the memories, the loss, the crushing solitude—presses down on me until I can barely breathe.

I draw my knees to my chest, making myself small, as if I could somehow disappear into the floorboards.

The defiant ring of the doorbell shatters my reverie.

Like clockwork, three o'clock sharp. Friday's check-in.

Emma comes Mondays with fresh pastries and forced cheer.

Alisha or Amanda storms in on Wednesdays with takeout and righteous anger.

But Fridays and Sundays belong to Ethan—the closest thing to solace I've found in the endless maze of grief.

I don't bother calling out. Since he has a key, he'll come anyway, that steady, reassuring presence I've come to rely on more than I can admit. I press my fist against my mouth, trying to swallow back the sobs threatening to tear me apart. Just hold it together. Just for a minute more.