Knocking on Heaven's Door | 𝐒𝐀𝐌 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑

12 - ...WILL ALWAYS BE FOUND

Bell,

I'm sorry for leaving so many messages. I should've realized after the first two weeks of chatting with your voicemail box that you didn't want to talk to me anymore. I can take a hint though, I swear. I'll give you your space now.

If this is because I didn't go to that last doctor's appointment...I really am sorry. My family needed me. I had to be there.

I had a great time with you. If you ever change your mind, I'll be here. If you ever need me for anything, and I mean anything, then I'll be here.

Thanks for everything,

Sam.

'And I mean anything.'

Bellona knew what that meant. There were specks in the space between the letters, blood splatters from the pricks in Sam's mind where his thoughts had flown through his arm, into his finger and onto the page, only so he could try to cover them up with polite subtleties. A forensics degree could not have made the meaning behind this crime scene any more obvious.

'And I mean anything,' meant: 'And I mean if your cancer gets worse or if something happens to your mom and you need someone to carry that burden, I'll be here.'

And something was happening to her mom. And her cancer was getting worse. But Sam wouldn't be there. She wouldn't let him. She'd decided weeks ago, mere days after Susie had questioned her dating ethics, that she would leave before she let Sam pick so much as a pebble from her shoulders to place on his own.

The first crack was when he left to see his sister in the hospital. Their bond didn't fissure because she was upset, or because she donned any rancor at the fact that he'd chosen Millie over her. She'd wanted him to choose Millie. It simply had been easier for her to begin pulling away when he wasn't around to convince her not to.

His eyes alone would have convinced her not to, if he'd been there. All it would have taken was one look. He would have looked at her and seen her, seen the fragments of her past and her present that had been glued together to make a misshapen Bellona Wesson. He would have seen her jagged edges and warped center and he would have actually liked it.

The elementary act of standing near him made her feel known. And who, when faced with being known, would find the strength amidst their mosaic insides to leave it?

Not to mention, she didn't just have her own health to be concerned with. Her mother was getting worse. Much worse. The doctors had begun to share hints with Bellona about things like wills and funeral plans, while still funneling what medicine they could into Agnes. It didn't matter if every known medicine in the world was squeezed into her veins, though. She had a mere few weeks left, and the doctors still were not able to give her a diagnosis.

Bellona was starting to wonder if her mother's condition did have supernatural origins, after all.

By the time the third nurse asked Bellona if she had access to any after-life plans Agnes might have written, she'd already withdrawn from the upcoming Stanford Law semester. She was heading into her third year - the toughest, by far - and time with her mother was slipping through her fingers faster than she could grasp at it. She wouldn't spend another semester here when she wasn't sure if her mother would even be able to see it through alongside her. If she would even be able to finish it herself.

She'd never told Sam that. The reasons for her to leave were piling up - her mother, stacks of hospital bills, and increased testing on Bellona to see if they could chance a cure - and she couldn't justify staying for him.