Want and Wound

Bella had no idea the pain could be so loud, yet so silent inside the chest.

The self-control she had managed to keep throughout the day finally crumbled when she threw herself onto her bed.

Her body was racked with sobs, hard and fast, drenching the pillow. The same vicious thought kept racing through her brain, burning her chest and hurting her throat.

Dave had chosen Serena.

That was how it felt. Not logically—emotion was rarely logical—but viscerally. Instinctively. Like a wound that recognized itself.

Serena had always been there. Before Bella. During his absences. In the Palace. In his past. And worse—she hadn’t just been a friend. She had been a lover once. A fact that now felt like salt pressed deliberately into an open cut.

Only hours ago, Bella had woken wrapped in Dave’s arms, floating somewhere between dream and reality, heart full and foolishly certain. Now she felt hollowed out, scraped raw from the inside.

She cried until her eyes burned.

Her mother, Linda, knocked gent