The Lines Between Us | ✔

|.28.|

September 28th, 1:35 am,

Bella

The five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

I've been through the cycle five times in the past three days. 

The grief is overwhelming. The denial is major. At first, I didn't believe she was dead — I refused to believe it. Not my mom. It couldn't be. When the cycle had completed, I thought it was over. But it wasn't, and I went through it all over again.

And again.

And again.

I don't remember it being this hard when dad died. I never realized how hard it is to admit that you never had the chance to say goodbye. I can't even remember the last thing I said to her. Did she even know what was happening to me? Or did she die before it all?

The autopsy came back after they took her. Ash wouldn't let me hear it. Said 'you're already in enough pain.'

I never thanked him, just angry, screaming, and shouting at him. Now I'm grateful. I have some sort of closure.

Mom and I were never close. We used to be — before dad died. But, ever since then, it wasn't the same. I never thought about what it would be like when she died. Now, my soul feels like it has been ripped apart, slowly being torn away, bit by bit. I don't even know if I'm crying for her. Maybe I'm crying for myself, sad that I don't have those people in my life anymore. Though we didn't get along, it doesn't make the hurt any less painful.

Whilst the grief passes through me, I use it as fuel. A fuel to get me through the day, to make me feel better. To take away the pain.

With the fuel, though, comes anger. And then I enter the second stage of grief.

I have to say that anger is the worst part of it all. That, mixed with the rest, is the worst feeling I've ever felt. The worst. I never got to see my dad after, the killer took him. But after seeing my mom like that. . . it broke me wholly.

I haven't counted the mass of things I broke, but there was a lot of glass.

To try and free me from my own wrath, I drank, and drank, and drank until I couldn't feel anymore. Ash never tried to stop me, he knew it was the only thing keeping me alive. 

I've seen the way he looks at me from across the room. The faint smile, and a deep sigh of regret. The look of sorrow.

I see how he frowns every time he looks at my thinning skin, my purple under eyes. I see it all. He doesn't think I notice. Thinks I'm too out of it to see. But I see it myself, too. The lacking ability to eat. To have to force food down my throat.

Josh didn't even stay to say goodbye. He left as soon as the police arrived. And then I entered the bargaining stage. I begged him to stay with me. He was feeling just as much pain as me.

I saw the pain in his eyes when he told me how much he hated the town. My mom was more of a mom to him than me. All the pain he received when he came here — well, I don't even know how he managed.

I was dragged off to the police station by Ash as soon as my mom was taken. I haven't seen her since.

I just wanted to hug her. Just one last time. 

To get that closure.

The letter said that they are sorry. For what? Taking away the only thing I had left? Or was it that they left her there for me to find? Sick. It didn't bring me closure.

That's the whole point. Not finding out who did it.

Then we travel into the fourth stage. Depression.