Dear Belle

How Long?

~ Dedicated to Jessica. Jes you are so much more than you know ~

Belle

And so I sat.

Body hunched and in silence.

I cried. The sky just listened.

Few know just how empathetic the sky can be. For amidst my sorrow, the sky's tears started to fall, rolling down my face, mixing with my own,

camouflaged.

We mixed together the sky and I, so much so, that I became the sky and the sky became just a girl. We bonded...

I felt each tear drop fall and tumble down my skin, our skin...

Some fell gently, some creating a cold shock. But each one fell with a heaviness, a weight that only a heart that had been broken could recognise. We enjoy this moment, the sky and I.

But we knew it was to be a short moment, for reality was shouting my name, responsibility and necessity shoved at my back. So with the single wipe of a sleeve, we disappeared from each other, reluctantly rushing back to our own realities, no time for farewells, just as if we had never met.

But we did.

The dear old sky, and me.

"Belle?" a voice echoed hazily through the fog that shrouded my mind.

I said nothing, I couldnt. I couldn't believe..

"Belle" the voice says more adamantly this time, a grip locking on to my wrists.

I look up as things swim in and out of focus. Slowly things start appearing and I see a pair of big green eyes staring into mine, worry etched in them. I jump back, shocked.

It couldnt be? How did he get here, when did- I trail off, understanding dawning on me.

I was at the doctors, Mum couldnt take me because she was in court today. She was going to postpone it to come but I told her it wasn't necessary, besides it was a big case and she had spent the greater part of her week preparing. I wasn't going to bring her down because of me. Mrs Elliot had offered to take me instead, reassuring my mother that we'd be fine and that everything would be alright. We'd always been close with Mrs Elliot, I mean I practically lived there it was like my second home.

"Call me Ava" she had said.

Mrs Elliot, Ava...

His mum.

That was who was kneeling in front of the chair I sat in. It was her eyes I'd seen, not his. They looked so similar though. Those same shining, emerald green eyes, he had inherited from his mother.

His mother.

He wasn't here.

Of course he wasn't, my brain muttered.

"Kitten?" She uses my nickname, trying to coax something that resembled a sign of life out of me.

"I- I-, I'm fine" I stutter unconvincingly.

"It's alot to take in love, " she pauses warily, eyeing me before continuing worryiedly, "Are you okay?"

Am I okay?

No. No I am not okay. How can I be?

I have, I have a..

"We'll have to do some tests to really be sure, but at this point, noting all your symptoms and what we know from your history, I think its pretty reasonable to conclude that it's what we suspected." I hear a low male voice enunciate clearly.

My eyes snap up and I look between Ava's and the Doctor standing in front of us. She looks at me her eyes welling with tears and I feel wet drops on my face. It's only then that I realise I've been crying too. I breathe in and out trying to untie the knots in my stomach and the anxiety making my hands shake.

"How long?" I whisper with as much courage as I could.

The Doctor pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut, letting out a long sigh before looking back at me.

"Well, considering your history Belle it doesnt look good. There is a chance of course, you're still in reasonably good health and you're a fighter," he pauses with a small sad smile.

My heart plummets.

"How long?" I repeat, anger lacing my tone this time. I steel myself, putting my walls up around me to stop myself from crumbling on the outside. It's what I've always done, how I've coped. My body tense in protective defense, I stare at the blank wall in front of me.

"3 months" his sentence dies off.

The room temperature drops what feels like 20 degrees and I start shaking, all the while maintaining my tense position, holding my dead eyed gaze on the wall. I feel warm arms slip around my shaking frame and lift me up. I can't feel my legs, I feel like I'm floating. Someone murmurs soft reassurance in my ear and it's only from the smell of sugar and lemon and wood that I can tell it's Ava.

The world starts spinning and light appears everywhere making me whimper. I don't feel anything.

I am numb.

Faint voices echo in the background but my hearing has already gone.

I am floating.

My world goes black.