I pushed open the back door and headed to Bell. My eyes scanned the surrounding beach and the trees that lined the shoreline. I hated how exposed she was, that anyone could’ve snuck up on her. I didn’t care how angry she was at her parents, it didn’t mean she could take risks with her safety.

My back teeth ground together in a steady rhythm as I got closer to Bell. I eased down next to her on the log, not trusting myself to speak yet. She didn’t even look at me, just kept staring out at the sea. I could feel a mix of energies coming off her in waves: pain, confusion, longing. I wrapped an arm around her, drawing her close. The twinge in my ribs barely registered now.

“How was the mainland?”

The question was so normal, so evenly stated, I almost laughed. “Is that really what you’re going with?”

Bell gave a little shrug and kept right on watching the crashing waves. “What did you want me to say?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe, ‘my mom is a crazy bitch, and I’m really hurting right now.’”

Bell was silent for a moment. “Saying it out loud doesn’t change anything.”

I sighed, rubbing a hand up and down her back. “It might not change anything, but naming it can take away some of the power.” Her eyes flicked up to mine for a brief moment before returning to the water. “I had a long talk with Vi at her grave after I got here. It didn’t change the fact that she was gone, but naming that guilt, saying out loud all the ways I’d fucked up…it took away some of the power the guilt had over me.”

Bell’s body melted into mine at my words, that release, the fact that she was leaning against me, it eased something in me. “I’m glad that helped, Ford.”

“But you don’t want to talk about your parents.” My heart broke for her, and I had the sudden urge to shake her mom and dad until they woke up and realized the damage they were doing to the one daughter they had left.

Bell toyed with a string that had come loose on her denim shorts, twisting it around her finger. “She’ll never understand me. She doesn’t want to. She just wants to hold onto her anger, because if she holds onto that rage, she doesn’t have to feel the hurt.” My heart cracked a little further, for Heather Kipton too, a woman who simply wasn’t equipped to handle this kind of loss.