T E L E P A T H I C

meme | @empathreading

its a heavy question, though belle has thought about it a million times before. yes, belle parker has always thought about the things she would change. the girl had never been good at settling for what she had, there was always the nagging ‘what if’ in the back of her mind. what if she didnt write a book. what if she didnt go to college. what if taylor survived. what if she had never met mary. what if she had never killed rae. what if she had never dated brooks. what if she had been too late to save eldon. and of course, the one she comes back to the most: what if she hadnt caused her mother to die.

belle had grown accustomed to michelle, eventually learning to let the woman into her life. it felt strange, to let her in after hating her for so long, but perhaps what was stranger was how good it felt. to open up, to feel loved, to have a mother. yes, the questions of 'what if’ constantly sat in belles mind, but she never focused on them all that seriously. sure, she thought it out in detail, but once she had an answer that was it. she knew what if, even if it wasn’t entirely accurate.

but to hear eldon ask it aloud, it felt strange. perhaps it wasn’t the question that felt strange, but the context. this wasn’t a school night on their roof, it wasn’t two kids thinking about their futures. it was two adults, looking back on their pasts as they packed up belles hotel room. she gives a gentle shrug, looking up to eldon before zipping up one of her suitcases. “we can’t change what we are, what we’ve been through.” she looks up to him once more as she picks up the suitcase. “cant go back.” and with that she takes the suitcase out to the car, leaving them both a moment alone to ponder both the question and her answer. it was an avoidant answer, hardly an answer at all.

no more than a minute passes before belle returns, a small smile on her face. “plus, if things changed i might not be with you right now, and there’s no place i’d rather be.” but of course that’s not the full story. would she change her past if she could? in a heart beat. see, belle parker may have ended up successful, perhaps even happy, but it still didn’t feel good. the demons of her past were far from dead and the girl could only ride the wave of success for so long before she’d inevitably fall and drown. there are a million things she’d take back, so much she’d do differently. but she can’t. no one can. she said it herself.