Selena felt the wind knocked out of her lungs. A sudden, hollow sensation filled her stomach, a terrifying emptiness. It was as if a part of her had been irrevocably lost.
"He is gone so easily!" she mumbled with disbelief.
"He was a heavy drunkard," Bella reasoned. Who knows what ailments he was suffering from? He...never mentioned anything about his health issues."
Selena’s voice turned cold as she replied, "It’s good he is gone. We are finally free from his torture. We can...have a peaceful life." Despite her efforts to maintain a facade of indifference, she couldn’t stop her lower lip from trembling.
No matter how hard she tried to hide her pain, Bella could see everything. Her own heart ached with the loss, and she pulled her mother into a tight embrace.
"It’s okay, Mamma," she murmured. "You don’t have to pretend to be unaffected. I know it hurts, even if we hated him. Don’t suppress your pain. Let it go. He was still a family, no matter how he was."
Selena clung to her, finally allowing the tears she had held back to flow. The memories of the past swirled in her mind. She relived moments of Lionel’s contradictory nature—the man who had once been her savior, only to become her tormentor.
His help, his support, and even his care had all been tainted by the cruelty and accusations that had followed. Each memory stung, and the tears she shed were as much for the lost possibilities as for the pain he had inflicted.
Selena had never been able to call Lionel a good man, yet she couldn’t entirely dismiss the role he had played in her life. He had been there when no one else was when she had been left alone to raise Bella.
Perhaps, she mused bitterly, things could have turned out differently if she hadn’t fallen for the wrong man—the one who had abandoned her when she needed him most. Maybe, if she had accepted Lionel’s proposal instead of clinging to a love that had betrayed her, things between them might have been different.
One mistake had ruined her, plunging her into endless suffering. Now, with Lionel gone, Selena felt as though a Chapter had abruptly closed, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t truly over.
A part of her still expected him to burst through the door, to yell, to strike out as he always had. The reality of his absence felt surreal as if she were trapped in a dream she couldn’t wake from.
Bella felt her mother’s body shake as the years of suppressed pain and fear began to surface, the weight of Lionel’s death hit her harder than she could have anticipated.
"When are you keeping his funeral?" Selena asked, her voice devoid of emotion, as if discussing a mere formality.
"Tomorrow."
"Good," Selena responded, her tone chillingly detached. "We should give him a proper farewell."
As Bella nodded and pulled away from the embrace, she hesitated before broaching a subject that had long been buried. "I have something to ask you—about my real father."
Selena’s demeanor shifted instantly, her hand dismissing the topic with a casual wave. "What is there to talk about him? He is part of the past, and I’ve almost forgotten him."
Bella saw the walls her mother was trying to put up, and the refusal to delve into a painful history, but she was determined to break through. "But I want to know about him," she insisted. "I need to know what happened between you two. How did you end up with Lionel?"
Selena’s face hardened, her eyes betraying the reluctance to revisit those memories. The last thing she wanted was to dredge up memories of a man she had long since tried to forget.
"It’s an old story," she snapped with frustration. "I told you already that he died. I was pregnant, and there was no one to look after me. When Lionel proposed, I said yes."
Bella responded with a bitter smile, a mix of emotions swirling within her. She had heard this story countless times and had accepted it as the truth for years, never once questioning her mother about her birth father out of respect for the pain she assumed it would cause. But now, with the revelation that her father hadn’t died but had abandoned them, she wanted to know everything.
"I know." She nodded slowly. "But I want to know what you haven’t told me yet."
Selena squinted at the implications of her words. A flicker of unease crossed her face. Why was Bella suddenly so intent on uncovering the past? Had she somehow discovered the truth about her father?
Selena quickly dismissed that thought. ’No, no...this is not the case,’ she mumbled to herself. ’She is missing her father because of Lionel’s sudden demise.’
Selena had always been careful, never divulging much about that man. How could Bella know anything about him? Even though she comforted herself by thinking like that, she couldn’t stop her anxiety from rising.
"Why do you want to know about him?" Selena asked, trying to sound casual, but the edge in her voice betrayed her curiosity. "Did something happen recently?"
"It’s natural for me to want to know about my father," Bella replied calmly, though her heart pounded in her chest. "I never asked before because I didn’t want to cause you any pain. But..." She hesitated, gathering the courage to voice the truth that had been haunting her. "When I learned that he is still alive, I haven’t been able to sleep."
Selena froze, her breath catching in her throat. Waves of chills passed through her as if someone had poured a bucket full of ice over her. The color of her face drained off. Bella’s words hung in the air, heavy with implication.
The truth that she had worked so hard to bury, to shield Bella from, was resurfaced. It was a truth that only a few people knew. How did she find out about it?
The room felt suddenly colder, and Selena’s mind raced, scrambling for how to respond, and how to protect both herself and her daughter from the pain of the past.
"Who told you?" Selena’s voice quivered, her thoughts racing to Lionel and Mrs. Green—the only two who knew the full story.
"It doesn’t matter how I learned about it," Bella countered. "Why did you lie to me?"
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