❝ put my guns in the ground.
i can't shoot them anymore.
that cold black cloud is comin' down,
feels like i'm knockin' on heaven's door ❞
― 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧' 𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧'𝐬 𝐝𝐨𝐨𝐫, 𝐆𝐔𝐍𝐒 𝐍' 𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐒
supernatu...
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Every year at the start of the same month, Bellona adored the arrival of fall. It was like watching a movie just to relive your favorite part: there's the familiar but brittle beginning, the lively middle, and then the climax: fall. The protagonist finds the strength to push through whatever struggle the screenwriters deemed them worthy of, and they go home to their fateful happy ending.
She hated it this year. The season didn't inject any sort of preternatural strength in her veins as it usually did. She wished it had, because maybe then she wouldn't be dreading her fate - the one carved in stone specifically for her at her life's impending resolution. Or maybe it was because of the cancer that she couldn't muster anticipation for the season's first brisk air. The chicken and egg discourse often entered her mind in moments like these, plucking at the threads of her inner tempest until they grew strained, because when in matters of theory was it possible to discern the true cause from the effect? The attempt only proved to drive one mad.
She supposed the same was true for those lucky enough to experience love. Did a human love someone for who they were, their sleight-of-hand beauty tricking them into loving even the ugliest of their inner truths? Truths that were much more alluring for the way they had remained camouflaged for so long? Or did the loved learn to fill in the gaps of their being simply because they learned to cherish the lover?
This discovery was one that was individualized based on experience, and the fact that she might experience it was a hope that found itself nestled in the innermost places of her heart. But, again: there was cancer. Cancer would take that chance from her, too. It seemed to be the mantra of her very life at this point.
"Hey, Bell."
Bellona had been so engrossed in the paperwork on her desk, and so distracted by a headache that plagued her, that she hadn't noticed Sam approaching her. Which, in hindsight, might have been a sign that a receptionist position wasn't the best assignment Mrs. Darrow had given her.
"'Oh, sorry," the apology slipped from her lips like a practiced preface, habitual even if no sense of fault bloodied her hands.
Sam frowned and cocked his head to one side, causing clumps of his hair to brush across his forehead. "Sorry?"
Bellona shook her head. "Just forget I said that, I'm sor...uh, nothing. Can I help you?"
"Well, I hope so." Sam's head was still tilted, but no longer in confusion. It harmonized with his fluid posture: his hands gripping the edge of the counter nearest Bellona, his shoulders slumped in the sort of inherent ease she'd learned was synonymous with him. The thought that she'd had months to become so familiar with him made her chest swell.
So did the casualness with which he said, "I was hoping to take you to dinner tonight." A momentary pause ensued, and then he rushed to add, "I know you're a working woman and everything-"
Bellona laughed, cutting him off. It was the sort of giggle that Sam always said reminded him of children, running through a field to find easter eggs or waking up to a pile of presents on Christmas day.
