Hours ago.
Belle could not stay and stomach everything in the hall, not the brutal way of the killing or waiting to see the dead body of a girl she thought was her friend but had secretly wanted to kill her. She ran without looking back nor stopping, even when she tripped over the front hem of her dress.
The moment she got to her chamber, she slammed the door shut behind her and bolted it with the lock with shaky hands. She then pressed her back against it and slowly slid down the cold wood of the mahogany door. She was too shocked to feel anything. She wanted to cry for losing a friend she never had, but she couldn’t find the tears and was somewhat numb.
It was like every emotion inside her was locked in and wasn’t ready to come forth. How could she say all those things? How could Farrah be that cruel enough to want her dead when all she ever did was want something good for the girl?
Belle had even imagined on so many occasions that she would take the girl to Aragonia with her and let her have the chance of finding someone who would cherish her for her hopeless romantic ways of thinking...
But in the end, the girl was only pretending to be her friend and never truly cared about her. All those times she had allowed her to lay on her bed and tell her stories about the slave establishment and things Belle was ignorant about the night creatures, and all those times she had shared her meals with her when Rohan wasn’t around and even knit with her and a few others, were nothing but a lie.
How could she?
Belle had always showed kindness to others who had no one. She showed it to them because she never wanted anyone to feel left out and abandoned like she had once felt in her home. It was completely heartbreaking to be surrounded by many people and yet feel like you are adrift alone in the middle of the ocean.
As much as she had deluded herself for so long about her own family’s behavior towards her, she knew that they would never like her again like they did before, and sometimes she thought it always had something to do with her. Something was utterly wrong for everyone she met to hate her and want her gone, even though she had wanted to be liked...
’I have hated you since the first day I met you, Isabelle. I had to put up with serving an ugly woman with a hideous scar like you. Did you know how it felt like to be beautiful and yet be reduced to a slave?’
’I despise you, Isabelle! With everything in me, I wanted you dead and gone from Rohan’s life. I am more beautiful than you are, and I should be in your place. You are too innocent and too stupid for anyone to like, not to mention a vampire.’
Those words made her heart tighten to a knot so unbearable she wished she could erase everything from her mind and that she had never known the false persona the girl had put up.
She’d seen her sister in Farrah and thought Farrah was nothing like Eve, but it turned out she was not a better judge at characters like Rohan had said; they had many things in common.
Her sister had been a selfish little princess who got her way, and when she didn’t, she would manipulate her way towards it, and Belle knew that. But to live without depressing herself with hate in her heart, she made herself look at the good in the person rather than the bad. And no matter what and how selfish her sister had been, she never disliked her and still did everything in her power to make her happy.
She had contradicted everything Rohan thought about people because she believed everyone had good in them, but at this moment, where her mind kept playing the words Farrah had uttered with resentment, Belle swallowed the huge lump in her throat and accepted she was indeed naive and stupid.
She knew nothing about the world and people. She was nothing but a scarred-face, unattractive lady no other woman would want to befriend, and it hurt to see how much resentment was filled in the heart of someone as beautiful and innocent as Farrah.
Belle could not help but wonder what the girl envied about her to the point of wanting her dead when she had the beauty and the looks many men liked, except for her husband...
Rohan had never seemed affected by the good looks.
As if on time, she heard him knock on the door behind her. He turned the knob and called her name, but she made no move to open it. She wanted to be alone, though her heart said otherwise and longed to be held in the warmth of his arms and console. She blocked her mind from the knocks and the whispered voices of Rav and Rohan that followed.
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