With Love...

23 days, 5 hours, and 42 minutes

BELLE

I've been home for precisely 23 days, 5 hours, and 42 minutes and I haven't seen Theo once since I've been here. Granted, I don't leave the property (because I'm not allowed) and I also have only checked outside a few times a day. Regardless, I haven't seen him at all. This is strange because I see Mia more than enough. She prances around the yard and I can see her singing to herself. She reminds me of myself.

Bep won't let me leave. That was Haley's first and foremost rule. I am not allowed to leave the property once I'm on it. Which is probably the most annoying thing Haley has ever done since the day I met the crazy woman. She says it's for my own safety. That I don't need to compromise myself or my family. I guess she's right.

Theodore could come here though. I know it. He knows it. Haley even said she'd allow it, but, of course, we are not to be seen in public together. As far as the world knows, I am hopelessly in love with Nolan Grahm. That statement could not be farther from the truth.

I lay flat on my back on the old ratty couch that sits in my old living room. Kody plops himself down on the floor next to me. It's still just as comfortable as I remember it being. The quilted blanket my mother made over a decade ago is still draped across the back. The same one my dad uses every single night he comes home from work to sit down in his chair and watch the nightly news.

"Do you want some pie, honey?" I hear my mother call from the kitchen. "You've been moping around since you got here. I'm sure it can help."

"I'm okay, mom," I reply lazily. Pie can't fix this. Although it might help my mood a little bit.

I hear her shuffle into the room. Her hair is thrown into the same messy bun that she always wears and her glasses are perched on her head. Her face is drawn up in confusion and she moves towards the couch to sit on the edge.

"What's wrong, sugarplum?"

"I haven't seen him once," I say simply, still staring up at the ceiling.

She sighs and begins to comb her fingers through my hair. "You can't expect him to come running here. He's hurt, most likely. Why don't you go to him?"

I sit up and look at her dead in the eye. "And what if he doesn't speak to me?"

She smiles and hold my hands in hers, looking down at them. She looks back up at me. "If you both looked at each other the way you described, there's so much you both want to say. I don't think talking will be the issue."

I nod. She's right. Talking won't be the issue.

The issue is letting myself go over there.

THEO

"I'll get it," I call to my mom who is busy trying to put Mia's hair into matching French braids. She has been begging her for days and days and she finally caved. She always caves when it comes to Mia. To be fair, so do I.

I pull open the creaky old door and a wave of heart barrels in. I look up and I see her, standing there, just like she used to almost every day for ten years. Her hair is back to it's wavy state and frizzy from the humidity. She always loved the humidity. Her eyes look bigger, more innocent.

For once, in a long time, her face is completely bare from any kind of makeup. She was always naturally pretty. There were so many girls we knew that envied her over it. She would never wear makeup before she was famous. Then again, there was a lot of things she never did before she was famous.

Her mouth hangs open as she takes in my appearance, scanning me carefully. I do the same. Head to toe. She's wearing cutoff jean shorts that are very short. The kind she wore the last day I saw her. Her short sleeve shirt is lose and almost completely covers her shorts. I glance over her neck and see the necklace. The one I gave her when she turned ten. The one that I promised her, well, everything.