She had Bella’s eyes.
“Yes?” she asked, polite but cautious. Clearly not recognizing me after all these years.
My voice came out rougher and more uncertain than I’d intended. “Hi, Mrs. Martinez. I’m not sure if you remember me.”
“I’m Chris Morrison. I’m looking for Bella. Does she still live here?”
I couldn’t quite figure out how to finish that sentence properly.
Her expression shifted dramatically. Surprise melting into something more complex.
Recognition. Confusion. Maybe a hint of disapproval, though I might have been imagining that.
“Christopher,” she said slowly. “It’s been a very long time indeed.”
“Yes, ma’am. I know. I’m sorry to show up like this without calling first.”
“I just need to see Bella. If she’s here. If she’s willing to see me.”
Mrs. Martinez stared at me for what felt like a very long time. I could see her trying to decide what to do with this unexpected situation.
Finally, she stepped aside. “She’s here. Come in.”
My heart was pounding so violently I thought I might actually pass out.
The Reunion I’d Been Avoiding
Bella walked into the hallway from what I remembered as the kitchen. Drying her hands on a dish towel.
She looked up. For several seconds that stretched into what felt like hours, neither of us moved.
Neither of us spoke or even seemed to breathe.
Time did something strange and elastic in that moment.
She had changed, obviously. She was thirty-two now, not eighteen.
Her hair was shorter, falling to her shoulders instead of halfway down her back the way it had in high school.
She was wearing jeans and a paint-stained sweater. It suggested she’d been working on something artistic.
There were fine lines near her eyes that hadn’t been there before. Evidence of years of smiling and living and experiencing things I knew nothing about.
But it was unmistakably, fundamentally her. The same Bella I’d fallen in love with at thirteen.
Just refined and matured and even more beautiful for the evidence of time and experience.
“Chris?” she said quietly, almost like a question. Like she wasn’t entirely sure I was real.
“Is that really you?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. It was the only thing that made any sense.
The only thing that felt remotely adequate. “I should have come back years ago. I should have come back right away.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She set the dish towel down slowly on a small table in the hallway. Her eyes never leaving my face.
Like she was afraid I might disappear if she looked away.
“You read it,” she said.
It wasn’t a question. She knew.
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