The Last Goodbye

**I STRONGLY RECOMMEND READING THE FEW PREVIOUS CHAPTERS TO REMEMBER WHAT'S GOING ON**

Chapter 30

Cameron

I stood outside of Bella’s door and rang the bell. I bought bags of candy and chocolate and even ice cream. I didn’t know what had happened between Jack and Bella but that’s what I was here for. Stella said Bella wouldn’t tell her anything and I knew that Stella was pretty upset about that. But I was also here to cheer Bella up. She seemed really sad today before I had cheered her up during lunch, and I wanted to know why. But I definitely knew Jack had something to do with it.

Bella opened the door and she smiled at the sight of me. “Hey Cameron.” Bella’s face looked so sad, no matter how big she tried to smile. I hated seeing her sad. I wanted to see her happy, not the opposite.

“Hey,” I said, “I bought a lot of sweet stuff…thought you might like some.” I smiled and held up the bags filled with candies, chocolates and ice cream.

Bella held the door open and said, “Come right in. I’ve been craving something sweet.”

I walked in and headed toward the living room. But then I saw that the furniture was covered with old blankets. Half the room was painted green but it was a darker shade of green mixed in with blue so I guess the walls were a shade of blue green or green blue…whichever it was. I’m not an expert on colors or anything, so I didn’t know.

Bella walked in and said, “My parents are redecorating the living room. I guess we could just go up to my room.”

I nodded and said, “Okay.”

We walked to her bedroom and I headed toward her bed and set everything down. Then I started taking everything out of the bags.

“You brought ice cream? Yes! I’ll go get bowls and spoons!”

I opened up a bag of Almond Joys which were Bella’s favorite and also a bag of mini- Hershey chocolate. Then I went to Bella’s movie shelf and picked out Beauty and the Beast.
Bella came back with spoons and bowls and saw the DVD for the movie. She made a face. “I’m really not in the mood to watch romance right now…”

“Okay…so what do you want to watch?”

“I think ABC Family is showing Harry Potter movies.”

“Sweet.” I walked towards her bed and sat down on it, cross-legged. I opened the Cookie Dough Ice Cream and put some on my bowl. Bella turned the TV on and put the channel for ABC Family on. Then she scooped up some ice cream from the Mint Chocolate Chip container.

“How come your parents are redecorating the living room? It looked fine before.”
Bella shrugged. “My mom saw a version of a living room in a magazine and the room had an ocean theme and the room was painted blue green and it was decorated with small sail boats and seashells and other fun sea stuff.”

“So your mom wants an ocean themed living room?” I asked, before I put my spoon of ice cream in my mouth.

“No, she just liked the colors in the living room.”

“So...only the walls are getting painted? That’s it?”

Bella shrugged again. “I don’t honestly know. You know my mom. She changes her mind so many times. For now, she just wants the walls painted and maybe put in some new decorations.”

“So like putting tons of sand on the floor?”

Bella laughed. She really laughed. I smiled because I had wanted to cheer her up.
“No, nothing like that. Well, at least I hope not…” Bella responded.

I chuckled. “Can you just imagine people walking into your living room and out of nowhere, there’s sand spread out all over the floor?”

“All we need is a huge body of water and boom….we’ll have a beach in my living room.”
“I don’t even have to drive to the beach to surf anymore! I surf right here!”

“And you won’t have to worry about sharks!” Bella said.

“Dude! We should totally turn your living room into a beach! Let’s call your mom right now and tell her to come back home with a hundred bags of sand!”

Bella started laughing. She clutched her belly and laughed. I laughed along.

“I think I’ll pass that offer,” she said, smiling.

“Yeah, I mean what if an earthquake occurs? There’ll be a tsunami in your house!”

“Oh man! I don’t want that to happen! Cameron, don’t you dare tell my mom about this idea!”

“For your sake, I won’t.”

“Good.”

Silence filled the space between us. We watched the movie and continued eating ice cream, without talking. The 4th Harry Potter movie was on and we were watching the part when Mad-Eye Moody turned Draco Malfoy into a ferret. That must’ve been fun; well for Mad- Eye Moody and Harry anyway. I can’t imagine how that could’ve been any fun for Malfoy, especially since he ends up getting inside the pants of Goyle, or maybe it was Crabbe? I always got those two mixed up.

Finally, I spoke. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Bella replied.

“What’s been going on with you?”

Bella looked at me and pretended to not know what I was talking about. “What do you mean?”

“Oh come on, Bella. I’ve known you since forever, and I can tell when you’re upset, sad, mad, grouchy, cranky, happy, and when you fake things. Like how you’re faking about not knowing what I’m talking about right now.”

Bella stared straight ahead at the TV, and popped a spoonful of ice cream and said, “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Fine, be that way.” I stared at the TV, not even paying attention to the movie and popped a spoonful of ice cream into my mouth. I didn’t know why but I started getting angry. Why the hell is Bella acting like this?

“No, you know what? It’s not fine. It is not fine at all. You looked horrible this morning and I mean horrible like you looked sad and your face was all sad and your eyes were red and puffy and then at lunch, you were all quiet and distant and then when you opened the door today, you looked sad. And I don’t like seeing you sad at all, Bella. So don’t you freaking act like nothing’s wrong because I know something’s wrong and just tell me what’s going on with you, or I’m going to go nuts, Bella!”

I basically shouted all this at her, without realizing. Bella was staring at me the whole time I was speaking and suddenly, she burst into tears.

“Shit,” I mumbled. She covered her face and cried into her hands.

“Oh god, Bella. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to shout at you. I-I-I just got angry because you weren’t telling Stella anything or me and we started getting worried about you and…well, I just hate seeing you sad. And I certainly don’t like you crying. So can you please stop?”
But she continued to cry. I wanted to hold her, but after everything that had happened between us, I told myself not to. I didn’t know if this is what Bella wanted but I decided just to get up and hand her a box of tissues.

She took tissue after tissue and hugged herself and cried. 2 minutes later, I gave in and wrapped my arms around her and held her. She didn’t push me away, so I hugged her closer.

“Shhh, Bells. Tell me what’s going on. It breaks my heart seeing you cry, you know that? I seriously hate tears flowing out of your eyes.” The crying still continued, but soon, it turned into a little bit of sobbing and finally she stopped.

She finally spoke. “Jack broke up with me.”

Well, how about that? I finally got my wish of them breaking up but it turns out to hurt and break the heart of the girl I love. Congratulations, Cameron.