Tristan:
I had always known Stella was strong. Not the kind of strength that made a scene, but the quiet, unrelenting kind—the kind that picked up broken pieces without complaint - that carried burdens too heavy for one person without asking for help. And yet, tonight, she had crumbled right in front of me.
A part of me wanted to shake her and tell her she didn’t have to carry everything alone. That she didn’t have to pretend to be okay when she wasn’t. But another part of me knew that was who she was. She wasn’t used to someone catching her before she fell.
I had known she was hurt before, but nothing could’ve prepared me for what she told me earlier about her mother. The neglect. The pain. The fact that she had been taken advantage of while the one person who was supposed to protect h
