And when she worked, humming those damn carols under her breath like the world hadn’t already taken enough from her too—it drove me half mad.Sunshine in a place built for shadows.Warmth in a house that had forgotten what it felt like.
That made it worse.So much worse.Because it meant I couldn’t hate her the way I wanted to.
I wanted to box her up with her father, shove her into the same corner of my mind where I kept all the bitterness and betrayal.But she didn’t fit there.She didn’t fit anywhere I could keep her safe from myself.
Instead, she was weaving herself into the cracks I’d spent years holding shut, light bleeding in where I’d sworn it never would again.
And damn me, I didn’t know what to do with that.
The next day, she showed up right on time, like she had a clock in her head set to ruin mine.Nine sharp, a knock at the door, and there she was when I cracked it open—bundled in an ugly Christmas sweater that looked like it had lost a fight with a box of ornaments.Red and green, glittery threads catching the morning light, little reindeer prancing across the front.She grinned like she thought it was the funniest thing in the world.
It was already grating on me.
“Morning, Mr.Archer,” she chirped, stepping inside before I could say no.Snow clung to her boots, her cheeks pink from the cold, and she looked like she belonged in some postcard of a small-town holiday festival, not here, not in my shadows.
I grunted.That was all she was going to get.
She didn’t seem to notice—or maybe she did and just didn’t care.As I hung back, she started in on small talk.The weather, the Christmas parade she’d passed on her way through town, how the bakery was already sold out of gingerbread.Her voice filled the house like sunlight slipping through shutters, bright and too much.
I answered when I had to—short, clipped words.A grunt for yes, a grunt for no.She just kept smiling, like she was determined to drag conversation out of me even if she had to do all the work herself.
At one point, she wandered toward the kitchen and glanced at the old stove.“Would you mind if I made some hot chocolate?”she asked, voice sweet as sugar.“I swear, I make the best kind.With cinnamon and whipped cream, you’ll never want plain coffee again.”
“No.”The word came out sharper than I meant, edged with a growl.
She didn’t flinch.“Oh, come on.You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“You’re not here to play house,” I said, crossing my arms, pinning her with a stare.“You’re here for the books.That’s it.”
For a second, I thought maybe that would shut her up, send her hurrying off.But instead she just smiled wider, soft and infuriating all at once.“Okay,” she said lightly, tilting her head.“Maybe next time, then.”
Next time.Like she was already planning to keep coming back.
Before I could muster another word, she turned on her heel and headed straight for the library, humming one of those carols under her breath again, the sound trailing after her like warmth bleeding into a cold room.
I stayed rooted in the hall, fists tight at my sides, teeth clenched hard enough to ache.She was supposed to regret this.She was supposed to run.
Instead, she walked right into my ghosts wearing a damn Christmas sweater and a smile.
And the worst part?Some tiny part of me almost believed her about the hot chocolate.
I leaned against the doorframe, watching her move through the house like she had a right to be here.Every step she took stirred something I’d buried years ago, memories I’d hoped the silence had strangled for good.
Her father’s laugh came first—loud, reckless, bouncing off the barracks walls in the desert heat.I could hear it clear as day, even over the hiss of the stove and the hum of her soft carol.Then came the fire, the roar of it tearing through night, the smell of burning that clung to my skin long after.And always, always, the betrayal.The way he chose himself, left me standing in the ash with nothing but scars.
And my wife—her face flashed before me too.The way she turned from me, eyes full of something I couldn’t bear to name.Disappointment?Pity?Maybe worse.Then she was gone, choosing him instead, leaving me hollow.That memory cut sharper than all the rest.
I tried to lay those ghosts over Belle, to make her an extension of them.Tried to see her as the sum of their choices, their mistakes, their cruelties.It would’ve been easier that way.Cleaner.If she carried his arrogance, her mother’s weakness—if she were just another shadow in their line, I could hate her without question.
But it didn’t fit.
She hummed as she worked, sunlight in her voice, unbothered by the dust, by me.No edge, no flinch.Just warmth.And somehow that warmth slipped under my armor in places the ghosts never could.
That mismatch gnawed at me.She didn’t belong here—this house was a mausoleum, not a home.Yet she moved through it as if she did, trailing light behind her like she was born to.
And I hated how much of me wanted to let her.
Inside, the rage curled hot and familiar, easier to hold onto than anything else.She didn’t know what this library meant.Not the years it had taken to build it, not the nights I bled into its pages just to keep breathing, not the ghosts I’d trapped between the spines so I didn’t have to carry them in my chest.She thought it was dust and paper, a puzzle to sort.She didn’t know me.She couldn’t.
