Chapter 131

I take the liberty of crouching to light one of the corners of the papers that's the nearest. I watch what's left of my mother's smiling face be burned away and beneath hers, it reveals Anna again. My hand goes to clasp over my mouth. No sob will breach my lips. Not if I don't allow it. Liam draws me to him as we watch the papers burn. Fire seems to have become familiar over the past few weeks — with Liam's home alight by the Purgatory, Tate's body, and now this. It's the only thought I had when I couldn't bear gazing at those paintings and drawings. I don't care if they're all gone. Beckett, a long with many aspects of my life, has tainted them. Those people and places are gone now; put to rest. I have to let it be. No more blaming myself, no more nights spent questioning what would have happened if I knew what I know now, and no more letting traumatic events in my life hold me back. My future will be different. That fire is rebirth.