Part Three

Perhaps my last remark to her was a little ill judged, but I don’t think it justified her walking off without a word. Apparently she hasn’t grown a heart, anymore than I’ve grown a brain. We make the perfect couple.

Where did that come from? I hate couples, especially Salem’s newest: Cynthia and Brady. She’s hanging around his neck while he’s picking out lingerie. I don’t want to know anymore. Correction, I don’t want to know at all.

Why does love always come back and bite you in the ass? There isn’t a single woman I have ever seen who I believe when she says, ‘I love you’. At least not for three years. Before then, I believed Belle.

Cyn and Brady are already having one of those deep and meaningful moments that you’re meant to treasure forever as being a baby step on the path to true love. I cough, deliberately, reminding Cynthia just who she was supposed to be with at that precise moment. I may be a fool, but I’m not willing to let anyone else get hurt by a beautiful Black (even I can see, or rather my mother has told me a thousand times, that Brady is as beautiful for a guy as Belle is for a goddess).

Cynthia twists around to stare at me. She sighs in exasperation. "Shawn, if you don’t follow Belle back to wherever the Hell it is she’s gone-"

Brady flicks me a set of keys, clearly keen to be rid of me, "- the penthouse suite of the Salem Inn -"

"then I will kick your ass until next Valentine’s Day," Cyn continues not missing a beat. She doesn’t half make me laugh when she does that, only now I’m too busy running after Belle, and her little blonde daughter.

I talk meaningless words. I admit it freely. I need to know what happened to Belle, why she left and came back so suddenly, why her heart disappeared along with her memory, and most of all, why she stopped loving me when I have never been able to stop loving her.

I did not just admit that I still loved Belle Black, did I? Oh, just kill me now. I don’t want to do that again. I don’t think I can do that again. She took everything last time. I’m a mere shell of what I used to be. A shell of a Shelle, even. I’m nothing without her. Or rather, I’m something, but I don’t like that something. Nodding my head to the newly loving couple, I fly past them.

Belle. Belle. Belle. Belle…

It’s all I can think of. She’s all I can think of. Being without her is like being without oxygen - your brain gets fried and you go crazy, right before you die, gasping for air. Not poetic, but poetry requires passion, and all my passion is for her, not the images she left behind her.

Have I mentioned she’s more beautiful now than ever? It’s almost sickening, but while I’ve starved myself - emotionally if not physically speaking - she’s blossomed. She’s more lovely than I remembered, and I remembered perfectly. Motherhood agrees with her. I always knew it would do, but I had always hoped she would be the mother of my child, not some random stranger’s.

That probably isn’t fair. He was probably a very nice man. I can’t imagine even this new, ice princess version of my Belle being with anyone who wasn’t nice. Yet… I still want to kill him for touching her, for holding her, and, yes, for taking her away from me. It had to be him. I can’t imagine why else she would have left me. Well, I can, but I don’t like it one little bit.

Those three years ago, an eternity to me, I had a box of chocolates with a Claddagh promise ring hidden in the centre of the heart. I never got to give it to her. I never told anyone that the ring was to symbolise more than just our love. If she accepted it, I would have asked her to be my bride today. We would have stayed together, happy and in love, and today she would have changed from being my girlfriend to my fiancée, and in another year, from my fiancée to my wife. I had thought that far ahead when I was nineteen because I loved her so.

My heart was a hot thing then, full of a delicate, strident passion for a girl I had known since childhood. Now the place where it was is bitter, twisted and full of a coarse, fierce grief for what she stole from me. I want it back. Now I don’t care if she really doesn’t love me. I don’t think I could love her now the way I did then, but even if I could, I’m not sure I want to. I know I want back my heart, dissolved or solid.

Then there’s the kid, blonde hair, blue eyes, the living image of her mother. I owe her nothing but a lifetime of pain, because I have accepted that the world without my old Belle in it is a world without love, passion, joy or satisfaction. I won’t stop my life - that’s cowardly, and worse, it will mean she has won over my pride - but I will die feeling this way. I owe the kid something for that at least.

Now I’m standing outside of my Belle’s hotel suite door, except she really isn’t my Belle anymore, and though I’ve longed for many a cold, lonely night in my single bed that was always made for two to hold her in my arms once more, to smell her hair, touch her skin, make her smile, watch her twist her hair around her finger, for Venus’s sake, I will never possess her the way I once did. Our time is over, and, as if my wife had died, my grieving life as a widower has begun, only I did not bury my heart, merely gave it to a girl who melted it into an irretrievable puddle on the floor.

I knock, but she does not answer, so I slip inside. The smaller blonde rushes up to me once more, this time gripping me around the knee, and my missing heart thunders a little. I had forgotten what it is to feel the loving affection of a child without deceit or dishonour. Ridiculous, but I love this girl almost as much as I once loved her mother, both beautiful in their own right.

"Mary-Jade," Belle’s voice is as cool as the blue of her eyes. She is glacial, an iceberg about to sink my ocean liner. "Come here."

Have I mentioned that she really is more gorgeous than three years ago? Perhaps it’s my memory playing tricks on me, but I swear to Venus that my heart raced only half as fast as that double circulatory organ in my chest is doing now when I used to see her. It’s more than that though. More than mere desire, mere want, it’s a burning of my soul for it’s mate. I should have known that we could never be parted forever.

"Shawn, what are you doing here?" Apparently no one bothered to tell Belle that though.

"I came to watch the playoffs, what do you think?" I don’t meant to be sarcastic, but she’s staring at me like I’ve got two heads and I can’t resist. If I had a heart anymore, I’d hate her at this moment. All I’ve got is a hole, though, and I don’t know if it’s in my chest or my head.

"Shawn," she is still cold, and that voice is nothing like the one she used to talk to me in.

"Belle," I counter. "Heart?"

This is unbelievably stupid of me. I’ve just offered her one of those accursed conversation hearts Cynthia handed to me this morning. I don’t know where she got them, but it’s not until Belle’s taken one that I realise it said ‘Welcome Back, Baby’.

"It’s not working," Bart moaned softly, feeling around for another spatula. "I can’t spatula her, because she hasn’t got a heart."

"Of course she has a heart!" Rolf barked impatiently. "Don’t be preposterous. Now give me the textbook."

Handing over the massive green book, Bart sighed. "I don’t know why you bother with that."

"Here we are," Rolf muttered, ignoring him. "‘Heartless women: see Chloe Lane.’"

"And we all know what happened to her," Bart muttered under his breath. More loudly, he asked, "Are you sure that it’s not the kid we’re trying to set up?"

"How many times do I have to tell you, Bart," Rolf shook the book and the pink fluffy spatula in the air in exasperation. "It’s Shawn Brady and Belle Black that we’re working on, not their child!"

Bart thought this over for a minute. "Their child?"

"I didn’t say that," Rolf quickly backtracked.

"You’re a liar, Rolfie," Bart sniggered. "Either that, or your halo just fell into a tar pit. It’s completely black."

Rolf put up his hand and grabbed the once golden disc. "Curses on you, Bart. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get this thing to shine properly?"

"Two days, fourteen hours and thirty six minutes of pure goodness," Bart grinned. "And you can’t even manage half of that."

"Can too!"

"Can not!"

"Can too!" Rolf cut in Bart’s next words, "I’ll bet you that I can be completely good for the full two days, fourteen hours and thirty six minutes while we’re putting Shelle back together, and what’s more, I’ll make Stefano reform at the same time."

"I think we need to call the bank, cause there ain’t no way you’re going to win this bet without an overdraft!" The winged man poked his companion in the ribs. "How much is this bet for anyway?"

"Not money," Rolf said quickly, "When I win, you have to say ‘Rolf, you are the greatest genius who ever lived, and I am nothing but a lowly worm, beneath your contempt.’"

"Is that all?"

"And brush my wings for the next three months."

Bart snickered. "Too easy. What about when I win?"

"You won’t," Rolf said confidently.

"But if I do, you have to give me a unique conversation heart, and help me find a lady friend - not Hattie," Bart thought for a moment, "how about that English chick…"

Rolf stared. "How could you possibly tell she’s English? No one in Salem has the right accent."

"She sounds Welsh." Bart sighed happily.

Rolf nodded wisely. "Definitely English. It’s a bet. Now where’s that golden spatula gone?"

Bart looked around and then said slowly, "The one with the white feather duster attached to the other end?"

"Yes, of course!" Rolf barked. "You know where it is?"

Bart scratched his chin and pointed. "The kid’s got it, and she’s aiming it straight at Shawn…"

"Oh for the love of Venus!" Rolf exclaimed.

"I thought that was what got us into this job in the first place?" Bart and Rolf watched in impotence as Mary-Jade threw the spatula / feather duster of Love straight at Shawn’s heart, Belle and her target too involved in staring at each other coldly to realise what she was doing. It disappeared into his chest with a chiming of bells, and Bart laughed. "That kid’s aim is better than yours, Rolfski."

"Shut up, you moron, and grab the kid before she eats that conversation heart laced with Sami powder," Rolf yelled as Mary-Jade bent down to pick up the small candy from the floor.

"Sami powder?" Bart asked curiously, taking the candy from the baby with surprising difficulty.

"Guaranteed to make anyone scheme themselves into their sister’s marriage and get pregnant with their brother-in-law’s brother’s kid while not actually wearing enough clothes to cover someone half their size." Rolf groaned as the candy flew out of Bart’s hand and out of the window into the mouth of an unsuspecting Salemite below. "The only antidote is true love."

"Where’d it go?" came Bart’s desperate cry.

"Out the window!" Rolf yelled, running to it, completely forgetting his wings. Looking down, with Bart as his side, they saw the crowd beneath the window. They had gathered around a figure who was stripping half of their clothes off in the cool winter air while searching desperately around for a glimpse of her half sister’s husband.

"Good grief," Rolf whispered. "I don’t believe it."

"I know," Bart added in a soft voice, "who knew that she had such great legs?"

"Here comes trouble," Rolf groaned as Austin ran up the street. "Does he actually have enough of a brain to realise that she’s not Sami, though she’s acting like her?"

"He doesn’t have enough of a brain to realise that Sami’s Sami, let alone anyone else." Bart pulled out another spatula. "There’s only one thing for it. Greta needs a real man, and he’s going to be…"

He threw the spatula straight at the stunned Greta’s heart, then watched as she looked up at the window. "Me."

"You idiot!" Rolf screamed. "She can’t see you! All she sees is…"

"Shawn Douglas Brady get out!" Belle’s voice was icy cold, there was no contained fury, but I knew to obey.

Don’t ever mess with women when they start screaming like that, is my life philosophy. Unfortunately, it’s got me hanging off the side of the balcony by my fingertips. I took the fastest way out of the room, and guess which was closer: the window, or the door? I think I lose this round. I’m just hoping someone’s going to catch me at the end of this.

Have I mentioned lately that love sucks?

I start praying to Venus, but unless there are a pair of angels around here somewhere, I’m about to become a single young pancake on the ground. This is pre-emptive, but: "Belle, if I live through this, you’re going to owe me so much that we’re getting married!"

I let go and here comes the ground. Not to mention the pain. Something’s just hit me in the chest, and just before I hit the pavement, I realise it’s an egg whisk, pink, fluffy and with little hearts painted on it.

Who knew that when you fell off a balcony you don’t see little birds but flying cooking utensils? I just hope death has nothing to do with Valentine’s Day, otherwise I want a return ticket. This sucks. Ow.