The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.

Loki awoke to the sound of Bella entering the bed room. It has been 2 weeks since his visit to Tony and though every time he looked at Bella he felt a pain of guilt nipping at his side, he pushed it away. Loki also heard from Tony every once in a while and listened to him bark about how what he was doing the wrong thing and needed to tell her the truth. The truth. The word was poison on Loki’s lips. Nothing good ever came from the truth in his mind. It only brought anger and sadness. Loki sat up and startled Bella.
“Oh, hey, I’m sorry did I wake you?” Loki shook his head.
“Not really, how was the show?” Bella rubbed her neck as she climbed into bed.
“It was alright, you know, just banging on the door of religion, sex, and my anger for turkey.” Loki smiled remembering how she expressed her anger for turkey. ‘
It’s everywhere! Turkey burger, turkey bologna, turkey bacon! Someone just needs to go up to turkey and say hey man…just be yourself.’
It was a found memory in Loki’s head. Loki did however always wondered however how she came to make fun of such subjects as religion. As far as he was aware most mortals found their religion to be personal and are often offended by those who question it.
“Bella?” Bella looked over at Loki, her head now rested on the pillow.
“Hum?” Loki turned on his side and rested his head in his hand as his elbow held him up.
“Do you have a religion?” Bella looked at him curiously.
“Why do you ask that?” Loki shrugged.
“You speak of it as foolishness so I just wonder.” Bella sighed.
“Well, no, not really.” Loki nodded and thought for a moment.
“Then what do you believe in?” Bella took the time to consider the question.
“I believe in a lot of things. I believe in these things because I can, not because I have to. I chose to believe them.”
Loki laid his head down on the pillow.
“Like what?” Bella took a deep breath. Loki always had such serious questions.
“I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.”
Loki rose an eyebrow at this.
“I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.” What in Valhalla is a drive in movie?

“I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.” A movie Loki would have to watch.

“I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman.” Ok a what?

“I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.” Loki was intrigued by her answers.

“I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. Loki smirked.
“I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” Bella from the cealing to Loki, signaling she was finished.
“That is a lot to believe.” Bella nodded.
“My dad used to have a saying, Lean into it.” Loki raised an eyebrow.
“Lean into what?” Bella smiled.
“It means that it doesn’t matter what’s going on around us, what matters is that we are there for it, whatever it is, good or bad.” Loki layed on his back.
“Your father sounds like a wise man.” Bella nodded.
“He was.” Loki looked at Bella.
“Was?” Bella nodded.
“He died.” Loki frowned.
“Im sorry.” Bella shook her head and sighed.
“Don’t be, my father was a was long before he died.” Loki did not understand her words and Looking at him, Bella seemed to see that.
“The last memory I have of my dad is him walking out the front door. I was sitting on the couch after dinner, my mom was a work. My dad casually came into the living room, kissed me on the head and said he was going to get us some ice cream, he walked out the door and never came back.” Loki’s frown grew deeper.
“I met a guy about 14 years later, not much older than me, we talked and became friends and it was so odd because he reminded me so much of my dad. Not a week later my mother informed me that dad had died and do you know what it said on his picture at the funeral? Dan Lovel, loving man who would be no where without the love and support of his adoring wife and son. It was that moment that it all sunk in, I didn’t exsist. I found out later that the guy I met was in fact my dads son, and he had no idea my mother or I exsisted until recently. I wanted to hate him, I wanted to so bad, but I couldn’t.” Loki whispered. “Why?” B
ella gave him a small sad smile. “Because he was my dad.”

Loki watched Bella eat brunch the next day, her words always got him thinking about his own actions.
“I love you.” He said suddenly.
“And I was curious if you love me as well.” Bella froze and was shocked by Loki’s sudden words.
Loki felt his heart pound in his chest. In the space between yes and no, there's a lifetime. It's the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it's the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; its the legroom for the lies you'll tell yourself in the future. Bella blinked.
“I don’t know.” Loki’s face remained emotionless. That wasn’t really the answer he was looking for.
“Listen Leon, its not that I don’t think I have fallen in love with you because, I really think I have, but Im worried. Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don't blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love", which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.” Loki looked slightly hurt.
“You think I will not love you forever?” Bella frowned.
“Its not just you Leon. I have been through this before, I married Ben because I was in love with him and that didn’t end so well.” Loki pushed himself off the counter he had been leaning on and moved to her.
“Im not Ben.” Im not Leon either. Bella gave a sad smile.
“But Im still Bella.

Notes