PROLOGUE
The universe works in mysterious ways.
We’re told this every time something bad happens. Like it’s supposed to make us feel better. Like it’s supposed to give us hope that things will be OK. Like it’s supposed to just fix everything.
I didn’t believe in that statement.
If that statement were true, we’d never hurt. People wouldn’t suffer. They wouldn’t hit rock bottom. They wouldn’t drown. But they do. They hurt and they bleed. They stagger through each breath, wondering how in the hell they’re going to make it through the next day.
That was me. Broken. Struggling to breathe. Putting one foot in front of the other, trying to get through each day, wondering if it was ever going to get better. Not believing in the damned universe or anything else.
Pain.
It’s so real.
So incredibly real.
You know what’s worse? Heartbreak.
The soul-crushing, stomach twisting agony that comes with having your heart ripped out of your chest and stomped on.
I was heartbroken.
That’s when the statement finally came true and the universe stepped in. It stepped in, and it gave me him.
Out of the blue. Like it knew I was in my final moment. Like it knew I just couldn’t force myself to push through another day. Like it just knew it was finally time for me to learn how to breathe again.
I wasn’t alone.
He was broken too.
So incredibly broken.
It picked us and threw us together. It made our worlds collide. It blended us. It knew, even when we didn’t, that we would fix the broken pieces of each other. That we would stitch them back together, even if our hands were shaking, even if our bodies were tired, even if our hearts had given up.
It knew.
Even before we knew.
We needed each other.
CHAPTER 1
I blink.
Then blink again.
I stare down at the message on the phone, completely and utterly numb. There is no way, no way after everything we’ve been through together, that he actually just said those words to me. It can’t be right. He’s supposed to love me. He’s supposed to care. How can someone just turn their emotions off overnight? How can someone just stop loving you? Was I stupid? Was I that damned blind that I honestly didn’t see the writing on the wall?
My heart does an angry twist, and my stomach drops. Then there’s my skin: I hate the way it tingles as everything in my body seems to slowly but surely shut down. My vision blurs as I read the text message again and again. I’m sitting on the ground, knees to my chest, wondering what the hell is happening. I don’t understand. I just don’t.
M – Just keep positive. It’ll get better. You’ll have good and bad days. Be strong.
Keep positive?
Be strong?
He broke my heart, but I thought there was hope. I thought he needed just a few days. Just a few damned days. I didn’t think he meant it. Until those days passed by and he still hadn’t contacted me. I made the fatal mistake of sending him a message. How could I be so stupid as to believe he just needed space? What he needed was to move on. What he needed was to be with anyone else but me.
Did I do something wrong?
It hurts.
It hurts so fucking bad.
A strangled sob is ripped from my throat, and I hug my knees together to my chest, unable to breathe through the grappling pain taking hold of my chest, of my entire body. How could he do this to me? Why was I not enough? I don’t realise I’m wailing until the angry, broken sound is all I can hear in the quiet space of my apartment.
How could he?
What is wrong with me?
My body trembles, and I hug my knees so tight my chest feels like it’s going to collapse in. I don’t know how people survive this. I don’t know how they get through. How does anyone push past this ... this ... agony? I don’t think I’ll ever love anyone the way I loved him. He was everything to me. I believed in what we had. I believed in him.
I hiccup and start crying harder. Tears roll down my cheeks and run down my arms, but I do nothing to stop them. The intense pain in my chest expands until it feels like I can’t breathe through it. Until it feels like I’d sooner pass out than make it to my next breath. I drop my head into my knees and make a loud, keening sound. Crying like this, it’s hideous, and it sounds terrible, but I can’t stop the pained cries from slipping past my lips.
“Molly?”
I flinch at the sound of my sister’s voice. I lift my head and through blurred tears see her standing at the door, a brown paper bag in her hands. She drops the bag the second she sees me and comes running, dropping to her knees in front of me. She wraps her arms around me, and I can’t hold back. I cry with everything I am. I cry with everything that’s left. I cry with a broken, empty heart.
“It’s going to be okay,” Matilda soothes. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to get through.”
It won’t be okay.
She doesn’t understand.
I loved him.
“H-h-h-h-he ...”
“I know,” she soothes. “Shhh. It’s going to be okay.”
“I-I-I loved him.”
“Oh, honey.”
She holds me there, on the floor, until I stop crying.
Then she keeps holding me until my eyes stop burning.
She holds me until my heart goes numb.
I don’t think I’ll ever get past this.
~*~*~*~
TWO WEEKS LATER
I push myself to move down the sidewalk, my legs numb and heavy. I feel like a zombie, walking around aimlessly. I’m lost. I’m heartbroken. Michael broke my soul into a thousand pieces, and then just disappeared. Who does that? Who hurts someone so immensely and then just walks away as if they’ve done nothing wrong? As if they haven’t just taken someone’s heart in their hands and jerked it out of their chest? Like they haven’t taken someone’s very reason to breathe and just crushed it?
“Molly?”
I stop mid-stride and turn to see a man walking towards me. I know him, not well, but I’ve met him before through a mutual friend a couple of times. Roman. That’s his name, if I recall correctly. We’ve only ever had brief conversations, but he always seemed like a really nice guy. I’ve seen him a few times around town, and he always waves. As he nears, I study him and try to force a smile onto my face. It’s hard, because I could swear my knees are shaking from my internal struggle.