Page 488 of Coal Hearts

And then...I passed out.

Chapter Twelve

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Henri

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SHE’D KILLED ME.

Stopped my heart and torn it bleeding from my chest.

Slaughtered me with mere words, then passed out and left me alone.

Alone to pick up my pieces.

Alone to realise those pieces were nothing more than ash and blood.

I stood transfixed as she sank into a deep sleep.

My mouth watered as salty droplets glistened on her cheeks. My torn-out heart pounded with so much goddamn pain.

Her name?

A curse.

The nickname she’d given me?

The antidote.

How could both cripple me so?

Why the fuck did a stupid nickname do such agonising things to me?

Hen?

It made me weak-kneed. Rock-hard. Trembling with the savage need to fall on her and kiss her stupid.

All over a ridiculous pet name.

I’d never had one of those.

No one had ever gotten close enough to shorten my already short name.

Her nickname would’ve shaken my world...if she hadn’t told me the origin of hers.

That knowledge tore into my chest with a thousand knives.

I honestly couldn’t function.

I had no idea how to survive knowing I said ‘I love you’ each time I called her Ily.

How did she keep doing this to me?

Rearranging the ground I stood on.

Tipping me over edge after edge until I lost sight of the sky and gave up fighting the fall.