Page 43 of Hollowed

Not the ledger.

His.

Worn leather. No markings.

He brought it to me and dropped it at my knees.

“Read it,” he said.

I opened it.

The pages were filled with small, slanted script. Not neat. Not sacred.

Personal.

It was rage and longing and fragments of prayer so broken I couldn’t tell where the sin ended and the want began.

He never used names.

Only one word repeated, over and over, across nearly every page:

Her.

And then I found it.

A passage so sharp it cut just to read:

If I were capable of love, it would have been her.

I didn’t cry.

I closed the book.

Looked up at him.

“You are.”

His chest rose.

Once. Shallow.

He knelt in front of me.

Took the book from my lap.

Set it aside.

His hands came to my waist.

And this time when he pulled me into his lap, it wasn’t to fuck me.

It was to hold me like the only thing he still believed in.

His mouth pressed to my shoulder.

And he whispered:

“I was never meant to survive you.”

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