Page 3 of Raise Up, Heart
Emily says, “Are you feeling better? You’re so quiet.”
You sigh and shrug. “I’m okay.” You try to sound jovial. “Just a little wounded pride is all.”
Emily is unconvinced, and her fingers twine into your hair, taking the short strands into her fist.
Fistful, short, and soft. Cole’s soft sigh as you command him.
You shiver hard.
Emily puts the ice pack down and turns fully to you, carding both her hands through your hair, messing it.
“So strange,” she says softly.
“What?” you ask. Have you said it aloud? The memories that assault you as sensation—have they translated into words?
“Your hair,” she murmurs. “It’s…different.”
You attempt a chuckle, a shock of panic jolting you. “Different? I need a cut, if that’s what you mean.”
“No… it’s…” Emily shakes her head. “Never mind. It’s silly. It’s nothing. More than that,” she says cheerily. “It’s impossible.”
Your false smile fades even more. “Just tell me,” you say.
She shrugs, shakes her head a little, and scrunches up her face in an endearing way, and messes with your hair again. “It’s just coming in wavy is all, and kind of strawberry-gold? It sort of… looks like Damon’s.”
You swallow and nod. Somehow, this is what you are expecting.
You feel claustrophobicin your own skin, like it doesn’t belong to you. You fight the urge to claw at yourself, wanting to find a way out. You’ve never been so uncomfortable in your life, not even after the accident, not even when you thought you were dying and you couldn’t get a good breath. No, this is so much more intense than that, a wrongness that feels soul deep, and you have to escape this cage you’re trapped in, or…
Or you’ll die in it.
On other days, it’s quite the opposite. You feel like youarethe cage, and there’s a vicious animal trying to rip its way out. It starts as a pain in your chest. The doctors confirm, though, that your—no,Damon’s—heart is fine. There’s no sign of rejection, or inflammation, or fluid. There’s nothing to explain the pain you’re feeling. You see it in their eyes. It’s all in your head.
The pain consumes you. It moves to your stomach and radiates through to your back. It’s suffocating, like nothing you’ve ever felt before. Painkillers don’t even make a dent, though you pop them to deal with the emotions that you can’t handle. This is supposed to be your new life. You and Emily moving into a future so bright that it makes you squint.
But no—instead, you’re steadily losing it all.
There are days when time seems to expand and contract, and sometimes you find yourself missing hours. The men who play chess in the park know you now, and they call you “Sir Chess Master” as you pass by, but you can’t remember ever playing a single game with them. Hell, you barely even remember the rules.
The most terrifying moments are when you see Cole. You’ve started to hide in the bedroom when he comes to visit Emily at the house. They’ve become such good friends now, almost as close as she and Damon had been, and you can’t deny him the comfort he needs from her. But even his voice causes you so much pain that you sweat at the sound of it. The monster inside you becomes all claws and teeth, and if Cole cries—if they talk about Damon and you hear his voice break—then you have to tear into the pillow with your teeth to hold back the screams.
Emily is hurt. You see how she fights to be close to you, but you can’t bear to have her in the same room when you’re suffering. She can’t see this. She can’t know how you’re losing this battle, how you don’t even know how to begin to fight. Unless you plunge your hand inside and rip the heart from your chest, you know the monster will win.
It’s not like you haven’t considered doing just that.
Over time, the walls close in on you. You can’t escape what’s inside. You can’t get rid of the thing that’s killing you. Your hair changes color entirely. You find half-eaten sandwiches that you don’t remember making. Your feet shrink and flop around inside your shoes. You lose so much weight that you have to buy new clothes. You stop looking like you. Your jawline narrows. Your skin is changing hue.
There comes a day when you wake up and Damon’s eyes are peering back at you.
That is when you are no longer you, and you know that you can’t stop what’s happening. So you run, trying to go faster than wind, trying to outrun the heart enveloped in your skin.
CHAPTER 1
Raise Up, Heart
Hearts are messythings. Gory, even, Cole would say. They beat and they break and they get carved out of chests and handed over to other people—who take off with that precious gift and leave only a note. A crazy, wild note that makes everyone doubt not only their heart but their sanity.
Yes, Cole knows hearts. And for the most part, he doesn’t want anything to do with anyone’s but his own. He doesn’t like to think of himself as bitter, though. Mainly because he suspects that Damon would disapprove, and for some reason Cole still wants Damon’s approval. Not that Damon disapproved ofbitterness, per se; he seemed to embrace that well enough himself. But rather Cole knew deep down that Damon had loved him, at least in part, because he was not bitter, and Cole was loath to make himself unlovable to Damon even in his own memory.
