A Thousand Broken Pieces by Cole Tillie

Author:Cole, Tillie [Cole, Tillie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Young Adult, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781405962964
Amazon: B0CDRCRXCF
Goodreads: 177660343
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2024-07-23T07:00:00+00:00

Broken Hearts and Fractured Memories

Savannah

CAEL’S LARGE, STRONG BODY TREMBLED IN MY ARMS. I PRAYED THAT I WAS enough to comfort him, to hold him through this moment. I cried too. I cried as I replayed what he had told me. I cried for Cillian, and I cried for Cael.

He’d seen it.

He’d found him.

He’d cradled his older brother in his arms … I could only imagine the trauma that had left within him. The scars that must have seared onto his broken heart. I rocked him back and forth and couldn’t help but be thrust back into Poppy’s bedroom, my hand in hers after she had died. How naively I had thought that if I just didn’t let go, none of it would be real. That if I just stayed by her side, her eyes would open, and a miracle would have occurred. She’d believed in God so devoutly, so surely He would grant her a miracle and keep her with us all. The cancer would leave her body and she’d be healthy again. She’d get to live out her days with the people she loved most. She’d see our birthdays, weddings, and births of our future children. And we would see hers. We would see her marry Rune in the blossom grove that had become synonymous with them as a couple.

But that miracle never came. I knew now that when it came to death, they rarely do.

I curled myself over Cael and I let the floodgates open. My sternum ached as my chest racked with sadness. I didn’t think I had ever cried that much in my life before. I had always held it back, controlled it. But seeing Cael break, hearing the story of Cillian, and Cael finding him—seeing him—wrecked me.

Cael’s endless tears soaked my dress. But I saw each of those falling tears as a blessing. He had lived with this for so long. Tried to hide it through tattoos and piercings. Listened to our group sessions with forced detachment and silence. Even I had participated, which several weeks ago would have seemed impossible.

Cael had needed this.

I had needed to see him face this too.

I stroked my hand through his dark hair. Somewhere along this journey, my heart had reached out and melded to his. Since Poppy, I had been so terrified of falling for someone. Scared by the thought of losing them too. But minute by minute on this trip, I had felt a magnet drawing Cael and me together, so powerful, it was impossible to resist. We had shared in a pain that people outside of this experience would never understand.

And right now, with him so distraught and vulnerable in my arms and my heart cracking in his shared pain, I came to the heady realization that I was in love with him. Head over heels, completely in love with this broken boy from outside Boston. I peppered kisses along his cheek and hair. His hands and fingers that were linked through mine.

“I’m so tired, Savannah,” Cael said, his depleted, softly spoken words tearing open my chest.

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