Damaged Hearts by Andi Bremner

Author:Andi Bremner [Bremner, Andi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Evernight Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Gillian

It was surreal to see Alex —Joe—in my house. Standing in my living room, his massive frame dominating the small space and overwhelming me. How many times had I dreamed of this moment? How many times in the past ten years had I imagined seeing Alex again, hearing his voice, feeling his arms around me, crushing my head to his chest and inhaling deeply? How many times had I woken up in the middle of the night breathless, hot, and achy with need only to reach for him and find the bed beside me cold and empty?

Now he was examining my art, moving from the hands to the empty basket. Most of my furniture was white, and I kept things simple, the only signs of color in my house coming in the form of my artwork. In the back, the bright sunny studio which I’d added to the house only last year was where I spent my weekends.

“You’re so talented,” he murmured now, moving to another piece. “In so many ways.”

The compliment warmed me more than it should. I’d always wanted to impress Alex, to please him. And in the end, I’d been nothing but a disappointment.

“It’s how I cope,” I told him honestly, “with the memories.”

He glanced at me and took a moment before he replied. “They bad?”

“The worst.”

I wanted to tell him how bad they were, but then I had spent so long trying to not think about them that I wasn’t even sure where to begin. Every night when I closed my eyes I saw the man. The man who worked for my father burst into the bedroom of the house I shared with Alex. Alex was meant to be there, but at the last minute, his dad had called him for a family emergency. His brother had been arrested again and Alex had to go to them. I was meant to be out with friends, but I was eight months pregnant and tired so I’d canceled and went to bed early. The hired hitman didn’t ask questions, he didn’t check. He was a hired gun who cared nothing about me or my unborn baby, just the cash my father dangled in his face.

When I closed my eyes, I remembered waking up with fear, the man silhouetted in the doorway. I never spoke. He never realized that the person in the bed was a heavily pregnant woman. He was too drug addled to realize that the screams came from a woman and not a man because he fired again, and again. In all, he fired five shots into my bedroom, two of them hitting me. One of them killing my daughter.

For months, I remembered nothing about the moments afterward, but over the years the memories slowly came back. Drifting in and out of consciousness, I was vaguely aware of the police and paramedics arriving on scene. A neighbor had heard the shots and called the police.

The baby was gone. They delivered her and dressed her in

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