Hearts We Mend To Break (Book I)

.78.

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My heart was pounding uncontrollably, painfully. The room began to shake around me as fire scorched my skin, causing me to sweat profusely. I backed into the wall, looking around the room for some kind of sign that I was hallucinating, and this was all in my head. Reality was not on my side. Like an earthquake of the highest magnitude, the walls pulsated, drawing me in and out with each wave. All of a sudden, I couldn't breathe. The ceiling had fallen down and landed directly onto my chest. Every time I inhaled, my lungs couldn't fill with air because the heaviness of the world bared down all of it's problems onto me. When I exhaled, nothing was released. I was clogged with the toxins of remorse. I was finally dying. After weeks of being poisoned from the lies of my past and nightmares of my present, I was finally meeting my maker.

"Ready to hit the road?" Angel burst in, interrupting my moment of self-destruction. Without that intrusion, I would have never snapped back into the production I'd called life.

Darkness temporarily gone; the show was back. Live and in action. Pretending as if everything was just fine, I admired myself in the mirror. Prior to losing it all, I'd been out all day at the salon. I'd touched up my roots, washed and conditioned, and straightened my hair. I'd gone and got a facial, massage, wax, just full on pampered. Still, I felt incomplete. It was as if something was missing, and no matter what I did, I felt empty.

"It's what's inside." Angel reading my mind, reminding me as he poked me in the belly playfully. "You look beautiful, Giselle. You just have to feel beautiful."

"I know." I sighed, finally turning off the bathroom light and exiting the room. There was so much doubt inside, desperate to be relieved. Without the slightest idea of how to begin lightening that dirty, dark feeling, I was left second guessing myself every chance I got.

There was a battle like no other going on inside of my head and my heart. I was falling madly in love with a man yet falling out of love with myself. How'd I come to college with this brilliant plan to build my future and set myself up for success, just to lose my boyfriend of 4 years, get shutout by my dad, find out my mom wasn't even my mom, meet my twin sister that I never knew I had, and a mother I didn't even know existed? I didn't even know who I was anymore. I was happy, but sad. I was excited, but unphased. I needed help. I knew that much. But how?

"You okay?"

"I don't know." I lowered my head, trying to hide the cloud hovering over me.

"Giselle, if this is too much, you don't have to come. No pressure." Angel brought my head up so that my eyes met his. So gentle. "You don't have to do this."

Placing my hand over his, wanting to cry so badly, I took in a breath. How did I deserve him? How could he love me when I felt so ugly?

"Something's wrong."

I wished I held it in. I wished I kept it all to myself and went with the flow as I had been. The worry, the concern, the panic that rose in him, made me regret opening my big mouth, drawing the unwanted attention that followed. Truth is, I was drowning in the wants and needs of everyone else. My once so put together world had crumbled right before my eyes, making me homeless, penniless, and poor. I had no savings. I'd never worked a job. I went from depending on my father to depending on Angel. I was better off dead.

I fell to the ground, onto my knees.

"Hey." Angel practically whispered. "What's going on?" On his knees with me, talking with little volume, soothing me as he rubbed up and down my arms, Angel became someone I'd never seen. A nurturer.