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chapter seventeen the twine that binds
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For as long as Izzy could remember, there had always been this twine wrapped around her heart. It was embedded so deeply that her aorta had grown around it, and every time someone would tug on the rope, it'd rip through the chambers, leaving a hole in the organ. And no matter how many times she tried to cut the twine, she couldn't. The rope would stay in place, buried deep with the organ, and every so often, someone would pull, and her whole body would ache with pain. And this pain had always been a constant. It was all she could feel; it was all she was.
But Izzy didn't want solely pain to be embedded in her chemical makeup. She didn't want to be composed of hurt and flames from her own fire. She had to remind herself she didn't need to be the ticking time bomb everyone suspected she'd become . . . not if she didn't want to. She could be composed of both honey and glass. She could. And she would.
And it was the smidge of freedom that she had tasted only yesterday which made her want to find a solution to the twine ripping through her aorta. It was better than any high she had ever gotten from drugs; it was euphoric and utterly consuming. She thought she might let it swallow her whole just so she could have another taste. Hell, she would have done anything to feel like that again; to feel that real again, and not like the plastic Barbie doll she had been since the day she came into the world kicking and screaming. She only knew that there was no going back to her cookie-cutter life after she had that little taste of freedom.
Freedom was the only thing on her mind, because believe it or not, Izzy did not want to be trapped inside a cage her whole life. She wouldn't settle for that. Not anymore.
But still, the twine embedded and wrapped around her heart wouldn't leave her. And she wanted to find a way to make the rope disintegrate. She thought maybe it had something to do with her mother; maybe she needed closure . . . although she wasn't sure how'd she get that. It wasn't like she could just forget about her. So she tried her best to live for her and mend the hole in her heart.
