Page 474 of Coal Hearts

My knees buckled as a fear I’d never felt before hammered into every bone.

Clutching the sink, I bent over the vanity, and panted.

I fucking panted and gasped, shaking and quaking as frenzied panic ripped through me.

It vised my chest, gagged my throat, and murdered me with every bad thing, wrong urge, and despicable desire.

I almost lost her.

I came face to face with it all.

Every decision.

Every choice.

I fucking despised myself.

The things I’ve done—

I retched.

Empty stomach acid burned my throat and splashed into the sink. Black despair spewed up and out, purging with every choke. Sweat dripped down my back as I pressed my forehead to the tap and rode out the spasms. The familiar regurgitation that’d punished me my entire life did its best to cripple me.

And for once, I was grateful.

So fucking thankful that the overload of insidious poison inside siphoned down the drain. I didn’t vomit food. I vomited up my very essence.

By the time I stopped, I could barely stand.

She needs you...

Groaning, I commanded my muscles to brace and spine to straighten. Catching my stare in the mirror, I flinched at the creature staring back. My skin was bone white and eyes haunted as a graveyard.

But at least I hadn’t been devoured by the darkness...

Yet.

Finding a paper-wrapped toothbrush in the drawer, I brushed, rinsed, then grabbed the largest gauze in the medical supplies and slapped it over my arm. My blood dripped over the vanity and floor. I didn’t want to bleed over Ily while I tended to her.

I couldn’t exactly do much for her apart from coating her entire body in arnica.

I was familiar with the homeopathic cream, thanks to my mother.

She’d always been jumpy. If I walked into a room without her hearing me, she’d often crash into a cupboard or doorframe as she turned around and noticed me.

I’d hated seeing her hurt because of me.

I’d accepted that every bruise she carried were constant reminders that even though we were family, she acted as if I was her enemy.

And now, Ily is bruised.

Because of you.

The clawing in my chest returned.

The swirling blackness and wretched depression.

While she’d been covered in paint, it’d been hard to see the totality of her bruises.