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“This is

that I

would set myself on fire

to bring light

to all of the dark places

within you”– Beau TaplinJune 8th, 2013I didn’t know a heart could break like that

I didn’t knoas possible to feel every sensation of your chest splitting wide open, of your heart bleeding out, without a single puncture wound being made

I didn’t know there was a pain worse than your high school boyfriend breaking up with you, or your childhood dog passing away, or leaving a school with all your friends to go to a completely new one

But it turned out there was a worse pain — one of a parent leaving you, abandoning you, waving goodbye to you in their rearview mirror like you were just an out-of-town friend they were visiting all along

“I’irl I’m sorry I love you”

My eyes stung as her words played on repeat, and I pedaled faster, the burning ofmy chest open

I looked disgusting — thatfrom my nose, mascara streaked ht, blonde hair was in after h it for the last hour

But none of that mattered, because I was alive me Kleenex and ice cream and, most importantly — she’d have the answers

She’d knohat to do

The gate was open at the end of the road, and I took the faner’s house It was more like a mansion in my eyes, with its fifty acres of New Haland colonial architecture The first tio as a freshaped at the tall, white columns that stretched into the sky, the seven chimneys that peppered the roof, the wrap-around porch decorated with the arden I’d ever seen in my life