Prologue
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Henri
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LONELINESS AND NAUSEA.
Two things I’d been afflicted with since I was old enough to know I was different.
Different from the boys in the playground—boys who had mothers who hugged and loved them.
Different from the men in the bars—men who could laugh and flirt without feeling sick to their goddamn stomachs for what they truly wanted.
Loneliness and nausea.
My barometer of right and wrong.
Loneliness pushed me into the dark.
But nausea kept me in the light.
I hadn’t realised how much I relied on those two afflictions.
How much I needed to live in constant motherfucking pain.
Until the moment both emotions switched off.
The moment Ily kicked me in the nose and fought me with all her terror and heartache, my moral compass well and truly shattered.
I’d been wrong when I thought I’d been born with a broken one.
My compass had just been different from everyone else’s.
I’d carried it my entire life—relying on it to keep me normal.
Loneliness was my North.
Nausea my South.
East and West, my right and wrong.
But now...I was lost.
Plummeting into perpetual darkness where I’d always belonged.
No, not just darkness...
Freedom.
Freedom from sickness.
Freedom from loneliness.
Free to be entirely...
me.