Chapter 45 My Heart Isn’t Beating
Her scream – it was so achingly guttural that it stunned me in place. It was a sound so foreign that I could do nothing, feel nothing but its echo in my ears as I looked at her.
And, when our eyes met, when her tears slid down her flushed cheeks, I saw the fear, affliction, struggle, and slight confusion on her face, that not only made me stumble forward a bit, but also made me want to tear through everything I was enduring – deep inside my clawing chest.
But it was when her lips shook as she tried to signal something to me through her trembling hands, that I snapped out of my brief numb-fest; that I actually realized what had happened.
She’d tripped on a broken tile, and the faulty bookshelf had fallen on her before I could stop it, or comprehend what the fuck was even happening.
A sob hitched out of Rina and reverberated across the low-lit room, and my stomach began to clench; my palms began to sweat.
And my heart – it might as well have stopped beating; my lungs may as well have stopped drawing in air. But it wasn’t like I cared anymore, not when she was suffering…