Bent But Not Broken Novels & Stories

I think I am broken. -----------

Like it’s waiting. “I didn’t break when everything started,” I say. “I didn’t break when you manipulated me.” “I didn’t break when the system collapsed.” My voice steadies. Sharpens. “I’m not breaking now.” The figure watches closely. “You already did.” “Wrong.” I push myself up. Slowly. Shakily. But I do it. I stand. “I bent,” I say. “I didn’t break.” A beat. Then— “I’ll deal with that later.” Something flickers in its expression.

“Good. Sometimes, I feel broken. It used to feel like I was alone. That she broke me.” Amid his protest, I pull away from the hug. I want to hear his story but I am worried for him and us. Ben looks everywhere but at me. I cup his face. “Hey.” His eyes close and my heart twists painfully. “You’re not broken, Benny. Even if you are, I will complete you.” I place his hand over my stomach. My vitiligo is my biggest insecurity, the part of me that leaves me with doubts. It is nothing compared to his pain but it shows I am not perfect either and I don’t want to be. “I am broken too. We all are.”

Somehow, I force myself to believe this is the beginning, not the end. With what remains of my tattered pride, I'll show Brent that he didn't break me. He hurt me, and he damaged me, but he didn't break me. No one has, and no one ever will.

"Unbreakable. Most people who went through what you did would be curled up in a corner somewhere, too broken to fight back. But here you are, organizing evidence and planning your counterattack. That is a Sterling trait if I ever saw one." "I do not feel very strong," Cora admitted. She looked around at her tiny apartment, at all the reminders of her failed marriage. "I feel like I have been shattered into a million pieces." "Being broken and being unbreakable are not opposites," Caleb said from where he was photographing documents with his phone. "You can be both at the same time. Broken by what happened to you, but unbreakable in your core. In your will to survive."

Not broken, not yet, but bleeding. To be continued…

"What's the point of fighting if I lose everything anyway?" Alexander moved closer. "The point is you don't let them break you. You don't give them that satisfaction." "I'm already broken." "No." His voice was firm. "You're tired. You're scared. But you're not broken." "How do you know?" "Because broken people don't fight back. And you're still fighting." I wanted to believe him. But I felt shattered into pieces I couldn't put back together. My phone rang again. Adrian. I almost didn't answer.

Like three stones tossed into the same pond, their rings colliding and blending until you couldn’t tell which had come first. “We’re not going back,” she said quietly to the water, to the earth, to no one. “So we learn how to live as what we are now. Or we break. And if we break…” She didn’t finish the thought. The Veil hummed faintly at the edges of her perception, steady for the moment. Their work had held. The world was quieter than it had been in months. But calm didn’t erase fault lines. It just made them easier to hear if you listened closely.

"The doctor said she just needs to rest." "Good to hear." He watched me packing and frowned. "You're not really leaving over a necklace, are you?" A necklace? I stopped and looked at him. "In your eyes, that was just a necklace?" "That's not what I meant…" He looked flustered. "I know it was important, but it's broken. We can find the best craftsman to fix it. There must be some magic that can repair it perfectly…" "Repair it?" I laughed, a cold, empty sound. "Austen, some things, once they're broken, stay broken."

This wasn’t just about waiting anymore. No… This was about timing. About pressure. About breaking people exactly where they were weakest. I exhaled slowly, my voice dropping into something colder. Something final. “Your fall…” I said quietly. “…will be our victory.” And this time— There would be no mistakes.