Built From Broken Novels & Stories

Uncle William begins. I shake my head unable to speak. I am an emotional wreck right now Guilt overwhelms me. Claire's words echo in my mind "I hate you Papa." "Mama..." Claire's fading cry haunts me Uncle William's hand on my shoulder "Son, it's not your fault," he says softly in his bit to comfort me but I know better. I know my mistakes, my flaws. I destroyed everything. "Uncle William," I choke. Emotionally broken.

He was rebuilding from strength. This was the phrase that had arrived in his thinking over the past weeks — not rebuilding from the necessity of repair, which was what the earlier years had required. Rebuilding from strength: the specific quality of building on a foundation that was fully established rather than still being set. The difference between construction on solid ground and construction while simultaneously laying the ground.

“You’re… not kicking me out?” Barry shook his head. “You’ll need to make this right, though you hurt Randy you broke our trust. But friendship isn’t just about perfection—it’s about rebuilding too.” Becky’s voice cracked. “Thank you… I—I promise I’ll make it right. I’ll apologize to him myself.” Carlson turned away, clenching his fists. His voice was quiet, trembling between fury and heartbreak. “You’ll have to do more than apologize, Becky. You didn’t just hurt him—you hurt me too.”

Not because it would be easy. But because I had learned exactly how to build something that could last. And I had no intention of letting it break.

The one that had built a company and a foundation and a family from genuine ruins. The version that didn't break. "We move," I confirmed. Chen opened his own folder. And we began to build.

Wrinkling his nose at the smell emanating from it, he shimmied away and twisted into the slender gap between it and the next. He moved as such until he reached the towering, distorted building that he vaguely recognised as the cell block. It was morphed almost beyond recognition, so many new chambers and cells added in mouldy, rotting wood that the whole structure looked about a second away from collapse. The wind coiled around it, threatening to knock it apart with every gentle exhale.

“You already have me.” He turned around in my arms, lifting my chin gently. “I just needed a reason to make you smile this morning.” “You are the reason,” I said, truthfully. And yet—despite the warmth, the sweetness, the safety—we were still on uncertain terrain. That’s the thing about rebuilding something that once fell apart: no matter how strong you make the new foundation, some part of you still listens for cracks.

I asked. “Give me the truth." And then Sofia held out her little finger. I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. I taught her about the little finger promise when she was 4 years old and I was 8. We promised never to lie to each other. A little finger promise could never be broken. She remembered this. I didn't deserve that gesture, I broke my promise. But not anymore. Sofia deserved the truth that I had denied her for so many years, even though in the end I would lose her for good.

She walks with elegance and prudence but could speak a curse that would leave you both lost and confused, shattered and broken but most of all deeply in love. That's how I ended up here in this situation I am in now, losing everything and everyone closest to me. Leaving me alone, depending on her for love, on her to put a stop to my lust, and on her to fill me up when I’m empty to stick me back together when I'm broken. I should have known that something was wrong, that something didn't quite fit together perfectly, no matter how many times Althea would beg me to look closer and pay attention.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” “I don’t know that. You say you aren’t going to hurt me, but the way you act sometimes hurts me. One day you treat me like you want me. Then the next you’re telling people I don’t mean anything to you. That we are only friends. I can’t take that. Not from you. I’m already broken, Dmitry. But you the power to shatter me.” His eyebrows wrinkled together. “Dani. For days now, I have been trying to tell you how I feel.”