I Pick Up This Broken Pieces Novels & Stories

"What do you gain?" "Nothing. Everything." I moved to the window beside her. "I've been where you are. Broken. Controlled. Used as a weapon. Someone helped me. Now I help others. That's how it works." "What if we can't be fixed? What if we're too broken?" "Then we learn to live broken. Find strength in the cracks. Build something new from the pieces." I met her eyes. "You're not alone. None of you are. Not anymore."

My pieces are still falling apart. The only difference is that I’m trying to make it through this darkness. I am trying to get back all those pieces that once belonged together. I’m crawling on the shards of glass called life and I believe I’ll make it through if only I just keep breathing. I am my daddy’s Celeste after all.

"You're experiencing a breakdown." "Absurd?" I chuckle, but there's nothing funny about it. It's the noise of something being unleashed. "I'm experiencing freedom for the first time in months." I take another fragment of the shattered bracelet—the biggest one, with the coiled antenna still there—and hit it once more, crushing it beneath my foot until it’s merely contorted metal, sparks, and shattered hopes.

It doesn't matter. "My heart was broken, and you pieced it back together, Nick... You mended me with your infinite patience, and I loved you with all of me. With all that was left of me. Thank you for everything," I take a deep breath, inhaling his lemon scent, preparing myself for the next words finally reaching the edge. I cry for him one last time.

"Whoa, you're so lucky! Your mom and dad are both so good-looking. They look perfect together!" Perfect together. I held the phone tight. My hands shook. "Maid," huh? I got up slowly and walked to the kitchen. Reached for a glass of water. The glass slipped from my hand. Shattered on the floor. I squatted to pick up the shards, my hands trembling. I didn't even feel the sharp edge that cut my palm. I just… broke. I sat there, on the cold tile floor, surrounded by broken glass. And I cried. Not for Finn. Not for Henry.

It still feels weird, still feels wrong. Unsure of how much time I waste pacing the room, my eyes fixate on the broken frame. Dodging shards of glass, I pluck the frame from the mess. The picture still sits inside the wooden frame. Shaking some of the glass loose, I flip it over. There’s nothing else that could make what Gideon said more true than this picture staring back at me.

Crash! I didn’t even know when the frame had left my hands and fallen to the floor, the glass crashing and leaving glasses in its wake like star shards over the floor. "No, that can’t be," I muttered, holding back my tears as I took in a shuddering breath to push out the tension that had gathered in my body. I bent down immediately to pick up what I had broken; I didn’t even think to be careful that one of the shards might cut me. My mind was already jumbled up with a memory of Killian’s mom, but how?

My mind replayed every moment of the day—the roses scattering on the ground, the vows I didn’t mean, the kiss that wasn’t a kiss, the look in Kenneth’s eyes when he said he didn’t choose this either. I thought of the girl I had been before all this. The girl who once dreamed of freedom, of healing, of maybe even love. And I realized that girl was gone. In her place was a woman bound by broken pieces, tied to a man who carried his own shattered past. And I didn’t know if we would destroy each other—or if, somehow, those broken pieces might fit together. But tonight, all I knew was that I wasn’t ready to find out. So I closed my eyes, clutching the pillow like it could keep me whole. And I let

I only had a cup of coffee for breakfast. Finally, I was done eating. I cleaned my mouth, settled my bills, and headed out. However, I was just so unlucky. I bumped into a guy who was holding a cup of wine in one hand and the bottle in the other. Unfortunately, the wine in the cup poured on my body while the bottle fell on the floor and broke. It was the guy's fault. He wasn't looking at where he was going. I felt so embarrassed as my cloth got ruined. ' What's your problem? What's all this? Couldn't you focus on where you were going?' I yelled angrily.

Because in this world, loyalty was fragile, and power was everything. But if I didn’t act? Then I would be the one left to take the fall. Alone. I stopped walking abruptly, the tension coiling tightly inside my chest. Without hesitation, I tilted my head back and drained the rest of the wine in one go. The burn barely registered before I flung the glass across the compound in frustration. It shattered loudly against the stone. Even that worthless drink tasted better than the overpriced garbage stocked in my bar. I exhaled slowly, dragging a hand through my hair before pulling out my phone again. My eyes lingered on the screen for a moment before I dialed her number.