Novel & Cerita I've Got Thick Skin And An Elastic Heart

The truth slipped out before I could swallow it back. “No matter how hard I try,” I whispered, “people still find something to pick apart. I’m not Barbie thin, and everyone makes sure I don’t forget it. I try to have a thicker skin, but it’s like every time I start to feel good about myself, someone decides I shouldn’t.” My throat burned. “It still hurts,” I said softly. “Even when I want it not to.” The muscle in Noah’s jaw flexed. His eyes darkened — not with pity, but with anger on my behalf.

If he kept talking low and dirty to her, she’d come for sure. “It itches, like a thousand ants are marching over my skin. I need to rub somewhere—anywhere. My muscles are poised just on the edge so that if they tighten even an eighth of a centimeter I’ll explode. I burn inside like a river of molten lava is flowing through my veins.”

The sensation was terrifying. Falling as a toy had been weightless—a plastic tumble through the air. But as the two million voices of the audience wrote our descent, the world began to **thicken**. I felt a sudden, agonizing heat in my chest. It wasn't the glow of the Origin; it was the first, thumping kick of a heart.

I press the letter to my chest and I feel the heart thump against the paper like a reply. "I don't know your name as I write this. I don't know your face. But I know you needed a heart and I have one to give, and honestly that's a better love story than most people get. My heart is stubborn, that’s a fair warning. It beats faster when it's angry and slower when it's near lavender and it has a terrible habit of falling in love with people who don't know what to do with love. That might be my fault. Or it might just be the heart. Either way, it's yours now. So make sure you appreciate it and treat it better than I did."

she answered. "Just content? That's it. You're just content with being in my arms." He teased. She poked him and in all seriousness said, "No! I mean that I am perfectly content with this life that I have been given. My eyes are not wandering to the right or to the left, my heart is not desiring money, fancy houses or cars, expensive clothes or jewelry. I am telling you that I am content in your arms, whatever life sends our way. You are all I need!"

-o0o- As I step out of the imposing skyscraper, my weary legs carry me forward with leaden weight. Fatigue gnaws at my body, my back throbbing in protest. My once-delicate palms now threaten to become coarse and calloused, like the rugged hide of a crocodile. My heart bleeds, shattered by the cruel twists of fate.

"He used the term 'skinny-fat.' He thinks you have the endurance of a wet paper towel." "Skinny-fat?" I repeated the words like they were a curse. I poked at my stomach. There was a little bit of softness there, sure, but I had hips. I had curves. I wasn't built like my mother or Jimena, who both looked like they were made of lean, elegant wire. I had a bit more substance to me. I flexed my arm, looking for the definition London had helped me build over the last few weeks. It was there, hidden under the surface, but compared to a pack of supernatural wolves who spent their lives training, I probably did look like a marshmallow.

It thrashes against the thin edge of what I am, against the thin edge of my resolve, against the thin and unbearably loose edge of my human skin. The loose threads of my sanity slip. I am more than I can hold, more than I can hold back, more than I can be. The force of it leaves me breathless, leaves me raw, leaves me. It leaves me, and it does not come back. My heart pounds faster, faster, faster.

I rasped. My voice sounded incredibly thick and slow. The freezing air burned my lungs with every single syllable, feeling exactly like inhaling crushed glass. I didn't care about my own survival. I only cared about keeping her heart beating. I ripped open the heavy zipper of my tactical jacket and pulled her flush against my chest. I wrapped my arms tightly around her, tucking her smaller frame completely beneath my coat, crushing her soft body against my Kevlar vest. I was desperate to share the very last, fading embers of my body heat.

"Not now." The doctors called it hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. A fancy way of saying my heart was too big for its own good. Literally. The muscle was thickening, choking the life out of itself. Stress was the trigger. And my entire life was a pressure cooker. I’d been hiding the pills in my desk for two years. Beta-blockers. Blood thinners. Secrets. If the bullet didn't get me, the ticking clock in my chest would. Ethan stirred. His hand twitched on the bedsheet.