The Vacancy That Sat In My Heart Novels & Stories

Something that always made everything feel… less lonely. I had never imagined I would miss that dull ache. Now there was nothing. Just emptiness. An unbearable hollowness. Like I had been scooped out from the inside. Like a newborn taking its first breath in a cold, unfamiliar world. Alone. “Amber,” Ian tried again gently. “Sit down. Please.” “I can’t,” I whispered. If I sat down, I would start thinking. If I started thinking, I would break. Time crawled. Every time the O.R. doors shifted even slightly, my heart slammed painfully against my ribs.

The fall that wasn't quite far enough to kill, but far enough to bury. I had watched the wake from the chapel balcony, rosary clutched in perfumed hands, face arranged in perfect grief. Inside, I was calculating. The Heart would be mine now. The land would answer to me - Luna in truth if not in cosmic recognition, wife in law if not in fate. But the pool had rejected me.

incinerated by the fact that the Human Heart is Un-Incorporable. We stood in the center of the "Sovereign Default," our breath coming in short, ragged gasps of hot, copper-heavy air. The One-Hundred-and-Fifty-Second Layer was no longer a boardroom; it was a Void of Pure, Un-Written Potential, where every shadow was a new start and every drop of blood was a new ocean.

It was a good thing I won't be spending the night in this room that was so him, from the colors to the paintings. It is true what they say about the heart, they say when the heart loses it form it becomes void and loses its touch of life. I could feel that now, as a matter of fact I could see it sinking into my pores bit by bit, was that desperation knowing everything had not really mattered. It should have made me angry but Instead it evoked something deep and uncertain as well, it was like being hit with the uncertainty that things would be fine. I wanted to dismiss the idea that he had been with me because they had forced him , the fact I was

I inhale once, deeply. Lift my chin. Wheel toward the door. But I pause briefly to look at Jordan’s empty bunk one last time. On the scuffed floor. In the damn yo-yo on his bed. In the phantom warmth on my lips. In the space between the ribs that still aches in a way medicine can’t fix. He’s not here. But he’s everywhere. Unfortunately carved in my heart. He doesn't want to get to see me for the last time in the while, and I clearly understand—

Some said he had started looking for me in places that had nothing to do with reason and everything to do with obsession. I stopped reading after a while. The money from the estate was enough to give me a quiet life. I settled in a small town by the sea, rented rooms to travelers, and learned how little a person actually needed once she stopped living for someone else. In the mornings, I drank fresh milk, ate fruit still warm from the sun, and opened my windows to clean air instead of family politics and lies. Little by little, my body settled too. I stopped flinching at every sound. I stopped waking in the middle of the night soaked in sweat. The pressure in my chest eased. Even the strange

Still worth the watching, the waiting, the wanting. I pressed my palm to my chest and felt the hollowness inside, the empty space where something used to be. I didn’t know what it was anymore. Fear? Hope? It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, he’d taken it with him. I was a vacancy, waiting to be filled. And the worst part—the part that made me press my fist against my mouth to keep from screaming—was that I knew he would come back. He always came back. I just didn’t know if I’d survive the waiting.

By the time I got to the part where he had humiliated me by not showing up at the engagement party, my tears were trickling down, but surprisingly, I didn't feel that much pain in my heart. Time indeed worked wonders. In just a matter of days, I had already gotten over Carl. "I know. You don't need to feel bad. I chose to marry you. You couldn't have forced me into it," Henry declared. "From the time I used to tease you as children till now, my feelings for you have never changed." He pulled me into his arms and comforted me. Instantly, my frazzled heart stilled. It felt like I had finally found a safe harbor of my own after floating around for over 20 years.

But now, Herod had stolen her away, leaving a void within me that felt impossible to fill. With a heavy heart, I made my way to my own room, the walls seeming to close in around me. The emptiness of the space was a stark contrast to the love and happiness that once permeated every corner. I sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the weight of my grief settle onto my weary shoulders.