Waiting To Exhale Novel Novels & Stories

Nilah's Pov A gasp tore out of my throat, sharp and jagged, like a blade. “Ah!” I bolted upright, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. “Hold on… My heart is beating?” The smell of antiseptic and blood was gone, replaced by the faint and comforting scent of my room and perfume. Warm sunlight spilled across the bedspread, forcing me to shield my eyes. For a long moment, I didn't move. I waited for the coughing fit, the metallic taste of blood, the heavy tiredness of my illness. It didn't come. My lungs expanded fully, pulling in sweet, clean air.

Hope was a dangerous thing, it bloomed bright in your chest, only to twist into darkness, into something dangerous until you gave up, until there was nothing left to take, and it left you an empty shell of the person you used to be. Cinderblock walls with scratched names, tally marks, and obscenities from those that came before him, stared back at him. The sweat, mildew, and ammonia was heavy in the air, almost damp with the little circulation present. The worst part was the waiting. Listening to grown men pray, curse, and sometimes cry before their names were called, made the waiting seem longer.

As I exhale, his weight presses me down, coaxes the breath from my chest, leaving me hollow, empty. The next inhale is agony and ecstasy intertwined. My lungs expand too fast, my ribcage tightens, a pressure globe lodged behind my sternum. When Carter eases it out, the sound escapes me before I can think. A long, mournful exhale that feels like it carries pieces of me with it. “Last one,” he whispers, lips grazing the shell of my ear. Heat spreads through my skull. I fill my lungs this time. Deep. Full. Everything stretches, tenses, floods my veins with life I didn’t realize I’d been starving for. My body reels.

The air in the hollowness changed again, not with fire this time, not with ash but with listening. As if all branches, every sprout of moss, every wolf beyond the canopy had quietened to listen to what we would choose next. I could almost feel the pressure of their waiting pressing against my chest.

CATALINA’S PERSPECTIVE SOCHI, RUSSIA – Week 36 The house is a lung. It inhales when he leaves the bed, slow, deliberate, the way a wolf slips from its den. It exhales when he returns, hot, metallic, ashamed. Tonight the inhale lasted 5,619 seconds. I counted every single one, the way I once counted heartbeats under interrogation. I know the hidden elevator’s song better than any lullaby: a low, predatory hum that begins in the floorboards and crawls up the bedframe, into my spine, into the child curled beneath my ribs.

Snow fell heavily that night, and he watched as the last light in the villa went out. In the end, he never caught a glimpse of me. … The snow fell for three days, and Luke and I lost ourselves in each other the entire time. At the same time, Nathan also stayed outside for three solid days. On the fourth day, the snow finally cleared. When Luke took me out for fresh air, Nathan stepped right in front of the car. His face was deathly pale, and even his voice trembled. "Willow, please come home with me." There was more emotion in his voice than I had ever heard, more so than when he found out that Lily was coming back.

I grabbed a granola bar and headed out of the house and waited for Ryder to come pick me up. -Aspen P.O.V- It has been two nights since I marked that girl and two nights of me thinking about her nonstop. I unwrapped my body from my black sheets, let my feet drop to the floor and walked to my bathroom. I did my business and took a shower. I put on a clean pair of boxers and a pair of basketball shorts I grabbed my flip flops and put my black I phone 12 plus on charge then headed out the door. I walked to the dining room to get breakfast.

Absolutely. Here’s Chapter 32 – The Goodbye written from CHAPTER 32 – THE GOODBYE (Althea’s POV) The taxi ride from the Navarro Enterprises building to my apartment felt surreal. Every street, every honking car, every neon sign seemed blurred, as if the world had gone soft around the edges and left me standing still. My hands gripped my purse in my lap, knuckles white, nails biting into my palms. I tried to breathe, but the air felt thick, heavy, like it was pressing down on my chest, making my heart thump painfully against my ribs.

However, I knew it wasn't her fault, she'd do only what she thought was best for me, I unsealed the envelop and took out the letter, I sighed again before opening it. ********** Dearest Bethany, Merry Christmas. I had hoped that we'll celebrate Christmas this year but you see we do not always get what we wish for and sometimes what we hope and wait on don't always come by, however, I hope that you spend this Christmas with a smile and your mind at rest.

I lie beneath the sheets, the linen cool against my thighs, faintly scented with something clean and citrusy that makes my chest ache in a way that I don’t yet have language for. In the past couple of days, waiting has become something entirely new for me. It's no longer the sharp-edged waiting of fear, the kind that keeps muscles locked and breath shallow. This new waiting hums, it settles into me. It feels intentional, chosen, like stepping into a current and allowing it to carry me without struggling for the shore.