Written In My Own Heart's Blood Novels & Stories

“Let us pretend that that was just a moment of weakness. It should never happen again!” God knows I am bleeding inside, my very own words cutting through my poor heart like a double-edged dagger. This is deep. This is so strong.

First line, I’m still on fire, but today I’m choosing which parts of me burn. I wrote until my hand cramped. Ugly words, beautiful words, truths I’d never said out loud. I wrote about Adrian’s hands, Mom’s laugh, the way love and poison taste the same sometimes. I wrote until the sky outside turned orange and the house smelled like tea and ink and cold air. Then I closed the notebook, pressed it to my chest, and whispered to the empty room. “This is still my house. This is still my body. This is still my life.”

In blood. I soiled our pact with a foreign body. I clean it with the blood of that body. This is my penance. My first payment on a debt that promises to be infinite. And my first, desperate and brutal step, in trying to return from the land of the sentimental dead to which I exiled myself through my own stupidity.

A few people in the crowd clap while others just look at me in awe. I continue. “Like my mother, I can’t guarantee that this will go in our favor. But I can guarantee you this: I will fight until my last breath for you. You are my heart; you are the blood in my veins. Finding my true kingdom was one of the best things that has ever happened to me, and I will not fail you.”

My veins burned, my heart raced, and I could feel my own blood beginning to drip, warming my skin. Pain clawed at me, sharp and real, but I welcomed it. It was a sacrifice, a gateway, a bridge to what I needed. I forced my voice into the chant, trembling but strong, the words slipping from my lips as though they had been there all along: “Sanguis meus et vestrum, unite; lucem et umbras trahite; voluntatem nostram aperite…” I staggered slightly, blood sliding down my arms, dripping to the floor, but I didn’t falter.

It’s the hurt inside that makes me weak, not the wounds on my body. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to think. My heart is the one bleeding, not my skin. The smell of blood and water mixed cover the room.

With the last of my strength, I dipped my fingertip in my own blood and wrote three words on the ground. "This is fake."

He slurs, but I understand his words. “I’m tired; my heart is- is thir ts bleeving, I don thin..it..its surropose to feel lik this, liby.” (I’m tired; my heart, I think it’s bleeding. I don’t think it’s supposed to feel like this, Livy.)

Come alone. My blood ran cold all over again.

But they cannot stop time. The sun rises and sets over our heads. Over our hearts. And every morning, I wake up and feel how strong you hold me. Every morning, I feel how strong your heart beats. Over and over again. Your hand, your face, your eyes. It's like a heartbeat. It' s my blood. My life force. Its power. It feels stronger, brighter. Stronger every day. And its love, its love is something that makes me smile everyday. Even as I sit here, writing these lines, looking into the mirror, telling myself I've got this. I'm okay. I'm fine. Just fine. But sometimes I need someone to tell me, so that it doesn't all go wrong…