Prologue
PROLOGUE
Ripping your own heart out of your chest is a special kind of torture.
Imagine gripping at your chest. Then you begin to dig your fingers in, continuing to push deeper, despite the fact that the pain intensifies tenfold with each layer of flesh that you push through.
Eventually, you make it to your chest cavity, and you feel your fingers clench around your beating heart. You pause, giving yourself one final chance to back out as if nothing happened. No one would be any wiser, only you would know about the pain and the torment you put yourself through working up to this. You could change your mind, release your heart from your grasp, remove your hand, and move past this. Sure, you’d have gone through that torment for nothing, but you’d still be alive. Your heart would still be pumping blood, continuing to beat for the one you love.
But it’s because of that one person that your heart beats for that you can’t turn back now. You have to do this, despite your agony. You have to do this despite knowing it will kill you. You dim your light so theirs can shine.
In a moment of resolve, your grip tightens and you pull. You pull with everything you have. You savagely rip your heart out and drop it on the floor next to you.
And as you stand there, telling yourself the worst is over, the person that used to give that no longer beating heart of yours life steps on it on their way out the door.
