The Oath We Give (Hollow Boys, #5)

by Monty Jay

“You’re stubborn. You don’t want to hear it, but I know what you’re doing. I can see it in your eyes, all that pain just festering beneath the surface. You cannot keep it in forever, Coraline. It’ll kill you.” “You don’t know shit about my pain, Hawthorne.” My words are laced with poison, with intent to wound, to force him the fuck out of this room. I don’t care if it hurt his feelings. I don’t care if he hates me. I just want him far away from my path of destruction before I take all the good in Silas and swallow it whole. I point my finger at him, eyes burning with rage. “Your girlfriend died. Cry about it. My orbital socket was shattered because I didn’t open my mouth for his dick fast enough. Our stories are not the same.” I want to be alone with my fury, hidden away so I can ache in peace. I don’t want someone here to watch me fall apart. The entire world watched me lose my mind on national television. I was the story of the century, millions of eyes seeing me erupt into shards of tiny glass only to make it worse by feeling sorry for me. So, I cut them. I let them step all over me with their bare feet, and I burrowed myself into their heels like tiny razor blades. I want to break. I want to cry and throw things all on my own with no eyes on me, in a silence where the only thing I can hear is my own heartbeat. “My best friend spent his entire life swallowing his pain like rusty nails just to turn it into a weapon. I watched it eat him alive, and now I’m watching him in...