A Thousand Broken Pieces (A Thousand Boy Kisses #2)

by Tillie Cole

She looked over her shoulder, to where Rune was sitting on the bed, laying kiss after kiss on my older sister’s hands, her fingers, her face, looking at his Poppymin like he always had—like she had been designed solely for him.

I was simply broken. I didn’t know how to heal, how to put myself back together again. The truth was, when Poppy died, all light vanished from my world, and I’d been stumbling around in the dark ever since.

“So she won’t miss out on new adventures,” he would tell me. Then there were the days when he would visit Poppy, and I would sit behind a nearby tree, unnoticed and hidden, and listen to him speak to her. When tears would cascade from my eyes at the unfairness of the world. At us losing the brightest star in our skies, at Rune losing half of his heart. As far as I knew, he had never dated anyone else. He told me once that he would never feel about anyone else the way he felt about Poppy and that although their time together was short, it had been enough to last him a lifetime.

grief never left us. Instead we adapted, like it was a new appendage we had to learn to use. That at any moment, pain and heartache could strike and break us. But eventually we would develop the tools to cope with it and find a way to move on.

Because she was buried in the ground behind me. Eternally seventeen. The age I was now. Never to grow old. Never to shine her light. Never to share her music. A travesty the world would forever be deprived of.

I never believed I deserved to hold this stick. How could I when it belonged to my hero? The one who’d taught me everything I knew. The one I’d looked up to, emulated, laughed with and run to. The one who’d shone so bright he lit up the whole friggin’ sky.

“You deserve to live, Sav. You are so loved and so special, so smart and beautiful and kind, and you deserve to be happy.”

knew I had to be better for them. I had to be better for me.

She was point blank the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.

The minute I saw that smile, something inside of me calmed. A wave of peace crashed over me. And for second—a single euphoric free moment—everything stilled. Not numbed. Never numbed. But seeing that smile… I didn’t understand why it affected me so much. She was just a girl. And it was just a smile. But, for a split second, there was a cease-fire within me.

And to understand what it felt like to be alone with such devastating pain that, maybe, sometimes, made you wonder if it would be easy if you just ceased to exist too…

And I felt he did have me. In his arms, I felt safe.

A loved one’s death wasn’t a onetime thing that you had to endure. It was an endless cycle. A cruel Groundhog Day that burned away at your heart and soul until there was nothing left but scorched flesh where they once had been.

The triggers were awful. How a seemingly okay day could turn into a nightmare just by a familiar scent passing by, a memory resurfacing,

“I want you to inhale through your nose for eight seconds,” Leo instructed and counted out loud. “Now, hold that breath for four seconds. Listen to your heart beat. Hear its rhythm in your ears. Then, breathe out for four seconds.”

I need this tip lol

“Some people are only in our lives for a short time, but the mark they leave on us is a cherished tattoo.”

I didn’t know how she did it, but this girl could just cut through whatever dark fog surrounded me like she wielded a sword forged of pure light.

Savannah made me feel something I thought was forever lost to me—hope.

It was the first time in four years I had felt anything close to it. And two simple hand squeezes had made that so.

My lip tugged up in a small smile as I focused on our joined hands. From the minute we’d gathered early this morning to go to the airport, I had threaded my hand through Savannah’s and had barely let go.

The smile that graced her face nearly knocked me down. Savannah was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen in my life. Her smile and those damn dimples floored me. She’d swept into my living hell and cast me an unexpected lifeline.

I didn’t know how she did it, but her presence, her touch, her quiet nature were a damn tonic to my soul.

A pearl of laughter sailed from her throat as her hands sank down to her elbows. I’d never heard anything so perfect. I couldn’t help but smile too when she looked up at me,

dimples deep, and she laughed again. My Georgia peach who was so used to the southern sun and heat was absolutely captivated by a couple of feet of snow.

She was teaching me more on this trip than anyone ever had. She was teaching me that happiness didn’t have to be big gestures and life-changing moments. It could be just this. Witnessing someone seeing snow fo...

This girl…she made me want to be more than the shell of a person I’d been for the past year.

feeling a new kind of warmth enter my chest. She looked so carefree in this moment, so unburdened. She looked stunning.

“You’re so beautiful,”

I didn’t know if she’d ever been kissed. If she hadn’t, I wanted to be her first. I’d never wanted anything more.

I was convinced that two hands had never fit together so perfectly.

“You’re the best thing to happen to me in the longest time, Peaches.”

She was the miracle I never saw coming.

I like seeing things that take my breath away. That I don’t always understand. I wanted to tell her that just looking at her did that to me.

His cheek rested against the side of my head, and I felt so content I didn’t ever want to leave. I’d found a heaven on earth in this place, with this boy, and I didn’t want to go back to what it had been before.

I can live in the darkness if you are one of the stars.

My words were scattered and pleading. But then I looked to the window, and a joyful cry soared from my lips when I saw another flicker of the northern lights trying to appear over Tromsø. And that pink…that ribbon of pink was there, weaving through the stars like the most beautiful of dancers. I held the journal to my chest like I was holding Poppy herself. “Poppy. I see you,” I whispered and watched as that pink slowly faded away but left a change in my heart. Tears streamed down my face, but they were filled with happiness. “Poppy… I miss you…” I whispered again, for once believing she might actually hear me.

My gosh!!! :(())

“Cael,” I said, turning toward him. “I had to show you,” he said, simply, like it wasn’t the most perfect gift he could have given me.

“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” I asked, awestruck once again. “Just once,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. I turned my head to him to ask what that was. But by the way he was looking at me, eyes focused on my face and adoration in his gaze, I quickly caught on to what he was implying.

He was so tall and broad, athletic and strong, yet handled me like I was a prized possession he didn’t want to break.

“I’m falling for you, Peaches.”

“You’ve made this trip so much better for me,” he said and kissed my lips. “You’re making my life better.” I embraced him on this snowy beach, under a sky full of endless stars.

Because when you have lost something so precious, when something priceless comes along, you embrace it with both hands. And you never let it go.

The look of happiness on Savannah’s face melted me.

the edge of the pool in her pale-blue bathing suit, the warm breeze kicking up her dark blond hair around her head like a halo. Her hand rested on a palm tree trunk as she looked out onto the beach and sea. In that moment, I couldn’t believe how lucky I was that someone like Savannah had taken a chance on me. I was broken; I knew I was.

As I arrived beside Savannah, the scent of her sunscreen hit me first, as did her beauty.

She was more beautiful than any of these paintings.

“It’s not heavy,” she said and squeezed my arm. “If it unburdens you, then it’s the lightest weight in the world.” She kissed my exposed bicep, and the shards of ice that had created an impenetrable armor around me melted in the exact place that her lips had touched.

I looked at Cael on the bed, sleeping. He was so handsome. So kind and beautiful. And he loved me. Cael Woods loved me. And I loved him too. I curled into Cael’s chest. And I fell asleep in the arms of the boy I adored.

“The purpose of bringing you all here, this city where life meets death, is to show you that death doesn’t have to be dreaded but can be seen as a celebratory rite of passage. And it can be treasured and sacred too.

She was reaching the top. She was a damn revelation. She was petite in stature, but her strength was that of a Titan.