Releasing 10 (Boys of Tommen, #6)

by Chloe Walsh

Because I knew deep down inside that I would sit with Lizzie Young for the rest of my life if it kept the sadness out of her eyes.

That made her laugh, and I was glad, because I didn’t want to see my mother upset. This was the woman who gave me life. I would rather be raked over hot coals than cause her distress.

Lizzie laughed and I swear, it was the best sound I’d ever heard.

Because these arms were the only arms that never left.

With her cheek pressed to my chest and her hands fisting my shirt, Liz clung to me like I was her last lingering lifeline, and sometimes, I thought I might be.

“Well, I put that there to remind you that as long as I have air in my lungs, I’ll never let you go under.”

and did my best to love her back to life.

but it was just one more box he ticked for me. Another was the way he always made sure he was on the

outside when we walked near roads.

I lunged for him,

needing his touch more than I needed air.

For the rest of this life and whatever followed—be it heaven, hell, purgatory, or a thousand reincarnated lifetimes—my heart would eternally beat for Hugh Biggs.

Because despite withdrawing from life and locking everyone out of her world, she left a key out for me.

Yeah, I crushed his nose and caused two fractures in his cheekbone, but he crushed my world and fractured my future. His bones would heal. My heart wouldn’t.

LIFELESS, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF A BEATING HEART, I STOOD ON HIS FRONT PORCH and rang the doorbell again.

My heart didn’t have an eject button; therefore, she would never lose her place inside of it.

I was under some false assumption that I could somehow live without the boy that breathed air into my lungs when nothing had ever been more impossible.

“I’ll never have a greater friend, Hugh Biggs, or a greater love.”