Heart Bones

by Colleen Hoover

Life is weird. One day you’re staring at your dead mother and a few days later you’re building a sandcastle on the beach by yourself in the dark with a dog named after a cheese.

“You want one?” he asks. I’m kind of in shock, I think, so I take a few seconds to respond to him. “Want what?” “A tattoo.” I never thought I’d want one until this moment. “Yeah. I think I do.” Samson peeks his head back into the shower and smiles. “Look at us, deciding to get spontaneous tattoos. We are definitely fun people, Beyah.”

“If there’s nothing inside a heart that can break, why does it feel like mine is going to snap in half when I move? Does your heart not feel like that?” Samson’s eyes scroll over my face for a moment. “Yeah,” he whispers. “It does. Maybe we both grew heart bones.”

“What am I supposed to call you? Shawn or Samson?” “Samson,” he says immediately. “I’ve never felt more myself than when I was with you that summer. That’s exactly who I want to be. Forever.”