It hurt so badly that breathing was difficult.
The sensation of the heart. The weight of it. The burn in his throat. The moisture that suddenly stung his eyes and rolled down his burning cheeks. What was this?
Why couldn't he breathe?
He looked down at his hands and they were shaking.
His dark-veined fingertips trembled like they didn't belong to him.
Tears blurred his vision as his unfamiliar heart tightened inside his chest with emotions he had forgotten what they felt like. Sorrow, loss, and loneliness—and he didn't understand why it consumed him whole.
It wasn't even a single emotion. It was everything.
Everything at once.
And it was too much.
He pressed his back to the wall and drew his knees in. His body hunched as he tried to silence the sound of that terrible heart that had suddenly come alive inside him. It refused to stop. It wouldn't calm.
He didn't even hear her at first.
