Heart Bones - Colleen Hoover Page 0,86

happy again?

I don’t want to go back to who I was before I met him. I had nothing inside of me then but bitterness and anger. No feeling, no joy, no comfort. “What if he’s gone for so long, he doesn’t want to be part of my life when he gets out?”

I didn’t mean to say that out loud. Or maybe I did.

My tears start falling and Alana immediately responds. She doesn’t say anything to make me feel bad for feeling sad. She just wraps her arms around me and tucks my head against her shoulder.

It’s a comfort that’s completely unfamiliar, but one I desperately need right now. The comfort of a mother. I sob against her for several minutes. It’s everything I didn’t know I needed in this moment. Just a small morsel of sympathy from someone.

“I wish you could have been my mother,” I say through my tears.

I feel her sigh. “Oh, sweetie,” she whispers sympathetically. She pulls back and looks at me gently. “I’ll give you one Ambien, but it’s the only one you’re ever getting from me.”

I nod. “I promise I’ll never ask again.”

TWENTY-SIX

I slept way too hard. It feels like my brain is compressed to the right side of my head.

I sit up in bed and look outside. It’s almost dark now. I look at the time on my phone and see that it’s after seven. My stomach is growling so loud, it may be what woke me up.

I left the ringer on my phone set to high, but it never made a noise and I have no missed calls.

Fourteen more hours until I get to see him.

I reach to the floor and pick up Samson’s backpack. I dump the contents of it onto my bed and begin sifting through everything.

Literally everything he owns is on my bed right now.

There are two pairs of shorts and two of Marcos’s branded T-shirts. He was wearing the other set when he was arrested, so does that mean he only has three changes of clothes? I noticed he wore the same shirts a lot, but I assumed he was doing it to support Marcos. He probably washed them regularly in hopes no one would notice.

There are toiletries in a bag. Toothpaste, deodorant, a toothbrush, nail clippers. But no wallet.

Did he actually lose his wallet before we went to get tattoos, or did he never even have one? If he’s been on his own since his father died, how would he have even gotten a driver’s license?

I have so many questions. There’s no way our visit tomorrow will be long enough for him to answer them all.

In the bottom of his backpack, I find a plastic Ziploc bag. The bag is filled with what look like folded up pieces of paper. They’re all a little faded with a yellow tint to them, so they’re obviously old.

I open the bag and pull out one of the pieces of paper and unfold it.

Little Boy

Bitten by frenzy like me

Exhaustion in his eyes

He’s growing angry at the sea

More tired than he should be

So tired of being free

-Rake Bennett

11-13-07

Samson mentioned that Rake used to write poetry. I stare at this poem and try to make sense of it.

Is it about Samson? Are all these notes from his father? It’s dated when Samson would have been about twelve years old. A year before the hurricane hit.

So tired of being free.

What does that line mean? Did his father think Samson was tired of living life on the ocean with him?

I pull out the rest of the pieces of paper, needing to read every single one of them. They’re all dated from before Hurricane Ike, all written by his father.

She lives

When you were born, so was your mother.

As long as you live,

she too will be alive.

-Rake Bennett

08-30-06

Gone

I met your mother while she was standing on the beach,

her feet buried in the sand.

I regret not falling to my knees to scoop up some of the granules

into the palms of my hands.

I wonder if any of what we touch has ever been stepped on by her feet.

Or has every grain of sand she ever came across

already washed back out to sea?

-Rake Bennett

07-16-07

Dear Shawn,

Every child eventually craves a new place to be.

I decided your first home to be a boat, but now I wonder,

Is this boat the home you’ll flee?

If so,

that grave mistake is all on me.

Because when a man says I’m going home,

he should be heading for the sea.

-Rake Bennett

01-03-08

There are at least twenty poems and letters in the