The Oath We Give (The Hollow Boys Book 5)

silas

Nothing hurts.

There is a numbness that has encompassed me like a jacket meant to protect me from pain. Bright lights blind me as I blink, eyes trying to adjust.

An eerie silence creeps in as I look down. Tall grass comes up to my waist, swaying against my body, but there is no wind howling. Brilliantly colored flowers stretch out before me, endless in both length and color. Wildflowers so bright they make my eyes hurt, but there are no bees humming.

I reach my hand down, unable to feel the blade of green weeds beneath my palm, even though they wrap around my fingers. It’s everything and nothing all at once.

The sensation of being alive but not really living is overwhelming. All the beauty around me is mocking, cruel even. It shows me life in all its wonder but leaves me trapped in an internal void of nothingness.

“Silas!”

A voice shatters the silence around me. I spin to glance behind me but see nothing, only miles and miles of flowers. When I turn back around, my brows furrow as a figure begins to pixelate in the distance, coming to form with every step she takes forward.

“Silas!” she screams again. This time, I can see the smile on her face, the joy that radiates around her like a halo.

“Rosie?” I choke on her name, tears slipping down my cheeks in a stream—joyful tears that she’s okay, that she’s happy, that she’s here. But they are also soaked in misery, in a melancholy sadness because I’m dead.

I died, and I left Coraline alone.

She comes to a halt a few feet in front of me, waves of auburn hair swirling around her face, wearing the same outfit she had on the last day I saw her.

“I wanted to come say goodbye.” She tilts her head, the freckles dotting her cheeks crinkling as she grins at me. “We never got to say goodbye last time.”

My body, my soul, has felt heavy for years, weighed down by the grief of never telling her goodbye, of being the last person she trusted to see her before she was killed.

“I’m sorry, Rosie. I’m sorry I let you walk home alone.” My voice is muffled in my own ears, but I know she hears it because she starts to frown. “I’m sorry I didn’t protect you when I promised I would.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Silas. I died, and that wasn’t your fault.”

Her voice is soft, gentle, reassuring. So very her.

“You’re not to blame for my death.” Her smile returns, the youth in her features making my chest burn. She never got to experience life; she never got to be anything. Rosemary was a world of possibility turned into a tragedy. “I died, and it’s okay to forgive yourself.”

In the back of my mind, I hear voices roaring and shouting, just in the distance, but there is nothing behind me. The feeling of numbness is starting to fade from me. My bones have weight, and I can feel my feet beneath me.

“My feet are freezing.” 

My heart drops as I look down to see her pale feet without socks. Tears burn the insides of my eyes, and I let them fall. I want to bring her back with me so that she can have a chance to experience life. So she can see Sage again, so she can fall in love again.

I want to give her endless possibilities. I want that for her so badly.

“Your feet always did get cold without socks on,” I say, my throat tightening.

“Hey, Silas?” Her voice is a whisper now, the in-between place of flowers starting to fade. The cold is returning to my body, and as much as I want Rosie to be happy, I want to go back.

I want to go back to Coraline because I can’t leave her alone.

I’m her curse breaker.

I can’t be another person she loses. I want to be the person who proves that she can be loved, loudly and endlessly, without it killing me.

“Yeah?” I ask.

Rosemary’s head tilts, a sleepy smile tugging at the corner of her fading face as she drifts off to a place of peace. “Can you carry me one last time?” 

I want to go back, but this? This is the goodbye I never got to say to the person who showed me kindness above all else. This is closure with a person who showed me how to love so that I had it down by the time I met Coraline. Who taught me so much about myself before I even knew who I was.

This is a goodbye to my guilt for not being there.

So, I look at her one last time, knowing that as long as I live, I’ll carry the love Rosemary Donahue and I shared forever as a testament to her memory, a thank-you for all she did.

She died knowing she was loved by many, and that’s all any of us can ask for at the end of our days.

“Always, Rosie Girl.” 

Coraline

Everything hurts.

I keep thinking if I shut my eyes tight enough, I’ll go back to sleep, and I won’t have to feel this aching in my chest. This heavy weight that sits there like boulders.

But sleep is evasive because guilt is awake and gnawing at my fragile bones.

I know what I did was wrong, but he made it so fucking difficult. He was too tempting with his dark eyes and lover-boy heart. Buying me lavender plants and caring for my sister. All of his nerdy chess knowledge. My heart tries to flutter thinking about him, but tiny archers in my chest shoot the butterflies down with a vengeance.

I know I should’ve never let him love me. I knew this would happen, and yet I couldn’t fucking help myself. Tears burn my eyes. How am I going to face his parents? How am I going to face the boys? When I know in my heart, I’m the reason Silas died.

If I had just kept my distance, tried harder to push him away, he wouldn’t be in this position. He’d be awake and here with the people who deserve him.

I curl tighter into the chair I’m sitting in, a wretched sob racking through my ribs that makes me feel like I just might die right here in this hospital.

Death of a broken heart by the heart killer. How ironic.

“1852, the Evergreen Game. Adolf Anderssen sacrificed a queen for checkmate.”

I lift my head toward the hospital bed.

“Why are you crying like I’m dead, baby?”

The oxygen tube running across his face makes me frown, seeing someone so strong in such a weak position. There is a resounding relief that flows through me. Even though the doctors told us to expect him to wake up soon, I still had trouble believing them.

“Because you did die.” I stand from my seat. “Twice on the table. You’ve been out for a few days.”

I pick up the water cup on the side table, walking it over to him to have a drink, knowing he’s probably dying of thirst. I slide myself onto the edge of the hospital bed and place my hand on his cheek.

“I killed you,” I whisper, tears slipping down my face. “I told you—”

“Easton shot me,” he corrects. “You’re not cursed, baby. I’m right here.”

My heart clenches at his words, the weight on my chest lightening just a little. But the guilt still lingers, taunting me like a cruel joke.

“Ask me what my favorite color is.”

“What?” I furrow my brow.

“Ask me again what my favorite color is,” he asks again, a smile on his lips like he has a secret ready to share with me.

I laugh, wiping the tears from my eyes. “What’s your favorite color, Silas?”

Instead of answering, he lifts his hand, removing the wedding band on his finger and tilting it into the light so I can see the engraved marking along the inside.

“dd4a3d?”

“It’s a hex code.” Silas slides the ring back on, reaching forward to brush a piece of hair behind my ear. “For the orangish-red color named Coraline.

“I want you. I’ve wanted you for a long time. All of it.” He runs a thumb across my bottom lip. “Curse me. I’ll live my entire life cursed as a reminder that I loved you. That you let me love you. That you loved me.”

“I’m scared to lose you.”

“I know you are, Hex. But don’t let that stop you from being with me.” He smiles. “Besides, I’m the curse breaker, remember?”

When you are born into a life destined for tragedy, a life full of nothing but wicked lies and impossible expectations, you grow up struggling to believe in happily ever afters. You exist in a world of loneliness and melancholy sadness until your inevitable death. 

I thought I was going to spend my life all alone, trapped in a lonely tower, to protect people from my wretched heart. 

But Silas came into my life like a gust of wind, a voice that shattered the walls I’d built so high to protect myself. He saw through my pain, my sorrow, the scars. He loved me, not in spite of them, but because of them.

He was the person life left me empty for.

To give it room for him to fill.