by Hanna Peach
Salem came in anyway when I needed her. She was always there when I needed her.
“Tell me about Clay.”
Clay.
At the mention of his name a thread of light found a way to cut through the darkness. Slowly I looked up from my fingers, my nails chewed back to the quick, and up, up to Dr Swanson’s jaw. He had a deep dimple on his chin, which I sometimes stared at. It was always too much to look him in the eyes. I was afraid of what I’d see when he looked at me. Anger. Disgust. Pity.
“Clay,” I whispered. A pang of longing clenched at my chest. Where was he? Did he think of me? Like I thought of him?
His name is Clay. Clay Jagger.
Is that it? All I get is a name?
What do you want to know?
Is he good to you?
He’s wonderful.
So far.
What’s that supposed to mean?
My eyes darted aside looking for Salem, always looking for her. But today she stayed away.
“Aria?”
My eyes went back to his chin dimple.
“Tell me about Clay.”
Clay. Clay Jagger.
I licked my dry lips. “He makes me laugh. All the time.”
“Good. What else?”
“He’s brave and strong. He would go to the ends of the Earth for me, no matter what I did. And…”
“Aria, you’re stronger than you know.”
“And?”
I lifted my gaze to Dr Swanson’s eyes. They were a light blue. Not as dark or as vivid as Clay’s. But no blue was ever as vivid as Clay’s eyes. “And he believes in me.”
Day 21
“Can you go any further today?”
Aria, you’re stronger than you know.
Clay believed I could do this. I could do this. I could.
I nodded.
Get off me.
I inhaled slowly.
He yanked my pyjama bottoms down and climbed on top of me. Like always, that’s when I froze, barely moving, barely breathing, holding everything inside. Keep it inside.
And I exhaled.
I felt the sharp rise of bile burning my throat. I felt every outline of his fingerprints marking my skin. I felt every sticky inch of him as he violated my body. And his moan was a poisonous gas seeping into me.
You’re
so
tight.
Every thrust, every thrust, piercing me, piercing me, leaving holes in my paper soul. Please, be quick. Please. Be over. I squeezed my eyes shut, fleeing as far away as far down into my own mind as I could go.
Down
down.
Down I go.
But it was never far enough down. I could never get far enough away. My body, my mattress, my whole room, shook, like the world was falling apart.
You’re stronger than you know.
I won’t leave you alone. I’m here.
I gritted my teeth and my fingers dug into the couch. And the world shook a little less. And a little less.
Day 89
“Last day,” Dr Swanson said as we sat in his office.
I nodded. The last eighty-nine days had been some of the hardest and darkest of my life. As the truth about my past broke its way through like weeds in the cracks, there were two things that kept me going, two points of light, two faces in my mind that kept me fighting to push past the darkness when it threatened to swallow me.
I had good days and bad days in here. And I would continue to have good days and bad days. The bad days would come less and less and then they would become bad hours, then bad minutes…but I accepted that they may never really go away.
“Is Salem here?” he asked.
My shoulders wilted as a sadness rolled around in me. That was one thing I wasn’t sure I had truly accepted. I shook my head, my eyes lowered to the latte-coloured carpet.
“When was the last time you saw her?”
I swallowed. “I haven’t…” The doctor let me have my silence, perhaps realising I needed a moment. “I haven’t seen her in weeks now.” And I missed her so much.
I heard the sound of paper flicking as he closed my file. “Well, reviewing your file I think your treatment went well. I’ll be happy to release you tomorrow. Well done, Aria.”
It was you, Salem, I thought, wondering if she could even still hear me. I couldn’t have done it without you.
At the door to Dr Swanson’s office I paused and turned to him. “Do you think I’ll ever see her again?”
He pressed his lips together. “Salem was a strategy for your adolescent mind to deal with something horrific happening to you. Something that no one should ever have to deal with. You’ve made the right steps to move past it. So, don’t take this the wrong way but…I hope not.”
21
Day 90
My release day. As I walked down the hall from my room towards the lobby, my lonely footsteps echoed off the walls, my stomach tumbled over and over again like a half-empty dryer. Would Clay be there waiting for me? Like he said he would? We hadn’t seen each other in ninety days. We hadn’t even spoken in ninety days. But I’d thought of him every day. And I woke up every morning to his face on the backs of my eyes and the feeling of his ghost by my side.
Ninety days is a long time.
Anything could happen in ninety days.
We fell in love in less than ninety days.
And I forgot him in less than ninety seconds.
He could have met someone else. Moved away. He could have forgotten about me… Or chosen to try and forget about me. I wouldn’t hate him if he did. I had already caused him so much suffering.
I held my breath as I rounded the corridor to the lobby. Would he be there? Please be there. Please…
There he was.
Waiting.
With a smile as radiant and wide as I had ever seen it. My breath released in a sob as my body flooded with cool relief. I broke into a run. Even as my vision blurred behind my tears I found my way back into his arms. And his lips were on mine. And his arms were around me, crushing me, and I was being lifted, and I was weightless. And I was flying and I never wanted to come down.
“Aria,” my name broke in his voice as he leaned his forehead on mine, his smell of musk and cedar and his warmth making a home all around me. “God, I’ve missed you.”
“You came.”
“Of course I came.”
“I’ll come for you. I’ll find you. No matter where you go, I’ll find you.” Now that I remembered everything, I felt our love stretching back to the day we met on that bridge, a thick, rich tapestry of him and me. Even though I ran from him, he searched for me and found me and waited patiently for me to fall in love with him again. He never gave up on me. Which is why I could never give up on me.
“I love you,” I said without hesitation.
“I love you, too, my indestructible angel.” He kissed me, his lips hot and fierce, a promise for what was to come. I didn’t even flinch as whistling and claps sounded out around us; they all sounded so far away to me.
Not everyone gets to find a love like this. I’m a very lucky girl, very, very lucky. Although I didn’t always feel that way.
I’m lucky because Clay Jagger loves me. Unconditionally. All of me. Even the torn or folded pieces of me.
Epilogue
I watch you and Clay walk from the facility lobby to the taxi he has waiting for you. I watch from a distance, always at distance, never too close to you, but never too far away. He has his arm slung over your shoulder and your hand is travelling across his back as if you’re trying to remember every part of him. And you don’t sense that I’m here.
You should know I’ll never really leave you, sis.
Never.
I love you too much.
I told you I’d always be here.
Watching.
Waiting.
Even if you don’t think you need me anymore, I know you do.
Or you will.
THE END
Paper Hearts: A Paper Dolls Novella
My name is Clay Jagger. And I have a secret. A secret that I just couldn’t live with…
Until an angel came along and saved me with her light and her laughter. And for a while we were happy.
But my angel has a secret too. A dark secret that if exposed would tear us apart.
This is a prequel novella told from Clay’s perspective. Please finish reading Paper Dolls before you read Paper Hearts as it contains spoilers.
This novella is NOT for sale. It is a labour of love and a ‘thank you’ that I will be giving out (for free) to my VIP Romance Readers. Dearest VIPs, please check your inbox for the download link to Paper Hearts.
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Dear Readers,
Thank you for reading Paper Hearts. Although this is a fictional story, Schizophrenia and Dissociative Identity Disorder are real illnesses and a lot of the elements of this book are factual. I did make some creative decisions in regards to some aspects of this story (like the ending. Contemporary therapy encourages DID sufferers to live alongside their alters as opposed to giving them up). I hope I haven’t offended. It was certainly not my intent. My heart goes out to the brave souls who live with mental illness every day. I’d like to tell you about a UK charity that I personally support that provides mental health rehabilitation for young people, real people with problems just like Aria and Clay…
Sea Sanctuary was set-up in 2006 by my friend, Joseph Sabien, a survivor who had a violent mother with a mental illness and spent years in foster-care because of it. Their work is recognised by the NHS, and in 2013, they won the Google & Sainsbury’s Award for Innovation, and were nominated for the BBC Radio 4 ‘All in the Mind’ Award last year.
Sea Sanctuary are taking on their biggest project yet, the ARC, a 54m floating therapy centre, and they need our help in funding it! I’m pledging to donate 10% of my profits from the first month of Paper Dolls’s release. If Aria and Clay’s story touched you in any way, please consider donating to help improve the lives of real mental illness sufferers.
Deepest thank you, from me and Joseph.
Sea Sanctuary (Charity No.1117038): http://www.seasanctuary.org.uk/
Please donate here:
https://www.justgiving.com/seasanctuary
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Books by Hanna Peach
Romance
Paper Dolls ~ out 24 April 2016
Girl Wife Prisoner
Drake / Keir: Girl Wife Prisoner retold
The Bound Duology
Bound by Lies (#1)
Bound Forever (#2)
Fantasy
The Dark Angel Saga
Angelfire (#1)
Angelstone (#2)
Angelsong (#3)
Angelblood (#4)
Angeldust (#5)
The Afterlife of Alyx & Israel: A Dark Angel Novel ~ coming 3 July 2016
Acknowledgments
Firstly to Emma. This book is already yours but I just wanted to say thank you (again) for cheering this project on even before I had written the first word. And for early reading the hell out of this book. Love you, my little padwan.
To Terrie from Just Another Book Bitch, my social media guru, marketing madam, and all round badass. Thank you for handling all that day to day stuff, for being a friend, for making me laugh, and for pretending I’m funny when I send you dirty jokes. (Wait, wait… what’s long and hard and has the word ‘cum’ in it? …A cucumber! teehee).
To Kathy from Just Let Me Read. Bless you, woman, for your encouragement, support and for being one of the Dolls early readers. I’m so glad Sammy pointed me your way!
To Dani, thank you for reading that awful first draft (sorry) and helping me to fix that beginning section (aka cut it all out, lol).
Thanks to Sonja T from Migrating Miss, for your beta edits and for help with that Prologue.
To Christie, my editor. You really went above and beyond for this one. Damn technology fails! *shakes fist* haha, it all worked out in the end, right?
To Romac Designs for that gorgeous cover! *wistful sigh* One day all these other authors are going to realize how awesome you are and I’ll have to fight them off with sticks to get into your schedule. And you’ll deserve it too ;)
Thanks to J. for answering my questions on Schizophrenia and Dissociative Identity Disorder. And to the scores of anonymous forum posters with these actual illnesses. Thank you for being so open and frank about what living with a mental illness entails.
To my writing gals: Mounia & Elly. Thank you for the endless cups of coffee, laughs, and letting me hash out the plot twist(s) so hard it made all your heads hurt, lol.
Thanks to Shannon for picking up those final pesky typos. Mwah!
Thank you to Aisling O’Shea for answering some hospital procedure questions ;)
Finally to my darling. Who puts up with my crap when I’m soul-deep in a writing project. And for making me laugh when I was tearing my hair out over the ending by telling me to “just kill everyone like you normally do”. (I don’t do that, do I?) Volim te.
Table of Contents
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Epilogue
Paper Hearts: A Paper Dolls Novella
Acknowledgments
