Page 17 of Broken

My shame knows no bounds when her stories fill up every waking moment of my day. Whenever I’m not in church, I read her books, feeding the black and white of my life with the color of her imagination.

When, one week, I consistently chooseRevelover the Bible, I know I have to stop, that my obsession must fade.

But even as I try to throw her books away, I can’t.

I leave them on a shelf behind my desk in the church where I’ve been placed, tucked amid seminal texts.

My dirty little secret.

CHAPTER 11

From the hospital bed of Andrea Jura

MONTEREY COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

ELEVEN MONTHS LATER

Dear Father Savio,

Did you miss me?

I can’t help but wonder if you ignore my letters or if they’re gathering dust in some mailbox that never gets checked or if they end up straight in the trash.

I’ll know soon enough.

I’m coming to Rome. Yes, you read that (or ignored that) correctly.

I know it’s been eleven months since you last heard from me, but I had to resist temptation. It was… difficult. The treatment wasn’t easy, and all I wanted was to talk to you, but I prevailed.

While I’m healing, only to you will I admit there’s something not right.

My sense of smell is strange. My mood swings. I can’t run anymore, not without feeling nauseated. I know while I’m with you, I’ll need to find a gym because my strength is severely depleted.

‘London’s Burning,’ my current WIP, hasn’t had a single word added to it in months. The harsh reality is my publisher’s losing patience.

Writing is something else I’ve lost along the way to good health, but I’m trying to get it back. Despite the ability to write being like a muscle, no gym will help me regain those skills.

One of the hardest parts of my recovery has been staying put for almost eleven months. The butterfly in my soul has almost perished, but Rome will revive it. It has to, or I don’t know who I am or will be.

No one understands. They never have and they never will. My parents tried and Diana too. But, before I was just an oddity. A strange waif who drifted around the country, seeing too much, saying too much, BEING too much. Now, they lay the blame on the cyst.

With that part ripped out of me, they have nothing to excuse me for except the surgery, which will make themquestion if I’m still sick. Ultimately, that’ll mean a longer stay in the clinic.

Never again.

Another reason I’m traveling overseas—they won’t be there to watch over me.

They raised me to be independent. While I understand and love them for their care, they’re suffocating me.

Oh, how childish I sound. But it’s more than that. My whole life is a lie to them. One big delusion.

I need space. Distance.

Can’t get much farther than Rome.

Of course, my nomadic heart selected that destination for a reason…

Eleven months of silence and you thought I’d forgotten?

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