Heart Read Online Free PDF

wasn’t supposed to kill
him, but he was cursed from the moment he met her. Then he hit me
with the chorus.
    The aftermath of loving you is not love at
all.
    Your black soul bled all over mine.
    Your black heart turned mine to stone.
    The aftermath of loving you is nothing but
pain I want to fade away.
    Ouch.
    I rubbed my thumb over the black heart
tattooed on my wrist in a subconscious attempt to wipe it off. It
didn’t work. The ink was as permanent as the black heart in my
chest that it represented.
    Ryder’s song affirmed it.
    The crowd went wild over the song. They loved
every bit of his angsty rock and roll ballad. I stood in the back
and tried to pick up the pieces of the secret hope I hadn’t even
known I’d been holding onto.
    I had been stupid to come here, stupid to
think that I needed to check on Ryder.
    Obviously he was fine. And now that I had
really forced myself to think about it, he could take care of
himself.
    I had never let myself truly dwell on what
had happened between Ryder and Nix before Ryder ended up in the
hospital until now. I hadn’t wanted to remember the agony of
leaving Ryder. How impossible it had been to abandon him while he’d
been in the hospital barely recovering from the most intense fight
of his life.
    But now that I thought about it, Ryder, for
reasons still not explained to me, had almost put Nix in the
hospital.
    I was sure that whatever supernatural power
he’d used a year ago could keep Nix and his goons away from him
today.
    Why had I convinced myself I needed to be
here ?
    Oh, god. I was such an idiot!
    Ryder ended that song and moved onto the
next. This time his eyes never drifted my direction. He never
turned his focus to me again. His words rang out into the air and
wrapped around my heart like a wire barb.
    I couldn’t do this.
    I had to get out of here.
    I would fly straight back to Tortola and I
would never leave the island again. Never . I would spend the
rest of my life as a waitress in Fleur’s café. And spend all of my
other time with my feet in the ocean. I didn’t care about Olympus
or the war between gods or my mother or Ryder or Honor or
anybody.
    Okay, some of that was a lie.
    But the important thing was just getting
home. Now .
    I pushed through people that had filtered in
behind me and practically ran for the door. I couldn’t get out of
there fast enough. Tears wet my cheeks and my breathing stuck in my
throat.
    “Ivy?”
    I jumped back just as someone stepped in my
path. Cute, turquoise wedge sandals blurred in front of me. I
blinked back tears to find the sandals belonged to tanned legs,
white shorts and a bright orange flowy tank top.
    Kenna Lee.
    “Ivy, are you all right?” she asked in a
gentled voice.
    I wiped a rogue tear away with the back of my
hand and nodded. “I’m fine,” I lied.
    “I knew you were here the second I heard that
song,” she told me over the loud music. I wished she wouldn’t shout
those damning words. “I’ve heard them practice it. I just didn’t
think they would ever play it live.”
    I shrugged. “I mean… it might not even be
about me.”
    I looked away from her incredulous
expression. Okay, obviously it was about me.
    “Do you want to go to the bathroom?” she
asked. “We usually do this in there.”
    I found myself smiling. “It’s good to see
you.”
    “It’s good to see you too,” she replied and
she sounded sincere. I finally found the courage to meet her
probing gaze. “You just disappeared. Nobody knew where you went and
Ryder… Well, you heard the song. He didn’t take it very well. I
don’t know if you heard or not, but he was in an accident. He was
in the hospital for a while. It was kind of touch and go for a bit
and-”
    “I heard,” I assured her.
    Which turned out to be a mistake.
    Her sympathetic expression flashed with
accusation. “You knew he was in the hospital and you didn’t come
back?”
    I cleared my throat and tried as best as I
could to hold my shattering heart