The Fabric of Our Souls

by K. M. Moronova

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Romantic Suspense; Gothic

Synopsis

Two troubled souls find solace in each other at a rehabilitation facility in this spellbinding dark romance sizzling with angst.

I’m twenty-six years old, and I want to die.

So when I wake up at the hospital with my brother weeping over me, I know my life is about to change. What I didn’t expect was to get a nurse with cruel eyes and a morbid sense of humor that surpasses my own.

I’m even more surprised when I arrive at Harlow Sanctum and realize that my brother selected an unorthodox rehabilitation center that rooms people based on their treatment plan. And my roommate is none other than the man with cruel eyes I met the day prior.

I crave death—he craves life.

Can two people like us cure each other?

Release date: November 16, 2023

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 368

Sample

Wynn

I was born with a bad heart.

Literally and figuratively.

I’m the cold-hearted villain in everyone’s story, according to most of my loved ones, while ironically also having a heart condition that will eventually kill me. Lucky me.

If this is God’s great design for me, then I’m good.

I’m tapping out.

The blood runs down my fingertips. It’s colder than I thought it’d be. It isn’t painless like some people say—no, it very much hurts.

Red drops tap tap tap on the tiles beneath me, making it hard to focus. Difficult to remember the good things that are supposedly due to flash back.

Only the bad ones come to mind. The heinous people and all the things they’ve said; the things I’ve said too.

Whoever coined the phrase “sticks and stones” is an asshole, don’t you think? Words indeed hurt more than stones. Thanks for trying to gaslight me out of it though. It didn’t work.

My name is Wynn Coldfox. I'm twenty-six years old and I want to die.

I want to die.

There—I said it.

Does it change anything?

Does it shock anyone, the people who secretly knew but continued to call me things like evil, a miserable bitch, a monster?

The answer is no, probably not, maybe mildly.

Sometimes the darkness inside me thinks that this is what they’ve wanted all along—for me to finally give in.

Well, welcome to the shit show.

The curtain is finally closing.

* * *

There will never be a way to explain why I am this way. It’s something that you endure wholly, entirely. A deep and empty pit inside your flesh that never closes, no matter what you try to fill it with. No matter what thread you try to sew it shut with, it gapes and itches. An emergency exit that waits patiently for any who stray.

My doctor says it’s a chemical imbalance in my brain, and fuck, they’re probably right. But it doesn’t stop the very real, un-chemical, raw nothingness that ravages my entire being. The pills don’t help, they never have, and none of my therapists seem to understand why I’m so fucked up.

They think I’m faking or something. Let them speculate.

I stare up at the plain ceiling of my hospital room, trying not to look over at my brother. I’ve been awake for at least an hour now and neither of us has uttered a word to the other.

“Why?” James finally asks with his hands clasped in front of him, knuckles white. His navy-blue suit is sleek. Expensive. The black watch on his wrist is new too. A gift from a new lover? A present to himself for being so successful? I don’t bother asking.

“Don’t, James.” I take a deep breath as I sit up in the bed, reluctantly meeting his gaze.

“Why can’t you just… not be like this?” My brother runs his hand down his weary face. His brown eyes are heavy with grief and anger.

Yeah, because I asked to be like this.

“I’ve tried to explain this to you many times, James. You don’t get it—you never will,” I mutter unenthusiastically. I used to get upset when he’d ask. But luckily for those who haven’t experienced it themselves, it is a hard feeling to understand.

James furrows his brows at me and links his fingers together in front of him again, pressing them against his lips in a thinking posture, his elbows each on a knee as he stares at me from the corner of the room like I’m a disobedient animal. He shakes his head and looks out the window for a few silent minutes, leaning back in the tacky blue chair that looks overused and uncomfortable. I slouch in bed and fist the sheets, keeping my eyes on his so I don’t have to look down at my wrists. They hurt, but if I don’t look, I won't have to face the disgusting reality. Avoidance has always been my coping mechanism. If I don’t think about it, it doesn’t matter. My day goes on.

I grit my teeth and try to lift the tension between us. “You didn’t need to come all the way here.”

James hates hospitals. It’s everything about them, I suppose. The overworked nurses, the somber gray rooms, the drab, colorless curtains that drape the small windows, the smell. The deaths that seems to linger in the walls.

More accurately, he’s hated hospitals since Mom died.

He stands and walks over to the bedside, and my heart sinks when I realize he’s crying. I’ve never seen him cry before, not once. James Coldfox is a hard man, one who hides his feelings and doesn’t show his cracks. He seals himself deep within walls cemented long, long ago. But now his jaw trembles and he grabs my hand gently as his tears crash against my skin.

I avert my gaze to the dull gray floors of this morbid fucking room. I can’t bear to look him in the eyes. I know what I did was wrong.

But I’m so tired. How do I tell him I want to sleep forever? In a bed of roses or in a goddamn urn, it doesn’t matter—anywhere but here will do.

I’m burning inside, and it hurts.

I just want to stop hurting.

I should’ve built my walls of cement like his. I’ve tried vulnerability and stupid, senseless love. I often wonder if I’d be different if I hadn’t. Now my walls are impenetrable—no one gets in, I don’t go out.

James’s hands are warm and he grips mine affectionately as he murmurs, “Is it work? Did you break up with that asshole Salem again? What’s so wrong with life that you’d rather die?” He shakes his head and keeps his eyes lowered, and when I don’t respond he continues with a shaky voice. “I love you, Wynn. So, so much. I want you to know that, okay? You’re all I have left in this world.”

Work sucks, yeah. I don’t mention that I just quit the third job I’ve held this year.

Corporate offices are suicide base camps. They shove you in a cubicle the size of a bathroom stall and expect you to thrive. Add a few plants and family photos. Hearing people cough all day and looking into their dead eyes day in and day out. Hearing about so-and-so finally retiring after the endless march of devoting their entire life to a company that will replace them in two weeks.

Salem was just an asshole I was having sex with. And the sex wasn’t even good. He cheated on me. I didn’t care—end of the story with that jerk.

I guess, if nothing else, being all James has left should be a reason to try to get better. But I’ve tried… so many times and the sadness doesn’t go away. The nights I spend staring into the dark don’t brighten.

“I want to discuss placing you in a rehabilitation institute.” He dips his head as he speaks and my heart sinks.

“You want to put me in a fucking institution?” I try to jerk my hand away but he holds on firmly. I lift my eyes to his, and my anger instantly disperses with the sorrow that radiates from his soul. I deflate. “I’m sorry… You know, I think that might be a good decision.” I press my other palm against my forehead to suppress the warring headache that claws at my skull. “I’m just… so tired, James.”

He sits next to me and shakes his head. “It’s not your fault you’re like this… We’ve been through this so many times, Wynn, but you know what?” His voice lifts and he sits straighter. A sickening flicker of hope dashes through his eyes. “This rehabilitation center is going to help you. They have the highest success rate for curing people like you.”

Curing people like you. People. Like. You.

My mind is a plague that needs to be cured and people like me are damned to chase this mysterious elixir.

Will I be the same when I’m cured?

If I get cured.

I nod in agreement, eager to move on to things less depressing, like the weather. Anything to change the subject will do, even James’s corporate job that he’s so happy to have. Anyone can see that his soul is slowly dying. That’s what the real world does to us, isn’t it? Grind, grind, grind for forty-plus hours a week just to stand at the grocery store and worry about whether you can afford food.

But I suppose he’s doing much better than I ever was. Maybe he doesn’t worry about those sorts of things. “So, do you think you’ll get that promotion?”

“My boss said that it’s a sure thing, I’ll be promoted in the next month⁠—”

“Hey, man, it’s past visiting hours. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to leave.” A male nurse interrupts James as he struts in, carrying an IV bag and some white towels. His black hair lies perfectly on his gorgeous head, his jaw is sharp, and his eyes are a very alluring shade of blue.

He’s handsome—but there’s something about the way he looks at me that puts me off. It’s not pity like the other nurses always have pinned on their expressions. His expression is cold, bitter, and maybe a bit curious.

James rolls his eyes at the nurse but smiles at me. “I’ll be back tomorrow. I’m staying at the inn across the street in case you need anything, okay?”

I wave my hand at him dismissively. “I’ll be fine. It’s not like they’re going to let me do anything in here,” I say as a joke but James does not find it funny at all. The nurse, on the other hand, laughs coldly as he closes my blinds and sets the towels down on the small coffee table beneath the window.

James and I both snap our heads at him. I’m shocked, but my brother is furious.

“Did you just fucking laugh at my sister’s condition? She’s fucking sick!” he shouts as he backs the nurse into the corner of the room. I nearly fall out of my bed trying to stop him.

“Stop it! I was joking and he laughed, it’s not his fault,” I plead with my brother.

James fists the nurse’s scrubs and looks at his name tag. “Well, I’ll be submitting a complaint first thing in the morning, Nurse Hull.” He releases Nurse Hull and gives me a quick apology and goodbye before storming out, heading toward the reception desk instead of the exit.

Great. Now I feel like an asshole.

Nurse Hull chuckles quietly as he replaces my IV bag and I dare a glance up at him. The bedside lamp lights his face from beneath and his blue eyes flick down to me as he finishes up. I take a deep breath as our eyes connect. He’s fucking beautiful. It’s hard to believe he’s actually a nurse. He looks anything but the intelligent and all-helping type.

He wears black Under Armour beneath his scrubs—to cover his tattoos, I’m guessing by the small thorns that are inked on his wrist. A black cuff crests his ear and behind it is a small tattoo of the Roman numeral II.

“Sorry about my brother, I shouldn’t have made that joke. I’m unwell and he’s traveled a long way to be here for me.” I let my eyes drift to my bandaged wrists. I feel guilty, but not once have I felt like crying about it. It doesn’t seem sad to me. My illness makes me yearn for dark things, which is precisely why James is trying to put me in rehab. I should be sad about it. But the emotions aren’t there.

Not anymore.

What kind of sickness takes your fucking emotions? It’s not fair.

Nurse Hull focuses back on the IV and gives me a cruel grin. “Well, I thought it was funny—you know, as a bystander who isn’t foreign to being unwell. Brothers are just overprotective assholes you’re stuck with. We’ll do anything for our siblings.”

I raise a brow and watch him as he circles my bed to the other side, grabbing the towels from the coffee table on the way over. “You’re a weird nurse,” I mumble, scooting myself back so I can lie down. The drugs are making me really tired, dizzy too. Maybe I can put some makeup on tomorrow and feel like a person again.

He laughs. The sound of his deep voice gives me goosebumps. “Am I? Noted. Miss Coldfox, right? Wynn Coldfox?” He leans over and stares down at me with hooded eyes; darkness lurks there and a piercing, unsettling feeling coils in my stomach. God, he’s absolute murder.

“Shouldn’t you know who the patient is before coming into the room?” I ask, scrunching my brows at him warily. He doesn’t fit this role well. I wonder how many complaints he’s gotten since working here.

Add my brother to that growing list.

He sets the towels in the cupboard and pushes his dark hair back. His tan skin is a little darker than my own, but not by much. I bite my lower lip to quell the horrible thoughts that my drug-induced mind is trying to think about his taut chest and arms.

“I knew it was you. I’m just trying to make small talk,” he says indifferently before clicking off the TV that’s been playing the same boring nineties show all day.

I nod and don’t bother trying to give him a fake a smile. “You suck at small talk, Nurse Hull.”

He eyes me with a grimace, calculating something before he leans in close, his face mere inches from mine. He whispers, “Can you keep a secret?”

I take a quick breath of surprise. He’s insanely gorgeous, but there’s an air of cruelty about him that makes my heart beat faster.

“Sure, I guess.”

He smiles and tugs on the name tag pinned to his scrubs. “I’m not Nurse Hull. I borrowed these scrubs.”

His amusement is disturbing. I narrow my eyes at him. “What the fuck—why?”

He shrugs and walks toward the door. He flips the light switch and my bedside lamp goes out. “So I don’t get complaints from people like your brother.” He laughs as the door shuts quietly behind him.

I’m left in the darkness of my room, staring at the tacky tiled ceiling with a stupid grin, wondering who the hell that was.

And if, perhaps, I’ll see him again.

Wynn



James sets a cup of generic coffee down on the white plastic tray connected to the side of my bed. I don’t even care that it’s not a fancy blend, I just want the bitter liquid down my throat right this second.

“Careful, you’re going to burn your hand if you spill,” he grumbles. It’s eight a.m. and no one asked him to be here this early. Still, it means a lot that he’s set aside this time for me. Even if he did wake me up and throw the curtains open without warning, nearly blinding me.

He pulls out his laptop and starts clicking away on it. His boss lets him work from home most days anyway, so leaving Colorado and flying out to Montana wasn’t such a stretch for him. Sometimes I think James truly thrives on working, traveling, and being dressed in a suit, even though the only people he will see today are me and the hospital staff.

I still feel awful about it though. It obviously wasn’t supposed to end up this way. I was hoping to not be here for the after. Still, I’m sorry to my roommate, who’s refusing to talk to me now, and to my brother for having to deal with his adult younger sister.

The coffee is bland but my soul reignites a bit as I sip the hot liquid down. I watch him type for a while, missing my own laptop and wondering what I was working on the night I decided to die. Does it matter? I’m still not sure.

Obviously I won’t be going back to that life. Rehab is in the stars for me now.

My gaze shifts to the nightstand; there’s a black ring next to the lamp. Weird, that definitely wasn’t there yesterday. I set my paper cup down and grab the ring. It’s cold and matte, nothing special about it, no engravings or marks.

It reminds me of the sort of thing my mom used to leave me on my nightstand when I was a child.

She would bring me crystals from her work trips. The memories of her travel stories and the crystals consume me for a few moments before a dark and looming presence steals them away. My mother was a wrathful, cruel woman.

I was expected to be some sort of prodigy in school. Maybe that’s when I first fell sick. I ponder the thought as I run my thumb over the smooth edge of the ring.

“Did you bring this?” I ask as I hold the black ring up to James. He looks up for a brief second before shaking his head and returning his eyes to his screen.

Okay, was it the nurse from last night then? I look over at the door. It’s not like I’m forbidden to leave my room or anything. I shift off the bed and set my feet on the cold floor. The chill from the gray tiles shoots straight through my socks and into the soles of my feet, making me shiver and rub my arms.

“Where are you going?” James stops typing and frowns at me. All this frowning is going to cause him some major wrinkles in a few years.

“I’m going to go stretch my legs. Be back in twenty,” I mumble as I slip on my white hospital-issued slippers and make for the door. James grumbles but the sounds of his keyboard fill the room again, so I know I’m home free.

Time to find that nurse and maybe grab a snack from the cafeteria. I want to eat something other than goddamn pudding.

Hospitals are depressing.

Older folks walk around with the assistance of healthcare providers, and family members of patients are either waiting for bad news or receiving it. Sobs fill the third-floor lobby, and it fucking sucks. I hate walking through this wing.

I tune out the sounds and focus on finding the mystery man from last night. Some of the female nurses look familiar. They must’ve helped me in the first few days after I woke up.

Those days are mostly blurry.

“Hi, can you help me? I’m looking for, um, Nurse Hull?” I ask the receptionist sitting at the circular desk in the center of the lobby. There are three more chairs to her side for other staff members. She gives me a flat expression and looks like she could use an extra shot of expresso in her coffee.

“Hull? He’s off all week.” She gives me another once-over with disapproving eyes. My gaze finds her necklace, a pendant in the shape of a cross, sitting pretty at the base of her neck. Yeah, I suppose I’m pretty low in her view. My pale-pink hair and tattoos probably don’t help either.

“Thanks,” I say with the fakest smile I can conjure as I walk down the hall opposite mine.

He must be here somewhere. Is he even a nurse at all?

I spend the morning walking aimlessly and finding nothing more than sick people and tired workers. I can’t find Nurse Hull anywhere in this fucking place. James comes searching for me after an hour and finds me sharing fries with a nice woman in the cafeteria.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for you?”

I glance up and shrug. “I got hungry. Want some?” I offer him a fry and he scowls at me like the world is ending. “Jesus, just say no. Stop with the faces.” I shove a cheese-smothered fry into my mouth. He has that serious look on his face that says he means business and I’m not in the mood to argue. I thank the nice lady for the fries (I didn’t bother remembering her name) and walk back to my room with James.

I nearly jump out of my slippers when I see a ghastly doctor waiting for us. He looks decrepit, with glasses from the 1800s or something and an extremely vexed expression that exaggerates all the wrinkles on his face.

I nudge James. “See, that’s what you’re going to look like if you keep up the scowling.”

He bites back the frown that I know is pulling at his lips and furrows his brows anyway. “Wynn, this is Doctor Prestin. He’s going to evaluate you for commitment to Harlow Sanctum.”

Dr. Prestin extends his hand to me and I shake it with a strained smile. His hands are cold, much like his horrible smile. He smells like peppermint candy and not the good kind. My arm hair raises with goosebumps and my stomach curls.

“Nice to meet you.” I force the words to come out smoothly as I pull my hand back and shove it into the safety of my fluffy sweater, desperately wishing I had sanitizer to scrub over my palm.

His dull brown eyes analyze me from behind his glasses. “A delight, Miss Coldfox. do you think your brother’s suggestion is the right choice? I’m curious about your thoughts on rehabilitation.”

James looks over . . .