Penguin Random House SA has shared an excerpt from A Thousand Broken Pieces, the beautiful and life-affirming novel about grief, love and friendship from the international bestselling phenomenon Tillie Cole!

About the book

Three years.
Twelve months.
A timeless grief.

After losing her beloved sister three years ago, Savanna Litchfield has been living half a life. When Savannah’s therapist suggests joining a trip around the world for grieving teens she agrees to go clutching tightly to the unread journal her sister left behind.

Seventeen-year-old Cael Woods is angry. One year after losing his older brother his life has spiraled. Once the most promising hockey player in the junior league, Cael can no longer step onto the ice. When his parents sign him up for a trip abroad no part of him wants to go.

As Cael and Savannah embark on a journey they begin to find solace in each other. As they start to heal piece by broken piece, could this be the start of a love they never thought they’d feel again?

Read the excerpt:

~~~

Lost breaths and moving clouds

Savannah
Age seventeen
Blossom Grove, Georgia

There were precisely forty-two cracks on the linoleum floor. Rob, the therapy leader, was talking, but all I heard was the tinny drone from the heating system whirring above us. My gaze was unfocused, catching only spears of daylight slicing through the high windows and the blurred outlines of the others in the circle around me.

“Savannah?” I blinked my eyes into focus, glancing up at Rob. He was smiling at me, body language open and an encouraging smile on his face. I shifted nervously on my seat. I wasn’t blessed with the skill of talking out loud. I struggled to put words to the turbulent feelings stirring inside me. I was better on my own. Being around people for too long drained me; too many of them made me close in on myself. I was nothing like my sister, Ida, whose personality was infectious and gregarious.

Just like Poppy …

I swallowed the instant lump that sprouted in my throat. It had been almost four years. Four long, excruciating years without her, and I still couldn’t think of her name or picture her pretty face without feeling my heart collapse on me like a mountain caving in. Without feeling the shadow of death’s unyielding fingers wrap around my lungs and starve them of air.

The knowing pangs of anxiety immediately began clawing their way up from the depths of where they slumbered. Sinking their teeth into my veins and sending their poison flooding through my body until it had captured me as its unwilling hostage.

My palms grew damp and my breathing became heavy. “Savannah.” Rob’s voice had changed; even though it echoed in my ears as everything around me tunneled into a narrow void, I heard its worried inflection. Feeling the weight of everyone’s stares on me, I jumped up from my seat and bolted for the door. My footsteps were an arrhythmic drumbeat as I followed the stream of light in the hallway toward the open air. I burst through the door to the outside and sucked in the wintery Georgia air.

Dancing spotlights invaded my vision, and I stumbled to the tree that sat in the grounds of the therapy center. I leaned on the heavy trunk, but my legs gave way and I dropped to the hard soil. I closed my eyes and laid my head against the wood, the rough bark scratching the back of my scalp. I focused on breathing, on trying to remember every lesson I had ever been taught about coping with an anxiety attack. But it never seemed to help. The attacks always held me hostage until they were finally willing to release me.

I was utterly exhausted.

My body trembled for what felt like an age, heart sputtering and lurching until I felt my lungs begin to loosen, my windpipe finally granting my body the oxygen it so badly craved. I inhaled through my nose and out through my mouth until I sagged farther into the tree, the smell of grass and earth breaking through anxiety’s sensory-blocking fog.

I opened my eyes and looked up at the bright blue sky, watched the white clouds traveling up ahead, trying to find shapes in their structures. I watched them appear, then leave, and wondered what it looked like from up there, what they saw when they looked down upon us all, loving and losing and falling apart.

A droplet of water landed on the back of my hand. I glanced down, only to catch another drop fall on my ring finger’s knuckle – they were coming from my cheeks. Exhaustion rippled over me, consuming all my strength. I couldn’t even lift my hands to wipe away the tears. So I focused on watching the journeying clouds again, wishing I could be like them, constantly moving, never having time to stop to process and think.

Thinking gave me space to break.

I didn’t even realize someone had sat down beside me until I felt a subtle shift in the air around me. The clouds still held my attention.

“Anxiety attack again?” Rob said. I nodded, my hair rubbing against the loose bark that was scarcely holding on to its home. Rob was only in his thirties. He was kind and was exceptional at what he did. He helped so many people. Over the past four years I’d seen a myriad of teenagers come through the therapy center’s door and leave, changed, empowered, and able to function once more in the world.

I was simply broken.

I didn’t know how to heal, how to put myself back together again. The truth was, when Poppy died, all light vanished from my world, and I’d been stumbling around in the dark ever since.

Rob didn’t speak for a while but finally said, “We have to change tactics, Savannah.” The edge of my lips lifted as I saw what looked like a daisy form in a cloud. Ida loved daisies. They were her favorite flower. Rob leaned back against the tree beside me, sharing the wide trunk. “We’ve received some funding.” His words trickled into my ears one syllable at a time as the world, painstakingly slowly, began to stitch itself back together. “There’s a trip,” he said, letting that hang in the air between us. I blinked, the sun’s afterimage dancing in the darkness when I squeezed my eyes shut to banish its blinding glow.

“I want you to go on it,” Rob said. I froze and eventually turned my head to face him. Rob had short red hair, freckles, and piercing green eyes. He was a walking autumnal color palette. He was also a survivor. To say I admired him was an understatement. Punished as a teen for his sexuality by those who were meant to love him, he had fought his way through hell to reach freedom and happiness, now helping others who struggled in their own ways too.

“There’s a trip … I want you to go on it …”

Those delayed words filtered into my brain and my old friend anxiety began to reemerge.

“A small group from all over the States is going on a five-country journey. One of healing.” He rolled his head to look up at the clouds that had previously captured my attention. “Teens dealing with grief.”

I shook my head, every second making it more and more pronounced.

“I can’t,” I whispered, instant fear wrapping around my voice.

Rob’s smile was sympathetic, but he said, “I’ve already spoken to your parents, Savannah. They’ve agreed it would be good for you. We’ve already secured your place.”

“No!”

“You’ve already finished high school. And you’ve gotten into Harvard. Harvard, Savannah. That’s incredible.” Rob briefly paused to think but then added, “That’s Boston. Far, far away from here.”

I understood the subtext. I couldn’t function at home, so how on earth would I function in another state at college?

When Poppy died, I threw myself into my studies. I had to occupy my mind at all times. It was how I stayed above water. I had always been studious. I had always been the smart one. The bookworm. The one who talked of physics and equations and molecular structures. Ida was the loud one, the dramatic sister, the funny one, capturing all the attention – in all the best ways. And Poppy … Poppy had been the dreamer. She had been the believer, the creative one, the one with music and never- ending happiness and hope in her heart.

The one who would have changed the world.

When Pops died, I couldn’t face school anymore – people’s stares, the sorrowful glances, the spotlight that followed me around, broadcasting me as the girl who had watched her older sister die. So I homeschooled, and I graduated early. Harvard accepted me; I’d done enough to get in. But with all my schoolwork complete, my newly found time became my enemy. Idle hours spent reliving Poppy fading, her slowly dying before us. Endless minutes that gave my anxiety breathing room to strike, to draw out its advances like mercenaries toying with an easy target. I felt Poppy’s absence like a noose pulling tighter around my neck day by day.

“I know it might seem frightening. I know it’s something you might not believe you can do,” Rob said, his voice gentle and encouraging. “But you can, Savannah. I believe in you.” I felt my bottom lip tremble as I met his eyes. “I’m not giving up.” A gentle smile. “We’re going to get you through this. We’re going to get you to Harvard this fall. And you’re going to thrive.”

I wanted to smile back, to show my appreciation for him even thinking of me, for never quitting on me, but nerves held me back. New people. New places. Unknown lands – it was utterly terrifying. But I had no fight left in me to contest it. And Lord, nothing else had worked for me. Four long years of individual and group therapy hadn’t been able to lift me back up or put me back together again. I was too tired to argue. So I turned my head again and stared back up at the sky. A large cloud rolled in, and I stilled.

It looked exactly like a cello.

~~~

• Extracted from A Thousand Broken Pieces by Tillie Cole, out now from Penguin Random House SA!

Categories Fiction International

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