Pieces of Camden (Hole-Hearted #1) by Yessi Smith Read Free Book Online

and passport. The following two months, I learned Creole and immersed myself in their culture, needing to be an actual asset on the trip.
    Haiti wasn’t what I’d expected. I knew of hunger pains but not of famine. I knew nothing of poverty, growing up a slave to wealth. I knew of family, of love, of hate and aguish. But nothing could have prepared me for Haiti.
    I lived in Haiti for seven months, most of which I spent at an orphanage, giving babies and kids love that I never knew to dream about. Within the first few months, I fell irrevocably in love with a little girl named Jocelyn Marie and her older brother, Yvon. And while I knew I was too young to adopt them, they became my purpose. They became my truth that kept all the other truths at bay.
    When I turned eighteen, I would claim my inheritance and give them a better life. I’d do for them what Santiago and Carmen had done for me. I’d give them a family.
    I spoke to Pastor Floyd, who already knew I had lied about my name and age but decided to take me on anyway, and he agreed to help me adopt Jocelyn Marie and Yvon.
    My story with Yanelys had ended, but I wasn’t over. Suddenly, that realization filled me. I had a new beginning, a new story.
    Then, the earthquake hit. And total devastation came upon us.
    It measured a magnitude 7.1 on the Richter scale with fifty-two aftershocks recorded. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost. Houses and schools were destroyed. Families disappeared while even more fell ill to cholera.
    Death surrounded us. Choked us.
    I should have died in the orphanage.
    The last bit of me died that day, and I should have died with it.
    But I didn’t. Instead, I woke up in a hospital room, much like this one. No longer in Haiti, I learned I had been unconscious for three months.
    Pastor Floyd visited me hours after I’d awoken, and I hated him for being there with me instead of Jocelyn Marie and Yvon. And the other kids.
    When he told me they were gone, my hatred spread and imprinted itself within me.
    The boys and girls I loved as my own, including Jocelyn Marie and Yvon, were gone.
    Not confirmed deaths. Simply missing.
    I held on to hope that we’d find them though, and as soon as I was released from the hospital, I spent Pastor Floyd’s money and went back to Haiti. They were my purpose. But with each day that passed, my faith faltered. Still, I spent five years searching orphanages around the country to find Jocelyn Marie and Yvon.
    Five years of my life.
    Until the last bit of my meandering faith disappeared.
    There was no purpose. There was no reason. There was no lesson.
    The ugly truths had stolen the last bit of my humanity, and I knew no one cared. I didn’t matter.
    A small sniffle comes from the door of my hospital room, and I see her—Yanelys. Her name coils itself around my heart like a boa, leaving me barely any room to breathe or for my heart to beat. She’s standing by the door, her once dirty blonde hair now a dark chestnut, cascades around the beautiful face that is never too far from my dreams. Eyes, dark and gleaming with tears, take me in as I try to remember how to breathe. When her bottom lip trembles, my heart slices open with feelings I long ago suppressed.
    Her small frame takes over the room, consuming me, and I can’t look away.
    “I cared.” She braces her thin arms around her chest. “You always mattered to me.”

SEVEN
    YANELYS
    TWELVE YEARS OLD
    Anxiety grows each time I look at the clock on the classroom wall. It’s almost noon, and Camden still hasn’t come to school. I tap my foot on the floor, eager for the bell to ring, letting us know that class is over. Then, I can leave school. It’ll be my first time skipping class, but I have to know if Camden’s all right.
    The beatings started getting worse a month ago. Every day now, he’s hiding a new injury, and my dad has begun questioning us. I want to tell my parents the truth, but I made a promise to my best friend.
    He lives in a world where