Broken Glass and Bleeding Hearts

I could feel the light breeze blowing around me as I stood on the beach. The sun had just sank peacefully over the horizon and the sky was turning black as the stars revealed themselves. I was waiting for someone, not just anyone, I was waiting for Matt. He was supposed to meet me here but he was late.

The sound of the ocean was calmly to a degree but the worry was building up inside of me. The feeling that wouldn’t go away no matter how much I tried to make it leave. The chill that sat deep in my bones remained even though it wasn’t at all cold outside.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I could hear Matt’s voice. He was repeating “I love you” over and over again, but it wasn’t for me. It was for someone else. I could picture him with his lips covered in blood, but it wasn’t my blood. It wasn’t my neck that had the two small puncture holes from his fangs. It wasn’t me he wanted anymore. It was her.

I could hear that sound that he got in his voice when he didn’t want to do something when he said “I better go meet Ellie.” I could hear the dislike as he said my name. She’d won. He was hers now and I’d been so blind that I’d thought I had a chance. I saw now that I didn’t stand a chance against her.

The beautiful hazel eyes, the smile that could melt my heart, the dimples that always made me feel better, the person who I’d grown up with who knew me best and held my heart, the guy that I loved more than I could express, they all belonged to her. She didn’t love him, to her he was nothing more than a trophy. But he didn’t care anymore. He didn’t care about me and he didn’t care that she was fake. She’d one.

I could feel the tears as they slowly leaked from my eyes, leaving their tracks down my cheeks as they made they way to the sandy grown beneath my feet. I could feel my heart as it slowly stopped and broke into a million pieces, I could feel it as each little piece broke off. The next more painful than the one before it. I could feel as my body grew cold, no longer holding the warmth of the love that Matt had once felt for me. I was numb and I couldn’t feel anything.

I thought it was impossible to hurt anymore than this. How could I when everything already hurt? I thought that it was impossible for one person to take another with them when they decided they didn’t love them any longer. But I’d been wrong.

I heard the soft footsteps behind me and I already knew who it was. Who else would it be? I wrapped my arms around my chest, a final feeble attempt to protect myself from the final blow, and took a deep breath. “Hi Matt.” My voice was weak and I barely recognized it myself.

“Ellie.” His voice was cold, lacking the warmth it had once had towards me. I couldn’t make myself turn and face him. I couldn’t do it without allowing the remaining pieces of myself to die the second I did. I wondered though, what was the point? I already felt dead inside. Would one last look at his face do anything except make the death of me quicker and hopefully less painful?

“I didn’t think you’d come.” I turned to face him and felt the tears pick up pace. The blood was still around his lips faintly and the holes she’d left on his neck not yet healed.

“I wasn’t sure if I would either.” He shrugged. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Why? Why Matt? Why did you do this to me? Why don’t you love me anymore?” I felt the remaining living pieces of myself slowing dying inside as I spoke the words I had prayed weren’t true.

“Because she’s better. She’s better in everyway. I can’t love you anymore. I love her too much.” His voice was cold and his face was expressionless as he spoke the words that caused me to crumble to my knees in tears.

“Why is she better though. What did I do Matt?” I looked up at him, tears streaming down my face too fast and heavily for one to fall off before another caught up. They were clouding my vision as well making Matt seem like a blur.

“Because she is. She has everything you don’t. I should have listened from the beginning Ellie. When she told me that I belonged with her she was right.” He wasn’t hurting the way I was. He wasn’t hurting at all. I’d waited, hoping that he’d realize the truth and love me again for months but it wouldn’t happen.

“Did you ever really love me?”
“No.” And that was the final straw. My heart couldn’t take anymore, and even as shattered as it was it shattered more. Everything that had felt numb came back to life with a painful vengeance.

“Then why did you lie?” I sobbed not looking up. I wasn’t sure if I wanted the answers but I needed them. I didn’t want them but I had to have them.

“Because I thought I did. Until Angelica showed me what real love it. She showed me that what we shared was nothing more than a joke.” I couldn’t believe the words coming from Matt’s mouth as he continued to slowly kill me.

“She’s a lie! She’s the joke!” I burst out with as much force as I could, but even at that it was incredibly weak.

“No she’s not!” Matt’s voice made me flinch back and inflicted more pain that should have been impossible.

“Ignore her love. She doesn’t know what she is saying.” The voice caused another stab of pain. He loved her instead of me. I looked up through my tears only to see the sight that should have delivered the final blow to me, the one that didn’t. The one that made me wish that this was all over.

“It doesn’t matter what she says. I love you now.” Matt pulled her into his arms and kissed her lips softly and sweetly. I wished that it would have made me numb because I couldn’t take anymore.

“Please stop.” I whimpered feeling helpless. This wasn’t Matt. I wanted Matt back, not the thing that had taken over his body. I wanted to be loved the way he used to love me. I wanted it to all go away. “Just please stop. I’m begging you.” I whispered even lighter.

“Why should he stop? He loves me. Can’t you see that?” Angelica wore a smile as Matt kissed her cheek and caused another sob to rack through my body.

“Why don’t you kill me? Just make the pain go away. I’m already dead inside.”

“You should have backed away when she told you to, then you wouldn’t be going through this right now.” Matt took a break before kissing her again.

“No Matt, if she wants to be put out of her misery then do it. It won’t be hard. Do it just like I told you.” She turned to him and stroked his cheek with another smile.

“You do it love.” He really wasn’t himself.

“I don’t care who does it, just someone do it!” I screamed feeling like I was going to explode from the pain.
“Fine, I’ll do it.” She came over and leaned down. She moved to bite into my skin and tear a vein to cause me to bleed to death. I looked up at Matt, feeling a faint hope that he’d change his mind and stop her. To say that he still loved me. That he didn’t want me dead. But he didn’t and she continued.

I watched as she kissed him one last time and cried as it ended. It was taking too long to be over, especially with them standing that close to me. “Matt I’ll always love you. Always.” I mumbled. Then it changed abruptly. He pushed her away and took a spot at my side.

“I’m sorry Ellie. I’m so sorry. I love you too. I always will. I’m so sorry.” He told me as he began crying.

“Why?” I whispered and then it was all over. Just like that it all ended.

I sprang up in my bed, but not with a scream instead with tears streaming down my face. All the times I’d had the nightmare, all the times I’d died in my dreams, none of them had hurt the way this one did. I’d felt the pain, I’d felt what it would feel like if Matt didn’t love me anymore. I had wanted it all to end. I reached for my phone and sent the single text message that said everything that I could at that moment.

I need you here. Now. I waited for the text back and couldn’t control the tears. Then my phone went off.

I’ll be there as soon as I can. I knew that it wouldn’t take long, but it still felt like forever. I had to hold back a sob when I finally heard a tap at the window. I couldn’t open the window and yank him in fast enough.

“Ellie, baby, what is it? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Matt was already panicking as I latched onto him and unleashed an entirely new set of tears. “Elliebear?”

“Matt.” I started before another sob came. “A new nightmare.” I had to stop before I could go on.

“What happened Ellie? Come on you can tell me.” Matt was now clutching me to him as I felt his breathing slow. I was talking and he’d heard it was a nightmare. For him that was the best news he’d gotten so far.

“You loved her. Not me. You hated me. You let her kill me.”

“Oh Ellie. Shhh. It’s okay. It was just a dream.” I felt his lips against the top of my head. “That would never happen.”

“But I could feel everything. Everything Matt!”

“Come on, you need to sit down.” He sat down on my bed and pulled me with him. Had I not been so hysterical I might have been embarrassed that I was crying my eyes out and sitting on his lap, but right now I didn’t care at all.

It must have been an hour or two before I finally stopped crying, and when I did I couldn’t make myself look up at Matt. I knew that I’d see my Matt, not the one from the dream, but I was still afraid that my crying fit would bother him. “Ellie, look at me please. It’s okay.” His voice was soft as he whispered to me.

I moved enough so that I was looking at him and I could see everything that I loved. And more importantly I saw the exact opposite of the nightmare, I saw that Matt that loved me. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s okay. It was just a nightmare. That is never going to happen. Never.”

“But what if it does Matt?”

“I won’t.” he sighed. “I knew that you’d had a horrible nightmare tonight because I had one. But the pain in your eyes, your tears, even your sobs worried me when I got her.”

“How did you know?”

“I had one too. She’d convinced me that you hated me.”

“Matt, never.”

“Come on, we need to get out of here. I think we could both use some air. What do you say? The beach or the spot?”

“I think I don’t want to leave yet. Look at me Matt.”

“Then go get dressed. You need some air Elliebear, it will do you good.”

“I guess you are right. Just give me a few minutes okay?”

“I’ll be right here.” We made it to the beach and I was feeling more at ease now that I was with Matt. “Are you doing okay now?”

“I’m better. I’m finally calming down. I guess it just freaked me out.” I took another deep breath. “The nightmare happened here. I heard you say you loved her, call her love. I saw you drink her blood, and the faint trace of it on your lips. I saw you kiss her Matt.”

“I saw her kill you before she lied to me in mine.”

“She killed me in mine too. That is when you told me that you still loved me, but it was too late.”

“I’d never let her hurt you. I’ll never let anyone hurt you.” Matt’s arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me into his side as we sat in the cool sand.

“I’m not scared of that as much as I am that you’ll fall in love with her. I was thinking about when we were younger a few days ago Matt.”

“How young?”

“The youngest was when we were eight and we heard our parents talking about us dating, kissing, and getting married.” This drew a laugh from Matt.

“When we thought it was disgusting?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ve come a long way from back then.”

“We have, haven’t we?”

“Ellie?”

“Hum?”

“Do you ever wonder if maybe we fell in love with each other before we realized what was going on?”

“I think we did. Either that or we just always loved each other and the love just changed from one form to another.”

“You don’t need to worry about that nightmare ever coming true.”

“Why? How do you know?”

“Because I love you and I’m madly in love with you. No one will ever be able to change that. I know that.”

“I’m in love with you too, and I don’t think I’ll ever not be.”

Matt pulled my face up gently before leaning down to press his lips against mine. I felt everyone worry that the dream had caused fade away as my eyes closed and I kissed him back. I could stay like this forever. I wrapped my arms around him as his wrapped around me. “Forever, Elliebear. Until you don’t want me anymore.” He whispered against my lips.