Pieces

Heartbreak is a funny thing. I mean, if you think about it, your heart can’t physically break. But when it happens, even metaphorically, it hurts like hell. It’s almost as if your heart actually was in two. The pain is all there. Maybe the reason we feel so hurt is because heartbreak is just betrayal. You trust someone enough to make them your everything, expecting to be the same in return. And when you’re not, if you ever were, then you just feel lied to in the worst of ways. And it hurts. Knowing that someone you love doesn’t care about you enough to give a damn how you really feel just hurts.

We’ve all been there. We all think we can handle heartbreak, so we put ourselves out there time and time again for the likely possibility. Heartbreak is something I know plenty about. I’ve been there; I’m a survivor of the tragedy we call love.

It was autumn, and the dry leaves swirled around my feet in motion with the chilling wind. The cracking of the dead leaves and the scraping of one bare branch against another from the nearby trees made up their own familiar symphony. The surrounding dull concrete and rusting metal of the side rails made for a depressing color palette. I stood in the middle of the deserted gray sidewalk, staring into the late afternoon sky. Year-round the city teemed with activity, but today there was no one outside at the harbor. No one but me.

I pulled my jacket tighter around my thin frame, and then recrossed my arms over my chest to hold it in place. I carefully rested my elbows on the rail, feeling the chill from the metal seep through the fabric. My shoulders hunched forward in an automatic response to shield my body from the wind. My skin was already covered in goose bumps though, so I didn’t mind. The hem of my dress danced excitedly around my knees, and I absentmindedly clicked the heel of my shoe to a steady rhythm that was only present in my head.

This is why weddings are held inside during this time of year, I reasoned to myself. So that the participants aren’t at risk of getting frozen. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be out here. After a while, if I didn’t show up anywhere indoors, someone was bound to worry. But I didn’t care. The reception party was already at its peak. Pictures of the wedding party had already been taken too, so my sister couldn’t really complain about the way the wind was ruining my fancy up-do. It didn’t matter to me anymore that the temperature was steadily dropping or that a warm refuge was the party in the building just a few feet behind me. I didn’t want to be there, and shivering out here was better than anything that was happening in there.

It’s not that I disliked anybody that was in attendance. Nor did I have anything against weddings or any negative feelings towards my older sister’s recent marriage specifically. It was just the whole happy mood of the party in general that I couldn’t stand. At the moment, I wasn’t too keen on relationships, or… smiling.

It started sprinkling, the occasional droplets falling into the already choppy water. Each little echo of a ripple seemed to represent a piece of my shattered heart hitting the water, drowning. The lapse of time between each raindrop was equivalent to my indecisiveness, as if I was having second thoughts about throwing my heart away. But the rain came, made its mark on the water, and I threw anyway.

I would have laughed, if I hadn’t been so sullen. What did I need a heart for? No one wanted mine. It was just going to cause me pain in the long run. Well, I wouldn’t let it do that to me again. A heart was too vulnerable of a target, too easily duped into believing what it so desperately wanted to. But living without a heart, on the other hand, that would just be a lot easier. I wouldn’t have to ever feel like this again. Why shouldn’t I just get rid of it before it caused more damage?

At the very least, I could just keep my heart to myself. Alone and solitary it could do no damage. Entrusted to others, that was when problems arose. None of this was my fault, I suddenly realized. It was all his. I hadn’t done anything wrong in the scenario. The worst thing you could pin on me was being too trusting. He, on the other hand, had fooled me into thinking that he was worth my trust. That realization, however only made me throw harder.

Goodbye heart.

How could I have been so completely stupid? I was supposed to be the reasonable and level-headed sister, wasn’t I? It was usually Sandra that rushed into things. I, on the other hand, was frustratingly thorough. I took my time with things, and I waited until there was no question about the outcome.

But not with Duncan. After my original uncertainty, I hadn’t thought at all. He had just been so… enticing. He was different. He was exciting. He took risks and shrugged off the consequences. He was handsome, and intelligent. Duncan had made me feel spontaneous and adventurous, and less like my boring, reasonable self. He took me away from that dull, scheduled life and allowed me to be a person that part of me had always wanted, but a bigger part of me had feared. And then, somewhere along the lines, I began to fall in love with him. I wanted him- his life, personality, carefree attitude- and soon, it seemed he wanted me too.

But that didn’t last long. Just as I was getting comfortable, as we were settling down and moving on to a more serious commitment, things changed. Duncan was hardly ever around the apartment. The first week I moved in with him, I saw him less than on any of the previous weeks when we weren’t living together. He either slept in late or left for the office early, was never available for lunch and dinner dates, and didn’t even come home until well after midnight when I would be laying in bed, only pretending to be asleep.

I didn’t want to question his seemingly new lifestyle though. I didn’t want to ruin anything we might have had during those days. It never occurred to me that during those weeks we were entering a new stage in our relationship, that I was witnessing a new part of Duncan that I had never known existed.

Duncan started to grow bored with me. This was something I eventually realized, laying bed one night, just staring at the ceiling and waiting for the click of the front door lock, its slam shut that would announce Duncan’s return home. As I watched over the next few days, I came to understand that this was true. Duncan avoided me as much as possible; we never did anything together anymore. He was never completely engaged in any conversation, nor did he seem as thrilled as he once had been when we were together.

I never said anything though. I thought, wistfully, that maybe this was just a phase he was going through. He would get over it. And I was comfortable with this life, the one involving Duncan, that I had been living for over a year. Despite everything, I knew I still loved him. I would never be able to say how I was so sure of this, but it was something that seemed just as apparent as Duncan’s new change of attitude. So I stayed with him, and hoped it would get better.

One day, I came home from work to find Duncan already there, sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper with a bored expression on his face. I was shocked, but also pleasantly surprised. I thought maybe he had something planned for us to do, to make up for not being around so much.

I cleared my throat, to announce my presence as the door swung gently shut behind me. He glanced up at me, back down to his newspaper to finish a line, gave a heavy sigh, closed the paper, and turned towards me. Before I had even finished shrugging my coat off, he opened his mouth to speak, that same boredom present in his expression.

“I’m breaking up with you,” he said flatly, no emotion. He moved, like he was going back to his paper, but decided against it, as if something else had crossed his mind. “How soon can you move out?”

“You’re… You’re what?” I sputtered, unable to comprehend what had been so abruptly forced upon me. His bluntness stung.

“Breaking up with you.” He repeated, in a business-like monotone.

“Wh-… why?”

“How soon can you move out?” He asked again, ignoring my question, and already back to reading the paper.

“I… soon.” I sighed, giving up, my voice cracked from the effort of trying to hide that pain that he had given me. While I began gathering up my belongings, he left the apartment. As soon as I could no longer hear his footsteps down the hallway, I sat and cried.

It was raining harder now. The clouds had moved in tighter, darker and more ominous than before. Thunder boomed in the distance. I gripped the circular rail, forcing myself to think more calmly, trying to edge away all my pent up anger. That had been the only time I wept any tears over him. I had put on a strong face, in front of everyone else. I didn’t want them to see me hurting. I didn’t wasn’t their sympathy, and I already felt enough regret on my own without anyone saying ‘I told you so’.

As the rain dripped down my face, I couldn’t tell the difference between it and my newly formed tears until the salty taste would slide across my lips. But then suddenly, that was all that fell down my face: tears. There was no more rain on me, but it was still pouring everywhere else. I turned, only to see Austin standing behind me under his own umbrella, arm extended to hold mine above me.

“Hey Jase,” he said, giving me a slightly lopsided smile. “I thought you might appreciate the cover.”

“Yeah, I actually kinda do,” I admitted, weakly returning a smile and quickly wiping my eyes with my jacket sleeves, which were pulled up over my hands in a vain attempt to warm them.

Austin was a close family friend, and also my very best friend. I had known him ever since second grade, when we first moved to the suburbs from the city. His family had lived a street down from us, had been the first to welcome us to the neighborhood, and Austin had been in all of my classes. We automatically hit it off.

“Brr, it’s so cold out here. How can you stand it?” He asked.

“Um, well I think I’m numb to it now. I can’t feel anything.” I said, my tone sounding almost stunned. I actually hadn’t given it much thought after the initial chill.

“How about I fix that for you then?” he offered, his trademark playful smile adorning his face. He approached me now, and for a second my heart jumped in an unexpected way as I imagined him to be about to wrap his arms around me. Instead, he slipped off the jacket of his suit and laid it on top of mine.

“I think maybe it’s just a tad too big,” he observed, motioning to the way it puffed out a bit farther at the shoulders. But it was warm, so I didn’t mind.

I couldn’t understand though, why I felt even the tiniest bit disappointed that this was all he had done. Why did I so badly want him to touch me, to have used his body heat to warm me instead of a piece of fabric? I had never considered Austin anything more than my friend before. Why was I feeling more now? Was it just because I was torn on the inside, and confused?

He stood silently next to me, waiting for me to say whatever was on my mind. Austin was good like that. He was patient, especially with me.

“You know, it was almost our 18 month anniversary.” I finally said, trying to keep all emotion out of my tone, just like Duncan had when he dumped me.

Austin turned to look at me, already understanding who I meant. He was immediately serious. But he didn’t say anything, and I was glad of that. I had more I needed to get off of my chest.

“And I should have seen it coming, you know? He was hardly ever at the apartment, and we never talked. I don’t know why I was so blind, why I ever fell for him. He was just so… exciting. And I wanted to change my life. And I know he was bored with me. And…” I let my head drop into my open palms, hiding my shame at the next words I was going to say. Muffled through my hands, “And I don’t think he ever truly loved me back.”

I started crying again. Austin stepped closer, so close that there was nowhere else for him to go, and finally put his arm around me. I fell into him, all of a sudden weary and unable to support myself. I had just admitted something that, until now, I had never really acknowledged to myself.

“Jasey, you know he was a jerk right?” Austin offered. Because my shoulders kept shuddering violently from my heavy flow of tears and frequent sobs, he spoke again.

“Jasey… Jasey look at me.” But I couldn’t. I couldn’t show my face, so he brought his hand to my chin and gently pulled it up so I was facing him. He stared into my eyes, completely somber, and, I knew, speaking honestly.

“Personally, I don’t see how he couldn’t love you. But that’s just my opinion. That guy was pretty much scum, and you know he didn’t give you half the respect that you deserved. What I truly don’t understand though, was how he could be bored with you. You’re the most fun and interesting person I know. I’m bored when I’m not with you. But never change for a guy. Most of us aren’t worth it anyway.”

Austin was looking at me more intently now, searching my eyes for something that he maybe hoped was there. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry he hurt you. I don’t know what else to say to make you feel better. All I know is that if you gave me your heart, I wouldn’t waste it like he did. I think you’re heart is something worth fight for and I would do anything to keep it intact.”

“Jasey, I… I love you.” With this last, whispered confession, I knew in my slowly mending heart that I loved him too. I stared back at him, ready to let him know that I completely returned his feelings, that I probably always had but was just now beginning to recognize it. He must have seen whatever it was he was looking for in my eyes, because before I was able to say a word, he kissed me.

Even after everything that heartbreak puts us through, all the tears and feelings of worthlessness, I know why we still risk it in order to seek love. It’s because, after all the betrayal, when you’re feeling shattered and you know that you’re heart is in a million tiny fragments, you can usually find someone who’s willing to put back together the pieces.