Her palms bleed onto the carpet, fragments of glass cutting deep, but it isn’t that that hurts. She takes the picture from its sharp bed of glass, glinting in the candle light. She’d lit them earlier to be romantic. Everyone told her candles made for the most loving gestures. Love. It pierces something inside of her. He said he loved her...he said he….it doesn’t matter now. He left. He left when he said he never would. He promised to be with her forever. He broke her heart like it was made of pale, yellow candy, the words “be mine” split in two. She is no longer his. There is no mine. She will simply be.
Existing without him will be hard, like trying to swim to the surface of the ocean when it’s dark out. Maybe she’ll swim up, but maybe she’ll swim down, further into the darkness until she can never escape.
Her hands shake violently as she holds the picture up to the light. It was taken two years ago, on their third Valentine’s Day together. She was holding a vibrant blue rose—she never cared for the red ones, too cliche. He said he liked that about her, that she wiggled her way around social norms, that she was a leader. Little did she know, he only liked that she was a leader with everyone but him. She followed him like a lovesick puppy. Love is a sickness. How could she have been so blind? It consumed her. She will never love again.
In the picture, she is looking up at him with complete adoration and reverence. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thinks, to look at him like that. She didn’t see it then, but now she notices he’s not really smiling, he’s smirking his usual smug smirk. Puffed-out chest. A sparkle in his eyes. The sparkle wasn’t meant for her, it was for himself, for winning the game. She was merely an object. She was a prize. No longer.
She would tear the picture in half, but she can’t. The bastard has too much power over her. She drops it, tears running down her face, dragging mascara down with them. She stands up unsteadily, the glass crunching under the uncomfortable heels she kept on...for him. All for him, always.
She picks the glass out of her palms methodically, her whole body going numb for a few minutes. Then the pain returns. She yanks off her heels and screams as she throws one at the wall. It bounces off with nothing more than a light thud, not the satisfying bang she’d hoped for. She loves him even though she hates him. Her other shoe she flings at the TV, but misses. He found great pleasure in making fun of her terrible aim. He always spoke down to her. She ignored the blatant condescension in his voice, writing it off as harmless teasing.
Instead of hitting the TV, her heel knocks over the sorry box of half eaten chocolates he was feeding her less than an hour ago. Before he told her what he’d done. Before his insincere eyes begged for forgiveness. What did she do? She told him she loved him and she pushed him out the door.
She stares at the picture for a while.
She doesn’t feel like she’s really there. She’s in a fog, thick and stifling.
The fog clears enough for her to breathe, so she stands, washes her hands, vacuums up the glass, wipes off the blood, and changes out of her fancy blue dress, the one with the low back that he liked best.
She sits on the sofa with a bag of popcorn and turns on the TV. After a couple of hours looking through the screen, not really watching, she wanders over to the one candle still lit and flickering. She holds the picture to it, watching it slowly burn.
She smiles.
Hers isn’t a candy heart after all; it won’t remain broken, it will heal.