I remembered one time, before his accident, when he told me that he felt like we were born as two halves of the same heart, like one of those friendship trinkets with two pieces that interlock along a fractured edge. When we came together, we fused so tightly that the heart became solid again, no visible signs or even the memory of a fracture. When Jake pulled the trigger, the sound of that gunshot shattered our shared heart into a million pieces. After his death, I searched for those pieces for years. I was desperate to find them, just as a reminder that our love had existed.
