Serenading Heartbreak

by Ella Fields

Hearts are such unpredictable things, you can never control to whom they might sing.

I felt like my presence was needed—as though it comforted him in some way—and I liked that. To make someone smile, especially him, brought something inside me dancing to the surface. But to make someone feel at ease was rare, and I didn’t want to walk away from it or take that unspoken trust for granted.

“I’m going to fall.” “So fall,” he said, low and confident. “I’ll be here to help you get back up.” I felt it then, that irrevocable shift inside. As if somehow, someway the vibrancy of the world had dripped away, and the only color that remained was us.

It grew worse, the pain I’d tried to ignore in my chest. But I couldn’t bring myself to regret saying those three words to him. It wasn’t a lie. It was a truth that’d sat deep for months, that’d grown roots over time, only growing stronger. Once it’d sprouted, there was no way to bury it. No way to smother it.

Confidence was fickle. It arrived when you least expected it and bailed when you most needed it.

And I had to wonder if that was what love was? Did loving someone grant you the ability to smother your own desperation long enough to see theirs? To want to aid in setting them free from their demons within?

Dealing with loss on your own was akin to tying a plastic bag around your head and being expected to breathe. Each breath was shallow, stilted, and I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it was too much to bear, and it’d be my last.

we don’t choose who and what we fall in love with, even when it’s a hazard to one’s self.”

When you want something bad enough, it was too easy to justify all the ways in which you’re right, and everything else is wrong.

Forgiveness was a desperate heart’s mistake. You didn’t forsake the soul to save an organ. Hearts had an expiration date; the soul was immortal.

You can’t squeeze your way into someplace that’s not ready to make enough room for you. All that’ll do is hurt.” Her hand swept over my hair, and my arms tightened around her plump waist. “If it doesn’t feel good, you let it go, and you find something that does.”

“You don’t need to be perfect to be exceptional.” His words were but a low rasp, and it seemed like our faces had drifted closer. “In fact, the most brilliant people on earth are brilliant because of their imperfections.”

Love was supposed to forgive all things. Of that I was a strong believer. But what happened when love was only capable of taking so much? What happened when the bad started outweighing the good, and the good was never meant to be a song sang to completion?

I wasn’t sure which was more difficult to admit. That we were never meant to make something whole out of something too broken, or that it was time to give up, once and for all.

If my goal in life was to make others happy, to fill people’s eyes and souls, and my own, with beauty, then I couldn’t keep slamming heart-first into misery.

“Grudges, betrayal—they burn longer and brighter, and can last a lifetime where love is concerned.”

It was hard for darkness to seep in when nothing but light surrounded you.

Some people were stronger on their own. Some people were stronger due to the people they surrounded themselves with.

Everett Taylor had taught me many things during this roller coaster love of ours, the most prevalent of all being courage. When things get hard, you don’t run away, and you don’t give up. You plant two feet into the ground, remember the roots you’ve grown, the life and love you’ve nurtured, and you fight.

We were never supposed to make something out of moments. We were always meant to build something out of lifetimes.