Word Count: 269
She brought her heart home in a cup, wrapped in a napkin, stuck in her purse. Her tears dried into shiny snail trails on her cheeks. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Love was supposed to be a forever thing you can plant in the garden, or even in a pot on the window sill in the kitchen where the sun can keep it alive and growing stronger and bigger and sweeter each day.
He was the only man she had slept with, the only man she believed she had wanted so badly it hurt to be away from him between the nights they spent curled in sleep after making love. He had eyes that laughed at the rough parts of life. He had words to make her laugh too. They’d met at a diner where she bumped into his shoulder and spilled hot coffee on his bare arm. He had cursed, then he looked at her and he smiled. She wanted to take him to the emergency room but he wanted to take her to bed.
She lit up when they were together. She afterglowed until they were together again. She called him her soulmate. She felt him inside her long after he’d left. There was no other way she could bear the emptiness if she let him slip out.
She took the heart out of her purse and placed it on the kitchen table. Unwrapped it carefully, her fingers turning red from the blood. She sat down and watched it until it stopped beating. Then she got up, wrapped it back up, and threw it away.
