I prayed this was one of my smaller mistakes when I had taken back the heart I’d lent him. He promised to love it as he loved me, but he was heading towards a different direction in his life. He wanted to move away from Oregon and to New York where he could become an artist, and he didn’t want to accidentally rob me. I accepted the end of this relationship without tears or grief. I thought my returned heart would continue beating as normal, taking solace in my ribs until giving it up was barely a memory. But now, two weeks later, I feel the walls of my airways close tighter and tighter whenever I do my morning jog, or walk up the stairs of my apartment complex. Following these painful sensations, my footing is unbalanced, and I stumble to wherever I am going. I am a broken toy, one that wasn’t mended correctly.

And when I wake up in a hospital bed, I suspected he did something. Somehow, he sabotaged the inner workings of my heart, prevented it from beating the way it should, from giving me life the way it should. When the doctor told me of a needed transplant, my suspicions were confirmed, the proof of his crime solidified. While he’s far away, he can live knowing he got away with this.

Maybe I should have taken my heart back sooner, or taken a closer look at it so I can fix it myself, but now it’s nearly dead according to the EKG.

Either way, it seems my mistakes will never just be small.