Broken Cupids

 

“…and my heart is panting for someone else”.

            This hurt her more than a sharp knife cutting through her intestines. The kitchen became unusually hot and she was finding it hard to breathe. Even the bomb of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not cause this much harm. Her heart was racing. The knife that was once in her hand was grumbling on the floor to be picked up. She tried to soak in the thoughts, the hot air and the possibility of her losing her sanity.

            Trish had just put her pot on fire with some water when she started chatting up with Luke. He hadn’t replied her messages for a long time and she was glad to hear her phone beep with his name on the screen. She smiled with some satisfaction and leaned to the cupboard, settling to continue the conversation. She confronted him of his recent negligence to her calls and messages. He feigned ignorance, but simply said he was sorry. Trish continued, telling him he needed to give more attention to her, despite his work which usually tied him down. All of a sudden, like lightening, he hit her with the truth of his lost interest in her. He was seeing someone else and he sure loved her.

            What hurt Trish the most was not the fact that he was seeing someone else, but to think that she tried so hard to get his attention while he was massaging another woman’s butt. She knew him since she was 16; he was her first love, her first kiss. Nothing seemed better than him, up until that very moment. She felt her world crumbling down, with her, just being an onlooker. She gathered some strength, perhaps, the last she could before she would pass out, and called him. He wasted no time in picking up.

            “What are you talking about Luke? How could you hurt me this bad? You could not even meet me to discuss this and all you could do was to break up with me through a text message?” she said, almost shouting. Her voice was shaky. Luke tried to calm her down and saying something like they could discuss the situation over cups of coffee. It was obvious she was already in hot coffee, suffocating and crying out for some ice cubes.

            “What have we been doing for the last five years?” she heard within herself, or did she even say it out? She didn’t seem to care. All Luke was saying over the phone were like glasses piercing into her soul. She fought hard to control the tears but they kept pouring like rain. She blinked hard to let the tear clinging to her eye lids drop, perhaps, she was trying to blink out the calm but painful words she heard.

            She was already pacing back and forth the sitting room and the kitchen. She stopped at the double seater couch, sitting on the floor and resting her drained self at the foot of the couch. Her hands became weak, not strong enough to hold the phone any longer. Her face, pale with pain, was slightly tilted upwards. Shutting her eyes, she wished she could just drop dead. She had played the fool. She had loved him without reservations, and then, it seemed it was all a dream, but when she opened her eyes, she was drawn to reality.

            The water on the gas cooker was dried up when she managed to pick up herself and stagger to the kitchen. As dry as that pot was, without Luke, she felt worse, dry of love, dry of compassion for any other person, dry of hope, perhaps, dry of life. The love they had shared was broken. Such lovely cupid nest was destroyed. She didn’t care to know who the other woman was. She was shattered, torn to shreds. Resolving in her heart that she would not love again, she wiped the tears on her face and sent her last message to Luke:

“We had our good times, we endured the hardships. I loved you, but you chose to love me with hate. All I can do is wish you good luck with your new found love. Please Luke, don’t ever call or text me again so I wouldn’t lose my sanity.”

            Not bothering herself to cross-check the text, she sent it with so much determination, not necessarily to be happy, but to be satisfied. With those pain stripped fingers, she blocked him on all the social media she had him on. She sent all his pictures flying from her phone and drawers. To her, Luke was forgotten. She had to deal with the heart break so it wouldn’t get the better part of her. Maybe she was wrong to have a heart for men in the first place, let alone, giving it out to someone like Luke who did nothing but trample on it.