Oscar Wilde said, “Hearts are made to be broken.”
The quote had been repeating in my mind like a litany. It would crop up when I would start to feel ill and play on a loop until I felt a measure of calm.
Perhaps I needed to help myself believe what was happening to my brain—the violent despair and agonizing pain—were simply a rite of passage. I had a heart, therefore, it must break.
But mostly I knew the inaudible chanting was just another repetitive, self-soothing act which was showing signs of some effectiveness.
All I really knew was that it was helping me to not throw up.
I was glad for Mr. Wilde and his short, succinct words of wisdom, and I was also glad for my trip to Cleveland. It may have seemed strange that I’d be happy to be flying home to face my sister—with whom I’d been at odds—so soon after having my heart torn from my chest. But I was. Something I excelled at was focused avoidance. When I had a job to do, a task to complete, my brain allowed me to shut out my troubles and fears and buckle down into work.
At the moment, my brain wanted to fixate on Steven, wanted to replay his words. But when I landed and had a part to play and a job to complete, I’d have no trouble putting Steven out of my mind. I needed that. I wanted it.
I arrived early for my flight, which proved to be torturous. I found myself unable to sit still, unable to quiet my mind. Hearts are made to be broken. Hearts are made to be broken. I chanted these words over and over as I chewed gum and walked around the periphery of my gate.
It didn’t help. Not really. Tuesday’s scene wasn’t easy to ignore or forget. Flashes of Steven’s angry countenance, his calculated vitriol, his singular determination to wound me as deeply as he could, would come upon me and leave me breathless and panicked. I’d been blindsided. I hadn’t known he was capable of it.
Even I wasn’t capable of that level of verbal attack—and my tongue was notoriously uncensored when I became angry. My temper flared often and hot, but it cooled quickly. Steven seemed to never lose his cool. Looking back, his phone messages to me were really the only time I’d sensed he’d been unintentionally reactive. But even that wasn’t much—nothing compared to the dozens of times he’d seen me irritated.
I ruminated on this during the flight, letting my brain obsess—not bothering to attempt to mitigate the fixation. I promised myself I’d get my shit together when I landed, but in that moment, I needed to think about Steven.
It killed me to think he’d been harboring those doubts and feelings about me all this time—that my bisexuality was a point of concern, that he’d secretly hated what I was. If that was true, if he did, then there was no hope. No amount of love I had for him was going to change it.
The alternative was that he said what he had because he wanted to hurt me, and he knew me well enough to know exactly what would break me.
Either scenario was abhorrent. In one, he fundamentally distrusted me and there was nothing I could do to change it. In the other, he wanted to hurt me enough to drive me away. Where was the hope? I had none. Whatever Steven was feeling for me, it was negative enough to push me away.
Why? I wondered. Did he not feel what I felt? We were so good together. There was so much affection—physical and emotional affection. I refused to believe I was the only one moved, the only one whose world had been irrevocably changed, the only one whose heart was made full by our time together. But what else could I think?
He threw me away, I thought, my throat closing on a silent sob. I felt a tear trickle down my face, and I turned my body into the window, unwilling to let the women in my row see my emotional struggle. I was sweating with the effort of keeping it inside, keeping it silent.
I cursed myself for not giving over to this earlier. Once I’d left his building, once the cool night air hit me like a slap, I bottled up my sadness with a cork of righteous anger. But compartmentalizing, bottling, and focused avoidance was only resulting in a public meltdown. I refused to let it happen. I never cried, and if I did, it sure as hell wasn’t in public.
Hearts are made to be broken. Hearts are made to be broken. Hearts are made to be broken.
Screw you, Wilde. The heart was made to pump blood. Aside from a temporary increase in pulse rate, it was functioning just fine. My brain, on the other hand, was sending out distress signals: tears, nausea, sweat. Anguished sounds wanted to burst forth, and I had a compulsion to run. Literally run. I promised myself when I returned to Chicago, I was going to run the lakefront as long and as hard as I could until I was exhausted. Maybe then I’d sleep. And if I slept, maybe my brain could rest and stop sending out distress signals to my organ systems.
By the time the plane had landed, I’d composed myself. I turned my phone back on while I was waiting to disembark. There were a few missed calls and texts.
None were from Steven.
All were from Kari.
Without listening to the messages or reading the texts, I disembarked, eager to get this day over with. I was going to fake the hell out of this day or maybe even have a huge screaming match with my sister. Either way, I wanted it over. And to get through it, I was going to fixate on that run. I’d imagine the rhythmic pounding of my feet on the paved path, the rhythm of my audible breaths and it would soothe me. Stride, stride, stride, stride.
It was much more effective and pleasant than Oscar Wilde.
Walking down the jet-bridge, my phone rang. It was Kari.
“Hello.”
“Has your plane landed? Are you here? I came to pick you up.” Dammit. I told her yesterday not to pick me up. I wanted to show up at the tailor’s, do my duty, and be off with as little stressful interaction as possible. But now that plan was toast.
“I’m walking into the airport as we speak,” I replied. “Where are you?”
She gave me directions and I found her. She was smiling, but there was a hesitancy about it. The hesitancy made me feel better somehow, as if it gave me permission to not be a total liar for the afternoon. We didn’t have to pretend everything was fine. I breathed a sigh and relaxed a measure.
“Hey there,” she said, embracing me in a hug. I gave her an extra, indulgent squeeze before releasing her, enjoying the brief contact. I needed a hug, I thought, then chastised myself. Buck up, man, you’re mad at her.
She was dressed casually in faded jeans and a fitted blouse. She was also wearing her signature Chucks. Her job as her school district’s superintendent, required her to dress professionally. She maintained that when she was off the clock, she was wearing comfortable shoes.
“Well, Dr. Miles,” she said with a small grin. “You are looking very handsome with your shaggy hair.”
I touched my over-grown hair and realized my slight waves were probably askew and ridiculous. I hadn’t combed it before I left the apartment. I didn’t think I’d so much as glanced at myself in the mirror. I’d also been running my hands through it all morning, so I was sure it was a mess.
“Time for a cut then?” I asked.
Her grin fell as she realized I wasn’t going to harass her about her EdD. I didn’t feel up to espousing the superiority of my degrees compared with hers, I just didn’t have it in me to joke.
“Eh, it looks cute. You’d look cute bald,” she said somewhat grumpily.
I snorted. “Come on, let’s get this fitting over.” I headed to the exit, then followed her to her car.
We didn’t speak until she maneuvered onto the freeway.
“When is your flight today?”
“Four-thirty.” It was nearing eleven and I realized I had to spend around four hours with her. I desperately wanted to get out of it. “But don’t worry, I can take a cab from the shop and see myself off,” I assured her, hoping she’d take the out I was handing her. “You don’t need to babysit me or chauffeur me around.”
She shot me an irritated glance. “I can take you to the airport, Ken. And I think we should talk. Let’s have lunch or go to my place when we’re done.”
Fan-fucking-tastic. Not only was she refusing to take the out, she was apparently going to make the day a thousand times more unpleasant.
When we arrived at the shop, she stopped the car and looked at me. She still wore the hesitant, sadness-tinged smile. “How was your marathon?”
“It was a half marathon, and I made good time,” I shrugged. “It was fine.” I didn’t want to think about the race because thinking about the race meant thinking about Steven waiting for me at the finish line, Steven doting on me and massaging me. I shut my eyes against the memory.
He was going to invade my brain today whether I wanted him to or not. I’d already let twinges of worry set in over King—let myself wonder if Quinn Sullivan was going to honor my request and heed my warning. What if he’d shrugged it off? What if he’d gone to Steven and let him downplay it? What if right now, Steven was outside alone, being followed and menaced? My stomach hurt to think about it, and my heart hurt to know I wasn’t allowed to be there for him anymore.
Kari lapsed into silence and simply stared at me. No doubt trying to read whatever the hell was going on with my face. The quiet of the car and her perusal pissed me off so I snapped, “Can we just get this finished, please?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Let’s go.”