She placed her faith in people, in places and in things, which is why her ultimate condition was that of misery. Misery of being. There was a high that lasted eight days and before she saw it coming, it came down crashing on her—the ‘it’ being the façade of joy, happiness and love. It crashed on her with a subtlety so profound that the realization took a couple days to seep into her nervous system. When she woke up one day, the realization had manifest itself in the form of a congealed lump in her throat that burst into a thousand million specks of tears and shards that she knew very well to be the pieces of her broken heart.

She cried for about two minutes. Her heaving sobs gave her an unfamiliar comfort. It felt like her hollowed out heart was receiving a massage and she was simply being treated. There was anger inside her. And pain. A lot of pain. This massage, she knew, was going to wash it out, cleanse her, free her, make her whole again.