A heart given is a heart that can be more easily broken, destroyed. When Sebastian looked at Margaret, his skin became electrified with a sensation he never felt with such intensity; a love so real he felt it deep to his core, pulsing through his blood and corrupting all logic in his mind. Dictionary definitions could not fully define the feeling he had when he looked at her, kissed her, adored her. He knew that all he wanted was to give his heart to her. Only his Margaret. But this love was cursed; it was unrequited, tampered with, and tragic. She shared her affections with another man and lived in her lies she told to Sebastian. I don’t want to hurt him. Why, why am I doing this? The thoughts that ruptured her mind as she made love to this other man who promised her love and a life they could make their new beginning. Sebastian sensed a distance between them, his stomach turning inside itself. One day, she told him she was going to visit a her girl friend. He watched her drive off and he picked up his keys. Without her noticing, he had trailed behind her car on the bumpy, unpaved road until she pulled into a driveway of an unfamiliar home. Sebastian parked far from where he eyes could see his car and he then saw a man emerge from the front door, a beckoning, sinister smile on his face. She skipped to him like a gleeful girl in love and he embraced her, kissing her while running his hands down her body, the one Sebastian gently caressed and never wanted to let go of. Sebastian thought of her smile, her laugh, her perfectly-sculpted bones under her sun-freckled skin and was plagued with the thought of her giving her love to this man that wasn’t him. Hours of agony, he sat in his car, unable to drive away, his spirit defeated, making everything immobile. The sight of her exiting the house was the oil that made his tin body move, stride with anger. Her smile turned into a Cheerio and her sun-painted skin went two shades lighter when she say Sebastian walking her way, his now-cold blue eyes piercing her heart. she began putting her arms around him, crying, writing a rough draft of a story he knew was her fiction. He backed away, letting her knees hit the dirt, she stared up at his gorgeous head rimmed with the sunlight behind him. His muscles softened as he saw her in tears. He never wanted to see her cry, but he thought of her lies and love she never returned. He became cold in that moment among the breeze of wind rushing between them. Standing in silence, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet box, ripping it open and tearing the diamond ring from its pillow. He looked from the ring to her and tossed into the lawn, telling her “go to hell, Margaret” and paced to his car. He never looked back, afraid he would turn around and be caught once more in her black-widow web of love he knew wasn’t real.
She saw the wheels of his car leaving a trail of dust behind him as he drove away. Margaret went inside the house, sat in solitude and wept for the man she never wanted to destroy, but did and did not understand why or how she would see his face in her mind as this other man was holding her in their nights together. She went back to the house she shared with Sebastian to find all of her things packed tightly in the cardboard box she brought when they made this home, this “love” theirs. Margaret gathered her box into the passenger seat, leaving this life behind, but never once letting Sebastian abandon her thoughts.
…
Sebastian’s mother broke his father the same, an earthquake shattering them both, striking the pavement of their lives with rough cracks because of these women, these faults. Since that day he left Margaret, he has not again given his heart to another woman. He gives it only to himself and his family. No one more. The women he meets are nothing more to him than doe-eyed dolls looking for love in the wrong place. They have their fun, tasting new foods, sailing, and filling their lustful desires, but he never once stayed in bed with the girl when she awoke. One early morning, when the sun had not even risen from its slumber, Sebastian drove to that house that haunted him. He’d see her maroon car there parked next to his and feel an unrelenting misery in his heart knowing that her life goes on and his is in a constant state of rewind and replay of love he dreads feeling again.
