Coracao

Coracao could reach into your chest, remove your heart, and place it in her own. Simple as that - ignoring the carnage of having your chest penetrated by a foreign hand, heart ripped away from your ribs with subsequent massive fucking blood loss, and another heart reconnected to your loose veins. What was her point in switching your hearts?

Well, you asked for it. Literally.

Your heart had been so torn up into pieces in grief and loss and hopelessness that you were the one to go and find her.

You heard she built a shack by the ocean. It was salt-crusted shut when you got there.

You heard she buried herself into the wet earth of the forest. The dirt was overturned when you got there.

You hear she stood in the middle of a desert storm waiting for the flash floods to take her away. The paths were dry when you got there, no meatless skulls to be found.

You found her where the air was thin, your heart already struggling to keep you alive in the midst of your darkness.

She was too polite to not let you inside when you knocked. Her face betrayed disappointment in finding you at her doorstep that was barely wide enough for two feet. You ignored that she was internally cursing herself for not making the door swing out rather than swing in, but you both knew she was too considerate for that. Or at least she knew; you only assumed from the stories you heard.

She sat you at her table, letting you take it over since it was only meant for one.

She listened to your forlorn story of heartbreak. She listened with the face of someone who knew all the possible heartbreaks, all the stupid situations people put themselves in and all the ones they couldn’t control. Her eyes asked Okay, what do you want me to do about it and her down-turned mouth knew what you wanted her to do about it.

She climbed her stairs that were somehow steeper than the side of the mountain itself, coming back down with towels. She sighed as if to say These are my nice ones.

She faced you. With nothing more to listen to, she drove her hand into your chest and made the switch. You screamed and she flinched in ripping her own heart out, placing hers in your chest for momentary safe-keeping. You no longer felt the depth of darkness you had been in for so long - too long - so long. You saw her fall to her knees, wailing all that you had wailed over months in one minute. When she was done wailing, she breathed through it. She reached back into her chest and latched the hearts back to their respective aortas. Her shoulders were a little more slumped than before, but yours were infinitely lighter. You wanted to whoop and scream, so you did. You opened the door and laughed, echoing off the mountain side. You turned to her and did not hesitate to hug her, touching your bloody chests together.

”Thank you thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU! YOU SAVED ME!”

She did not wrap her arms around you. She did not smile in seeing your smile. You thought Well, she just doesn’t know how much I’ve been missing my smile, my laugh, my joy.

Except she did. She knew exactly. She had taken it all into her body, every last drop into her veins and capillaries.

She did not even lean against you, stoic and stone-faced.

”You stalked me here.”

You startled at these first words she’d uttered.

“I- “

“No, you did.”

You only shut up because you couldn’t think fast enough to be defensive.

“I may have saved you, but you are the villain in my story.”

She shoved you out the door.