Mind knew it would get bad again when she found Heart curled up at the windows of her office’s alcove.

The young girl had her back to Mind, her nose pressed up against the glass and her palms flat as she stared at something going on outside. From where she stood, Mind could pick up the sound of a muffled conversation, and then a breezy laugh. Mind flinched and braced herself with one hand, her fingers curling over the dark threshold she felt frozen in.

Mind didn’t know how Heart managed to see anything past the stained glass that was put in years ago, but it had never stopped her from coming up to these windows when Mind wasn’t looking or from knowing everything that seemed to happen on the outside.

“I like this one,” Heart said suddenly. She tilted her head slightly, just enough for Mind to know she was speaking to her without having to take her eyes from the scene.

Mind stepped out of the shadows, her hands clasped so tightly in front of her that she knew if she looked down, her knuckles would be white. She took those hesitant steps across the length of the office to the second window. Then, she leaned forward, huffed, and jerked back.

“Looks like the others,” she replied stiffly, already moving away from the window’s light and into the darkness again. “You should head back to the living room.”

“But this one—”

“Living room,” Mind interrupted, her tone harsh.

Heart looked at Mind with half of her face illuminated by the colorful glass and the other half obscured in shadows. The one bright eye Mind could see was filled with hope and Mind felt her whole-body clench.

“What did you promise me?” Mind asked as Heart opened her mouth to say something else, something potentially worse. The young girl made a small sound of protest in her throat, but quickly backed down, her shoulders visibly dropping. Heart remembered what happened last time she told Mind she was wrong, and what it would cost her if she did it again.

“I remember,” the girl muttered, taking another quick glance outside. There was another laugh, the sound moving through the cracks in the office, and then, the windows darkened. Heart stayed for another moment, as if willing the light to return, and said softly, “I think she likes his smile.”

Mind scoffed. “She is not dumb enough to fall for a pretty smile.”

Heart did not reply.

Instead, she slid from the cushions and away from the windows. She slid past Mind, and Mind waited for the beat of each step until Heart reached the landing. She only let the tension fall from her shoulders when the click of the living room door soon followed.

Alone, Mind lifted her stare to the empty alcove.

She was grateful Heart hadn’t put up a fight. Last year, when things had been at their worst, Heart refused to leave the windows. She’d lay there, her knees tucked into her chest, and with a blanket thrown over her only because Mind had put it there. She rarely slept, rarely spoke. The house dimmed without her; dust laid over the fabric and the cushions grew cold.

When it finally occurred to Mind that she was losing Heart, she would do nothing short of grabbing the girl by her hair—later trying to forget the sound of her screams, the image of her flinging herself across the rug—as she dragged Heart little by little across the darkened threshold. Mind often remembers those moments and tries to remind herself that it could have been worse. They could have lost Heart for good back then.

But that period was over now, and Heart and Mind had talked for months about what had happened. An understanding had passed between them but, this particular day, was the first time Heart had gone back to the windows since she’d left them. And even though she had left when Mind asked her to, Mind knew this would not be the end. She knew what was coming.

With deft fingers, Mind found the lock on the door. It slid into place, and Mind hoped Heart heard the bolt from downstairs. She hoped Heart knew it was a warning.

*

Mind let out a startled gasp when she walked into her office a few days later and found Heart spread across the alcove, utterly still. At the sound, the girl sprang up and whipped around to face the doorway. There was no time to acknowledge the sweeping relief that Mind felt, because Heart had already begun speaking, motioning wildly at the windows.

“Look! Look!” She beckoned, the eagerness in her voice flying off the walls and seeming to rush throughout the house. “It’s been like this for hours.”

Again, Mind stepped forward and narrowed her eyes, struggling to see past the colors. There was rustling, and from her peripheral, Mind watched Heart slide herself closer to Mind’s side of the window until they were shoulder to shoulder.

“I think he likes Her,” Heart whispered.

“They’re just talking.”

“She must mean something to him,” Heart said, her face softening.

“He must want something from Her,” Mind replied sharply, shooting Heart a look.

“I don’t think it’s like that this time,” Heart replied, and she didn’t see Mind’s gaze darken the longer she stared and the longer her thoughts ran through all the things Heart seemed to be forgetting.

“It will always be like that,” Mind snapped, pulling away from the window. “It’s best not to come back here and give this boy the chance to make you stuck again. You know he will, and you didn’t enjoy being trapped at the windows last time. This must end before it begins.”

“But I—”

“Do not spend your time looking for potential that isn’t there.”

“Mind, it is all right to just—”

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality, Heart. I hope you’ll finally start to accept that,” Mind finalized, shrinking back to the doorway. “Come now, the living room waits for you.”

Heart waited a beat, then padded over.

Mind thought she might just slip past like last time, but just before Heart fully left the office, with the last of the door’s shadow tracing her outline, the young girl glanced over her shoulder and said, “I had to have known something unreal first if I was going to imagine it.”

Mind said nothing, and Heart did not wait to see if she would.

When Mind shut the door, she rested her forehead on the cool frame. She listened to the steady beat of Heart’s footsteps, and then, the signifying slide of the living room doors. She was grateful when Heart didn’t come out again.

*

“Heart, please.”

“Just another minute!”

“It’s late,” Mind sighed, sinking further into her chair. She’d been trying to corral the girl out for hours, and when Heart continued to refuse, Mind had no choice but to sit in the corner of the office, confined to the darkness helplessly. If she couldn’t force her out, she might as well be there to make sure Heart doesn’t fall deep again.

“You need to sleep, Heart.” Mind tried again, saying it more for her own benefit, as the need for sleep seemed to weigh on her eyelids. Then, as if on cue, the windows darkened, and a moment later, Heart pulled back.

Slowly, she twisted her gaze, searching for Mind in the shadows. “Did you hear everything?”

“Some,” Mind replied, and hesitated before adding, “They have a lot in common.”

“He definitely likes Her.” Heart beamed, swinging her legs forward so they dangled off the sides of the alcove. Her heels bumped up along the wood excitedly, the rhythmic thump-thump-thump resonating throughout the room. “She totally likes him too.”

“Liking each other is not enough. Anyone can like anyone.”

“It’s a starting line.”

Mind’s expression softened, feeling the pain of her next words, and needing Heart to feel them too as she said, “A starting line can also be a finishing one, and Heart… She has been stuck behind that line for some time now.”

“You see the worst in everyone,” Heart huffed, now rigid and glaring at the corner of the room. By the way her eyes moved, Mind could tell the darkness was making her figure blurry. “It must be exhausting to always search for the bad things.”

“It is,” Mind admitted, rising from her seat. “But I will carry that burden, just like I have carried you to safety in the past.”

Heart glowered, standing upright. Again, she didn’t say a word as she stalked to the door and slammed it behind her. The whole room, potentially the whole house, rattled and recoiled at the sound.

Mind braced a hand on the arm of the chair, shutting her eyes. Even when the sound faded, Mind could still feel throb of it around her. Could still feel the pain she had inflicted on the thing she cared about the most.

Breathing sharply through her nose, Mind slowly opened her eyes. That was when she spotted it, hiding in the darkest part of the room. She had to blink a few times before she could be sure it was truly there.

Along the wall, the paint was beginning to peel.

Tentatively, Mind stood and crouched down before it. Her fingers found the limp strip and she tugged, the bottom giving way to the beaming white wall on the other side. Too afraid to do more damage, Mind released the narrow piece of paint and sat back on her heels. For a fraction of a second, she did not know what to think.

Then, her eyes found the dimmed windows, and she swallowed thickly. Perhaps, Heart was right; this one would be different. He would not be like the others.

He would be so much worse than Mind could ever have imagined.

*

The walls were melting.

With the door firmly shut, Mind hurried from one end of the room to the other, trying to push the paint back up the wall. It started to peel in long strands, endless strips of black drooping forward to reveal a shining white base underneath. Mind could not tell if the pounding in her ears was from her own fear or from the house itself—or something from the outside trying to pry itself in.

There was the sound of another rip and Mind launched herself against the wall, her hand pressed firmly against a new fissure. She clawed for the hammer at her waist and her fingers fumbled for a nail, a couple stray ones falling and petering on the wood floor. The nail ended up being crooked in the wall, but there was no time to lose, because the room shook again, and another layer of paint was getting ready to split apart.

How did I let this happen? Mind took in the room frantically.

The whole office looked like it was made of cracked glass. Her desk was pushed to the side, the contents spilled out onto the floor and its once neat surface. The only thing that remained untouched was the alcove and the stained-glass windows facing the outside.

How do I fix this?

A flash of light came from her peripheral and Mind swiveled around to the door she thought she had locked.

“Heart—” she began as the young girl’s eyes moved around the place, taking in the fractures and the way the light from the stain-glass windows made them shimmer. Mind quickly stuffed her hammer back into her belt and hurried over.

“Heart,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “Go back downstairs. I just need some time to fix this.”

“Is this because of—”

“No,” Mind cut her off, closing the distance between them and grabbing Heart’s shoulders. “No, it’s… it’s me. I haven’t been focused recently. She’s been very busy lately, and I haven’t been able to keep things in order for Her. I just need to spend more time in here alone, gather Her thoughts and see if I can—”

“You’re making excuses.” Heart stepped back, shrugging off Mind’s hands. “This is about him, isn’t it?”

Mind went cold. “A boy would not be able to do this. No boy can.” She swallowed, mustering up a smile. “You can’t think like that.”

“You can’t tell me what to think.”

Mind shook her head and reached for Heart again. “You know what happened the last time you thought a boy would—”

Warmth penetrated the room.

Mind looked over her shoulder, squinting at the stain-glass windows. A hot, beaming glare of light radiated from the outside and the silky sound of laughter moved throughout the room. The walls pulsed, the paint continued to peel, and Heart stood beside Mind, who was now flushed and wide-eyed.

No, Mind thought. This cannot happen again.

Heart took a step forward and Mind whipped her hand out, wrapping her fingers around the girl’s forearm. A last-ditch effort to hold her back. To keep her from being at that window again, motionless and lost.

“Please, don’t,” Mind begged, but the girl kept her eyes trained on the glowing windows and the hum of two voices beyond them.

Sweat palmed Mind’s brow and she felt her knees buckle, her vision spotting. She had never been faced with something like this before—never felt as if she couldn’t protect Heart from what waited to devour her outside.

“Heart, you need me,” Mind insisted. “You won’t survive out there.”

A pause. The room stilled. Heart tilted her head—listening, just for a moment.

“You won’t survive out there,” Mind repeated, her voice steadier. “You’ll realize I’m right, and by then, it’ll be too late. You’ll be ruined. She…” Mind trailed off, gesturing to the blinding light in front of them. “If you do this, She will never be the same.”

Heart waited a beat, and the house held its breath.

“You can’t confine me in that living room forever,” Heart said, and Mind dipped her chin to her sternum, her shoulders slumping. “I think, you know, that everything I’ve done has not only been for Her…”

There was a change in Heart’s voice; it was more mature, older. Forgiving.

When Mind looked up, Heart had changed her form. She was no longer a little girl, but a woman, and she knelt before Mind to level their stares. She made them equal in a broken home.

“But everything I have done has also been for you,” Heart finished, and offered a small smile. “Come with me. For once, let’s try to weather the outside together. Let’s try not to be at odds.” Heart nodded to the windows. “For Her.”

Another tense beat, and then, Mind nodded slowly.

Perhaps, it was time for her to let go. To leave the confines of a dark room, a familiar house. To abandon every bad thought, every regretful memory that’s found its way onto her desk. To stop stuffing Heart into the living room, and to let all the love this boy could bring across the threshold. Perhaps it’s time Mind let Her and Heart be together.

“Okay,” Mind whispered, nodding slowly. “Together, then.”

Heart smiled and the gesture made Mind’s entire body soften. An invisible weight seemed to lift from her chest. She forgot what it felt like for Heart, her heart, to be happy with her.

Heart helped Mind to her feet and, together, they faced the glass-stained windows.

The light filtered through the glass, flooding the two women in color. Heart lifted her chin and Mind saw the first strokes of love envelop her. Mind saw her happy, marked the moment in her thoughts. She felt her stomach drop.

And then, just like the moment that She and the boy first began to speak, Mind knew that this is where everything she had ever done would officially come to an end. And she knew, once again, she would do what she needed to do to protect the person she loved the most.

She could not break down walls, but she could break a heart.

So, before she could think better of it, Mind yanked the hammer out from her belt loop and, with everything she had, she threw it at the windows.

CRASH!

Shards flew and struck the floor like the last pitter-patter of a dying pulse. The color vanished from the room in an instant and a draft swept in, flying up the walls and shooting through the cracks. The whole house froze as the cold settled in its bones. At once, the boy, and whatever She had felt for him, was gone.

Mind had sabotaged it.

Carefully, Mind looked down at Heart, who had fallen to her knees and become a young girl again.

Red ran between the floorboards from the cuts in Heart’s hands as she pressed them into the shards of glass—as if cutting further into herself could bring back the boy and the feeling the window had given her. She choked back a shocked sob, wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and ever so slowly, met Mind’s stare.

“Why?” Heart whispered, holding up a fistful of glass. Blood dripped between her fingers, staining the floor, and mingling with the wood. “Why?!”

“Because you didn’t listen.” Mind whispered, sinking down and cupping Heart’s cheeks carefully. She heard that whisper again in the back of her head, reminding her of everything she had done and will do. “One day, you’ll see how I have protected you again.”

“I don’t—”

“Look now. See what I see.”

Mind turned to the side and Heart followed her gaze. On the other side of the shattered window, deep within the gloom where a thousand lights once shone, the darkness of the world gleamed back. All the heartbreak She had suffered was wide open for Heart to see.

Heartbreak, that Heart had caused.

“I am not your enemy.” Mind leaned forward. The two of them continued to stare into the abyss, continued to feel the sensation of Her around them. “We are not your enemy.”

“I will never forgive you,” Heart murmured, her eyes glossing over the longer she peered into the void. Mind wasn’t sure if she was talking to her or Her, but it didn’t matter. They knew that protecting Heart came with a cost and, because of the power she had just wielded, it made what came next easier for Mind to swallow.

“You want to be here so bad, then fine. Stay here.” She released Heart and backed toward the door, not once looking back.

This is for the best, she told herself. This is the only way to keep her safe.

Mind reached for the knob, but when her fingers wrapped around the brass, she hesitated.

For a brief moment, she wondered if she had done the right thing. If eliminating Heart’s happiness was the only true way to protect Her from all the things that happened before, or if… maybe…

She moved to look back at Heart but felt a chilly breath on her neck.

A warning from Her.

No second guessing, she reminded herself. The heart cannot have what it has always wanted.

At that, Mind threw the door open and slammed it behind her, pressing her back into the frame.

With heavy breaths, she slid down until she was seated before the threshold—much like Heart had when she had first been kicked out of the alcove for the very first heartbreak she put Her through. But this time, it was Heart behind the closed door, being hidden away so that no boy would ever be able to access her again.

And yet, Mind couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe… she was the one finally being put in a cage. That maybe, protecting Heart had also meant sacrificing herself to this empty house.

Cold, alone, forgotten, and now, heartless.

Inside Out Love short fiction Valentine's Day