The Little Things

Chapter 16

A Heart That Never Mended

She was tired. Tired of crying, tired of trying. She had poured her heart into a world that never loved her back, and that truth lodged itself in her soul like a splinter that could never be removed. She wasn't just tired in the way most people understood—it was a bone-deep exhaustion that came from years of yearning for something that would never be hers. Love. Not just any love, but a love that was real, a love that would hold her when the nights grew cold and her thoughts became too heavy to bear alone.

But that kind of love had always been out of reach. She was a girl who was never loved, let alone loved right. Her heart had been shattered by neglect, piece by piece until there was nothing left but a hollow shell of what she used to be. The mirror became her enemy, reflecting not just the lines of her face but the emptiness in her eyes—a ghost of the person she once was, of the person she could have been if only someone had cared enough to hold her together when she started to fall apart.

Nothing hurt her worse than having to live with that emptiness, the gnawing void that consumed her. It destroyed her to exist because she wasn't what she used to be—not anymore, not ever again. The spark that once lit her soul had dimmed to a flicker, barely noticeable beneath the weight of her sorrow. She had become a shadow of herself, a fragment, a haunting reminder of the girl who once dared to dream of something more.

Yet, despite the brokenness, she was desperate to give. She gave and gave, her heart a wellspring of love that she never received in return. She poured out the last remnants of her spirit to others, hoping that if she could make someone else smile, if she could fill their lives with the warmth she longed for, then maybe, just maybe, it would mend the cracks in her own heart. But it never did. The more she gave, the more hollow she became until there was almost nothing left of her.

Even as things got better, as the sun seemed to rise a little higher in her life, the fear never left her. It clung to her, a constant companion, whispering in the dark corners of her mind. She was terrified of what would happen if she finally let someone in. What if they saw her as she saw herself—damaged, unlovable, a burden too heavy to carry? What if they took one look inside her heart and turned away, just like everyone else had done?

And so, she kept her walls high, building them up brick by brick with every heartbreak, every tear that fell unnoticed. She was a fortress of loneliness, surrounded by the very walls she had erected to protect herself from more pain. But those walls didn't just keep others out—they kept her locked in, suffocating in her solitude, drowning in the very fear that was supposed to keep her safe.

She was tired. Tired of crying, tired of hoping, tired of living a life that felt more like a slow death. All she ever wanted was to be loved, to be seen, to matter. But the world had shown her time and time again that some hearts were made to break, and hers had been shattered beyond repair.