Heart of Glass
By Lindsay
I'd always thought I had a heart of steel. I used guys to get what I wanted, then I left them behind when I got tired of them. I never felt anything for any of them, but I didn't need to. They were all too lovesick to realize that I didn't care about them.
My heart hardened a little bit more with every broken heart I left behind me. Guys were to be used and then thrown away, regardless of how many hearts were left shattered.
I turned heads. I made jaws drop. I lured men to me. I fulfilled their dreams. Then I slowly broke their hearts.
It was just what I did.
Why?
Because I could.
And I had a heart of steel.
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I used Boone because he was easy to use. I could get whatever I wanted from him, even fifty-thousand dollars.
Boone had a heart of gold.
I always feared that he would give his heart to somebody that would hurt him, but I soon realized that he already had. He had fallen in love with me, and once I started using that to my advantage, I just couldn't stop.
For years I only used him for money. I set up a trap with a boyfriend, and waited for him to spring it. It had always worked, until Brian.
I was so furious when he double-crossed me. Guys didn't just leave me! They never left me! I left them!
Luckily, I had enough money for a cab. That, and a few drinks, which I felt I needed.
I didn't care for Boone. I didn't feel anything for him at all. But the anger and frustration of being played like that combined with the cheap vodka had dulled my judgment, and soon after arriving at Boone's hotel room, I found myself on the bed, Boone on top of me.
After making love, I wished more than ever that Boone had fallen in love with somebody who loved him back. I couldn't love anybody, because I had a heart of steel. All I could do was hurt him.
And yet, as I watched him sit on the edge of the bed, pain etched across every contour of his body, I felt as though a piece of my heart were being chipped off. I knew that after that, I would never quite be whole again.
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I'd always wanted to see the world, since back when I was a little girl. I had gone through all the magazines, newspapers, and catalogues in the house and cut out pictures of the place I wanted to go before I glued them in a special section in my diary. I'd thrown the diary out when I'd gotten older and thought it to be too childish, but I still kept a list in the bottom drawer of my desk, an ever-growing list of all the places I wanted to go when I grew up.
Paris, Egypt, Hawaii, the Caribbean, Australia, Italy…I wanted to see it all.
However, one place that was absolutely, positively NOT on my list was a deserted, barren, monster-infested mystery island in the middle of the south pacific.
And wouldn't you know it, that's exactly the place I ended up.
Every day I was just waiting. Waiting to be rescued. Waiting for the boat in shining armor to finally pass by and see us on the island. Preferably one being driven by a tall, tanned, muscular hottie in his mid-twenties who would see me on the shore and fall instantly in love with me, as men like that always did.
But, around the time that I came to terms with the fact that we were not going to be rescued any time soon, I also came to terms with the fact no gorgeous men were going to arrive at the island and fall in love with me.
So I turned to the guys that were already on the island.
Boone was by far the best looking guy around, but he was still my brother, and still off-limits, despite what had happened in Sydney.
I decided to make Sayid my target. I didn't feel anything for him, because I had a heart of steel, so I didn't love anything. However, Sayid was strong and capable of taking care of me, not to mention totally sexy, which was all I cared about.
He was easy to get.
The relationship was good for me. He took my mind off of Boone, and the way my steel heart would chip just a little bit on the rare occasions that we looked into each other's eyes nowadays. Though Sayid could never quite fix what would forever be missing from my heart, he at least made me forget about the pain upon occasion.
One of these occasions was a night when Sayid took me off to a part of the beach that was isolated from the rest of the camp, where he had prepared a romantic picnic for the two of us. More romantic, in fact, than what I would have expected of a man like Sayid.
That night on the beach made me feel the closest to being whole again than I had in what seemed like forever. That night, I really wanted to feel something for him. I really wanted him to touch my heart in a way that no man had before. I wanted him to be the one to finally soften my heart of steel.
But as we walked slowly back to where the other survivors were, hand in hand, my heart was just as hard as it had always been.
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I'd always thought I had a heart of steel.
I didn't love anything. I didn't care about anything. Nothing mattered to me.
But when I saw Boone lying there, covered in blood, the life gone from his body, my heart shattered like glass.
My heart had been strong, solid, and untouchable. And yet, as I knelt before the body of the man I loved, my heart lay in a million glittering pieces.
I cried like I'd never cried before. I had lost everything, and there was now an empty space in me that could never be filled.
I'd always thought I had a heart of steel. But all along, I'd just had a heart of glass.