He wakes up shaken and dripped in sweat. Not again! He stays up until dawn bombarded by a continuous pounding in his chest, his heart is racing and he could just feel the blood rush through his veins uncontrollably into the void that has now become his routine life. He looks at his phone just to make sure he's not dreaming. It's Monday. How is he going to head off to work in this state? He looks down at his trembling hands with an unplaceable ache. How can his coworkers see him like this? Especially when one in particular broke up with him over the weekend. Begrudgingly, he drags himself to the office.

With his messy hair and disheveled look, he attracts the glares and murmurs of his office-mates. Lurking behind the water cooler is his now ex-girlfriend along with a couple of her friends. His hands start sweating again, and the pounding from his chest is re-directed into a throbbing pain in his left hand. The glaring stares turn into pitiful glances throughout the day, as one after the other, his colleagues come to offer their comfort while he assures them that he is not upset or broken-hearted. Even the boss insists he take the rest of the day off.

He rushes out of the building desperate for a gasp of fresh air. He lifts up his left fist, tightly clenched and shivering intensely, and moments before it hits the wall, he screams out in agony. People across the street are mortified as some of his coworkers look at him from the windows while some others hurry out to provide support, including his ex-girlfriend. She is dumbfounded upon seeing his fist against the wall and insists he go to the nearest hospital. He looks up at her in disdain, out-of-breath and still tormented by increasingly agonizing pain. She doesn't look the same to him anymore, in fact, she becomes blurrier and darker until his whole world fades to black.

He wakes up in the hospital ER, to the sound of his beeping heart beat and a nurse who had just walked in.

"A couple more days with that broken wrist of yours and you might have needed surgery. You're lucky, and a lefty too it seems."

She leans in closer and whispers, "A piece of medical advice, next time somebody breaks up with you, try not to punch a wall."

It might have been all the painkillers they've given him but he can't help but chuckle to himself: "They cared more about a broken heart and didn't even notice a broken wrist."

Ever since she was little she loved to play rough. After all, she was the only girl in the family and the youngest, even her cousins were boys - on both sides. She would never miss a game they would play, she wouldn’t have it. Elegant pink dresses would come back torn, smeared with dirt and sometimes blood, much to her mother’s dismay (the dirty dress part not the blood). As she grew older, her beauty flourished, her grades got higher, but her love for play never changed. In fact, it extended to practical jokes and a good sense of humor. She even developed a catchphrase for her wild and bloody injuries. Whenever people would rush in to help and ask if she’s okay, she would always respond, “why so serious?”

We grew up together, stirring up chaos around us and fire within our hearts. Years passed with different lovers, but we always found our way back to each other until we were finally each other's. My happiness turned into fear so I withdrew, but I never expected my feelings to turn into grief when his fire was suddenly extinguished at just 22 years old, lighting up a deeper fire within me to guide me through the coming desolate years.