The Heartbreaker’s Apprentice

Long ago, in the city where we live, there was a heartbreaker.

(By which we mean, a woman who broke hearts for a living—sliding scale, pay what you can.)

None of us knew how she did it, but we had a hundred theories, told a thousand stories: she takes a hair from his head and burns it; she steals a tear from his eye, freezes it; she inks curses on skin with a blood-stained finger.

Does it matter? murmured the woman sitting beside us on the late-night bus. Who minds how she does it? Only that it’s done—

We nodded. What mattered was that she broke them, left them in ruins. Shattered them so completely they could never be rebuilt.

* * *

We only hired the heartbreaker for the worst offenders: the one who tattooed another woman’s name on his bicep the night before the rehearsal dinner; who slipped something into a drink at the pub, and laughed while we stumbled home, a black hole in our memories where the night had been; who wrote songs spilling our darkest secrets, and thanked us for inspiration at the open mic.

And worse—

Who turned us into cautionary tales and statistics—

Who abandoned us to establish Rome—

Who drowned our sisters by a willow tree—

And worse.

* * *

But this isn’t our story. This is the story of the heartbreaker’s apprentice.

* * *

A job ad, posted online. The only qualification: You must have a heart of ice.

For months, no-one answered—we clicked away, shivering—but one day a woman, lost in a snowstorm, pushed through drifts to knock on the nearest door. 

Come in, the heartbreaker said. I’ve been expecting you.

* * *

How long have you been doing this? the woman asked, over bowls of tinned ravioli at the kitchen table.

Eternity, it feels like.

The woman (let us call her Kay) looked around: old windows that rattled in winter storms, threadbare cushions on the couch, the faint smell of drying roses. You make an okay living?

I get by. The tax returns are a pain.

You think I can learn?

The heartbreaker ran an icy finger down Kay’s cheek. (Perhaps she had bad circulation; perhaps a heart of ice pumps colder blood.)

Yes, she said. I do.

* * *

Kay said she would stay a while and think on it.

For a time, she watched us, poured us tea while we laid out our grief on the patchwork couch, while we marked another for heartbreak:

The one who called us sluts on the CBC—

Who jilted us to marry a king’s daughter—

Who ghosted us after the second miscarriage—

And worse.

* * *

Do you think it’s enough? Kay asked, one day. It feels like a small thing, for some of them.

Had we heard her, we might have answered: we have seen the broken. We do not think they can love again, and when the heartbreaker is done with them, we do not think they will be warmed by another’s love.

How can you ask? the heartbreaker said, her breath a bleak north wind. Have you never had a broken heart?

* * *

For an apprentice heartbreaker, there are many quests.

Kay grew antlers; galloped through the aurora and out the other side; made labyrinths of ice, hiding something unnamable at their centers; armed herself with a thousand snowflakes; pricked her fingers on the thorns of dead roses; called lies in a raven’s tongue—

And more.

After each quest, she returned to the heartbreaker’s house, and they sat together talking deep into the night. The heartbreaker had been alone a long time, and loneliness held no fear for her, but now she counted the days until Kay’s return. And—worse—she counted the dwindling number of remaining quests.

Kay—who had wandered for years, never finding a home—counted too:

How many smiles she might win from the heartbreaker.

How many touches from those chill fingers, on her hand, her wrist, her arm—

Is this the last quest? she asked, each time, afraid of the answer.

No, not yet, the heartbreaker said, smiling. Next, you must—

* * *

The day came, finally, when Kay understood how one might break a heart.

There’s one last thing you must do, the heartbreaker said, before you may wield that power. You must have—

She paused, and looked away, but Kay already knew:

A broken heart.

* * *

For the length of winter, Kay went into the city, seeking a broken heart, but never seemed to fall in love.

I can’t do it, she said to the heartbreaker, as they curled together on the patchwork couch. I have a heart of ice. You’ll have to keep doing it alone, and you shouldn’t have to carry that burden, you shouldn’t—

The heartbreaker silenced her with a kiss.

 (She knew, they both knew, they’d known all along: Kay had fallen in love long ago, in a snowstorm, over tinned ravioli.)

Come with me, the heartbreaker said, and took Kay up the stairs, to a room beneath the eaves, where it was warm, where there were no more quests, where two hearts of ice could come together, melting.

* * *

In the morning, the heartbreaker was gone.

* * *

There is a heartbreaker in the city where we live. And if you look, now, in the city where you live, you may find a heartbreaker of your own.

If you find her, if you ask (sliding scale, pay what you can), she will break a heart for you; she’ll break a hundred hearts for you.

We know the price she paid, now. Remember it, when you search her out; remember it, when you seek her services, for the one who discarded you on the steps of the abortion clinic—

Who catfished our widowed mothers—

Who hung his wives’ corpses from the coat-hook—

And worse.

Remember:

She gave her heart for you.

* * *

Ⓒ Catherine George