When did your heart go missing?

Once upon a time there was a young girl. Name's are not important. What is important is the fact that she believed in many different things, ponies, rainbows, the tooth fairy....the list goes on. But one thing she beleived not, was the existence of love. To her, love was a fictional feeling made for girls names Repunzel or Cinderella.

One day as she was riding her bicycle around the block she noticed a boy doing neat tricks with his guitar on his front porch. This piqued her interest, so she immediately stopped to inquire about his enchanting ways. He was excited to see her so interested in what he had to offer and after a few moments of chatting, he told her " I've got an even better trick!"

Being the curious young girl that she was, she was dying to know what the trick might be. Without a moments hesitation, he walked right up to her and quickly grabbed her beating heart right out of her chest. She flinched, expecting to feel pain, but instead was delighted at the euphoric feeling this action had produced. She looked down and there in his hand was her bright red heart, still beating with every breath she took. The boy began to spin her heart in the tip of his fingers, juggle it for a while, and bounce it around. Every move he made with her heart made her feel more enthralled with him than the last.

After a few days passed, the tricks he played with her heart began to intensify. They became more elaborate and the feelings they produced more impressive. It was around this time that the little girl began to think that what was happening to her was love, and that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't a total farce after all.

Months of this had gone by when during one of his tricks the boy looked the girl right in the eye with a devilish grin and began taking off in the other direction in a full sprint.... with her heart! She began to panic. After all, where was he heading with her heart in tow! How could she trust him to be careful with such a precious object?

She began to chase after him but he was just too fast. As the chase continued she noticed that the farther he ran the worse she felt. No longer was the void where her heart once was, filled with the sensation of warmth, comfort, and excitement. The farther from her he got the emptier she felt.

As she stopped to catch her breath, she began to wonder "What kind of horrible game is this?" Just as she was about to give up she spotted the boy not too far ahead. She started running as fast as she could. As she drew near, in a fit of anger, she pushed the boy to the ground. He fell, and with him, her heart. As it hit the pavement she watched it shatter into a million tiny little pieces.

"You...you broke my heart!", she yelled.

"It's your fault that your heart is broken.", was his only reply"

She made her way over to the broken remains and noticed the boy start to run away again. Instead of chasing him she began to pick up the pieces one by one. She gathered them up, put them in her knapsack, and started making her way towards home.

Over the next few weeks she worked diligently at taping and gluing the pieces back together and returning her heart to where it belonged. It was when she put her heart back in its rightful place, that she began to feel whole again.

Feeling better than she had in months, she sat at her kitchen table, surrounded by glue and tape, and reminded herself that this should serve as a lesson learned. She told herself that never again would she let anyone play with her heart like that. No matter how exciting it may be, it was her heart and hers alone. Besides, there were people out there named Repunzel to put up with that crap.