Anna and the Alien

Anna has got her heart broken before. A few times, actually. The plot of her love stories is always the same one. She meets a guy. She lets her guards down. She falls in love with the guy, slowly but usually really, really hard. She lets the guy keep her hanging for so long. And then it ends. Just like that, before it even starts. And then, of course, her heart is broken.

            When it happens, it feels like there is a baby alien in her chest, ready to tear her skin and burst, like in the movie Alien. She doesn’t know what the alien is made of. Anger? Hatred? Sadness? Disappointment? Regret? Sometimes the alien moves away from her chest to her eyes. It usually changes its form into teardrops and frees itself from a cage that is Anna’s body through her eyes. The latter one is easier for the alien; it’s usually hard for Anna to hold her tears.

            Anna hates feeling heartbroken. She shouldn’t be worried because she knows exactly what she has to do to avoid it: don’t fall in love.

            But can she do that? Hell, no.

            It had been a year since the last time Anna saw Ray, the last guy. She had accepted the fact that she couldn’t be with him, that he didn’t feel the same way, that she was only a friend for him, that she was never his girlfriend anyway, that he wasn’t the right one for her, blah blah blah… The baby alien had come out. She had moved on. She had convinced herself that it was better for her to be on her own. She had promised to herself that she wouldn’t let herself fall in love again and that she would focus on other precious things in her life.

            But then she met Jay.

            When she first met him, she foolishly thought that things would be different with him. He created butterflies and let them fly around in her stomach. He whispered lovely words and sweet promises to her ears. He held her hands and made her feel safe and serene. He embraced her when she was cold and made her feel warm. Oh, this must be true love, she thought.

            Four months later, the baby alien returned. Just like in the Alien movies.

            Sometimes Anna wonders why this keeps happening. Why does that crazy little thing people call love keep coming to her and breaking her heart?  She doesn’t even want it to come to her; she doesn’t even look for it. She is perfectly fine being single and all she wants is to be happy. “Why?” she always asks the walls of her room, but no one has ever answered.