Shattered Heart, Rising Spirit

The moment I told Jake Reynolds we were over, he didn't believe me. He just laughed like I was joking. We had been together for five years, living in his penthouse with my mom. I never thought our life would change. It all started when his ex-girlfriend, Brittany Davis, showed up. He asked me to cook for them, but I couldn't. My mom was in the hospital, fighting terminal cancer, and I was with her. That was my first mistake. Three days later, my mom's health insurance, which was under Jake's company plan and kept her pain manageable, was canceled. I begged him, called him repeatedly, left desperate voicemails, but he blocked my number. He never answered. Two weeks later, my mom died; she spent her last days in agony because she couldn't get her medication. The day after her funeral, I saw a picture of Jake and Brittany on a yacht in the Caribbean, arm-in-arm, smiling. The caption read, "An escape with my one and only." I went to his penthouse, the place I once called home, to tell him it was over. He sneered, "I was just teaching you a lesson. You can't just say no to me." I told him simply, "You killed my mother." He knew exactly what he was doing when he cut her off. He did it because I wouldn' t cook a meal for his ex-girlfriend. A life for a dinner. This made no sense. I returned to his penthouse to retrieve my mother' s last painting. Jake and Brittany were there. When I asked for the painting, he told me to get Brittany a glass of water. Then, she deliberately ruined my five years of artwork, my sketchbook. He then took my mother' s sunflower painting, the one she painted with shaking hands, and snapped it over his knee. The crack of the wood echoed like a gunshot. He threw the pieces at my feet. But in that moment, something shifted. I started to laugh, realizing he had nothing left to take from me.