Paper Heart

By: Ashlyn Frost

She was standing with her shoes over the bridge railing.

Grief stood behind her.

The chilled wind blew soundlessly around them. The water rushed wordlessly below

them. Her shoes halfway off the railing; nothing but emptiness and quite lay one step further.

“Hello,” Grief offered.

The girl did not faulter. Edges of her auburn hair shook with the frigid wind, but her

shoes stayed halfway over the ledge. “Hello, Grace.” Grief said into the wind. The sound of her

named carried heavily to her ears, the weight of it trickled down to her shoulders, then to

imprison her chest. Grace blinked.

“Who are you?” Grace’s words barley a whisper. She blinked again. Staring forward at

the naked decaying trees. Their skeleton hands reaching out to steal her, or to push her.

Grief responded after a moment of silence, “The trees do look scary this time of year.

With their once beautiful leaves laying at their trunks like gravestones.” Her back still turned to

him lifelessly, he added, “But once the snow comes the whole forest will look like diamonds.”

“They are just dead now.”

Flatly the words dropped from her mouth as Grief stood carefully behind her still

watching the wind animate her auburn hair against the dark black of her dress. Grace stood

carefully balanced on top of the railing watching the blue ice water barreling beneath the bridge.

For only a moment she let her mind slip to think about the crumbled up note in her dress pocket.
 “Can you please,” her voice like glass, “stop watching me.” Saying those words felt like

pushing a wine glass off the table. And she knew what it meant if the stranger was to stop

watching her.

“Grace, I’ve been watching you since your sister died, and your soul showed up in my

library.”

The auburn hair flipped and the shoes halfway off the bridge turned. Solemn brown eyes

started Grief in the face. Grace’s face was hollow as ice. She blinked again, hoping eventually if

she blinked enough a single tear might fall. A single tear would light flames down her face and

release the pain that is threatening to snap this bridge in two. “Don’t you dare, talk about my

sister.”

The cold jumped up biting her fingers and toes, but Grace stood staring at a man dressed

in all black, face as white as a ghost.

“Hello, Grace. I’m Grief, a pleasure to meet you.”

Grace blinked.

“I’ve been following you since the day your soul showed up on my doorstep. I see many

souls daily; some souls stay for a while, while others return home quickly. Your soul however,

wanted to leave the second it showed up. A runner if you will.”

Grace blinked again, “What kind of cruel joke is this?”

“Let me show you.” Grief moved his hand through the frosted air.

Graces shoes floated ever so slightly above the hardwood floor in a grand library, the man

with the black suit floated next to her. “Come child.” He gestured toward a table with scrolls of

parchment littered all over it. “Many people come to know me in life, some people come to

know me many times in many different ways.” He pointed to the parchment scrolls with names
and pictures of humans all over them. “Most people work through their grief without my help.

But for special cases like yourself I like to offer my assistance.”

He pointed to a parchment scroll, “Grace Bell” was in bolded letters at the top.

“Condition: Threatening.” Those were the only other words on the paper. Grace should

have been in shock, but this was easier to understand than the unexpected death of her twin

sister.

“You can’t help me.” Grace said begging for help.

“My sweet child, you don’t even need my help.”

He waved his hand again and the two traveled away once more.

Grace landed in front of a church building on a sunless day. Grief walked through the

unopen door and Grace followed.

“Brothers and Sisters, we are gathered here today to celebrate the life of one truly

beloved.” Graces papier-mache heart shredded in an instant. “How dare you make me relive

this.” She looked at Grief as if he stole her last straw.

Grace began to stumble backwards as the priest continued his talk. She saw herself sitting

in the front row draped in mourning and covered in loss. The ends of her auburn hair crying into

the blackness of her dress. She knew what happened next. She couldn’t live through it again. She

could hardly live through it once.

Grief grabbed her hand and walked her down the aisle.

“To start we have the honor of hearing from Grace Bell, the sister, twin, and lifelong best

friend to our late Sylvie.” Graces eyes burned viciously as the shame shot holes through her

chest. She stood with Grief’s hand in hers and watched as the past her stood up from the pew.

The past her should have walked toward the microphone. The past her should have opened the
note in her pocket and read aloud for everyone to hear. But she knew all too well, as she stood

with Grief and watched, past her would turn her head, her heart, and run out of the church

building to the nearest bridge.

Grace’s shame was chocking her. But grief gripped her hand and looked down at Grace’s

dress pocket. “You must feel to heal, sweet child. Go ahead.” He moved aside revealing the

empty microphone.

Her tears began to fall faster than a stampede. Her heart felt weaker than paper incapable

of beating. She walked to the front of the room. She stuck her hand in her pocket and touched a

crumbled-up piece of paper.

She stood in front of the microphone and unfolded the paper. The paper opened into a

crumpled heart. Sylvie had gifted her a heart shaped journal for valentine’s day, just two weeks

ago.

The words on the heart read, “Dear Sister.”

Graces tears had not stopped flowing, they were just like the frozen river. She could

hardly read; all the words were a swimming pool of ink.

“Dear Sister,” her voice shook into the microphone louder than she wanted anyone to

hear. Grief nodded his head from the audience and Grace began speaking from her paper heart,

she didn’t need to read it.

“Dear Sister, I am lost. Lost of what to say, lost of what to do, lost of who to be. I am

suffering the loss of my best friend and I don’t know how to do it. I spent my life with you. Each

moment I shared with you. When I looked for my heart, I looked to you. And today I was a

coward, lately actually I have been a coward. Too afraid of my own fragile heart, too scared to

continue through life without you. You were always the one who helped me when I felt I could
not do it myself. I loved you more than anyone else in my life and without you here my heart

feels paper thin.”

Grace looked at the paper heart in her hand. Ripped out from the journal her sister gifted

her. Written on it were feelings too heavy to put anywhere else. Grace ran her thumb over the

paper heart, she realized this paper was holding the heaviest emotions she has ever felt and there

was not a single tear in the paper shaped heart. Grace continued her speech.

“To my dear sister. For a long time, you were my strengthen. And since you’ve been

gone, I felt like my strengthen left with you. You can never truly leave me; I realize that now.

You are my heart, paper thin or not. Your love is stronger than any I thought possible. I love you,

Sylvie. You are forever my heart.

As the last words fell from Grace’s mouth, Grief waved his hand and the two of them

were again on the bridge. Grace stood in the same spot she did hours ago with tears stains

smearing her mascara down her face now. Grief outstretched his hand and Grace took it.

Her shoes now stood fully on the bridge gripping her paper heart.