She violently reached for her heart, hoping she could somehow magically penetrate her skin and check if it was still intact. Her knees felt limp, so she sat down and began to think the following thoughts:

Can you die from a broken heart? Can you carry on from day to day, though your heart is slowly breaking? What does it feel like when you wake up in the morning? What is the first thought that enters your head? Are your thoughts even clear, or do the cracks and crevices in your heart affect your mind as well? Are there any other side effects? Do you perceive things the same way you did before? Is what was so beautiful to you then as beautiful to you now? Do previous pleasures become intolerable annoyances? Does the brokenness confuse your heart, commanding it to love what it was once hated and hate what it once loved? Is the love within it simply obstructed, or does it escape through slight cracks into a world that desperately needs it?

And when it does break, how does it break exactly? Is there a single line directly through the center of your heart? Is there a point of origin where the damage begins? Does it break instantly into a thousand helpless pieces, or does it break little by little, day by day, until the rupture is complete? Is it possible that several years could pass before you can fully define it as broken?

Most importantly, is it treatable? Are there potential remedies? Is there some kind of internal super glue that can be used to piece it back together? Do the chances of a cure go up with public awareness? Should she shout out her weaknesses and make her damaged state known? Should she attempt to explain her invisible wounds to a judgmental world? Or should she silence the sounds made by the shattering and breaking bits, accepting her condition as the type that's "not pretty if you don't comply, pretty easy if you don't complain?"