Read Instructions for a Broken Heart for Free Online

reached over, and clicked it off.
    “Hey!”
    “Carissa’s orders.” He handed Jessa a white gummy bear, her favorite.
    A moment later, Francesca ushered them back into a pack, the frog a bobbing, floating thing.
    “Come on, Éponine,” Tyler said, pulling her to her feet.
    The shoppers returned, their arms full of shiny bags. They wore cropped jackets and strappy heeled sandals, designer denim, and round, smoky sunglasses. Jessa frowned. The whole lot of them looked lacquered, shiny, and windproof. Jessa stared down at her Chaco sandals and tan shorts that might as well have a neon sign reading “Tourist” on them.
    Francesca snapped her phone shut. “Yes, yes—we are all here? Follow the frog!”
    ***
    Reason #3: Remember when we found that dead dog? Someone had hit it on your road, and Sean was all pissed that you wanted to wait until animal control got there. Told you we’d waited long enough, that we had to get going. I know you hate it when I bring up the dead-dog story. But it’s a solid reason. Had to bring it up.
    Jessa showed Tyler Reason #3 as they made their way toward the Roman Forum. She shivered. Every once in a while, she’d still dream about that dog. He wasn’t too old, no gray in his muzzle, black and mutt looking in a little crumple by the side of the road. At first, they thought he was sleeping there in the dirt shoulder, the sky above them aglow in sunset wash. But he wasn’t sleeping.
    Tyler popped open another bag of gummy bears he’d picked up at a kiosk and ate a handful. “I don’t know the dead-dog story.”
    “It’s so gross that you eat them all together. They’re different flavors.”
    “Grosser than a dead dog?” He shrugged, holding the bag out to her.
    Jessa frowned at him but selected a white gummy bear. She told him the story. They’d been walking to get ice cream from the market at the bottom of Jessa’s long road. Found the dog there. Carissa called animal control immediately. Bless the iPhone of all knowledge. Jessa stood there, tears wetting her face. Somehow, she couldn’t peel her eyes from his strange parenthesis of a body, its little arc, his head tucked beneath one leg. There wasn’t even any blood. Sean had kept tugging at her sleeve. “Let’s go,” he’d said. “The store closes at six. We’ve been here long enough.” But Jessa hadn’t wanted ice cream anymore.
    “Did you read the instruction?” Tyler asked.
    Instruction: “Long enough.” I personally think you put up with his crap for long enough. But what does “long enough” mean to you? Write a poem and read it out loud. Not just to Tyler.
    “She wants me to write about what it means? ”
    “Like your interpretation of that phrase.” Tyler chewed another handful of bears.
    “Helpful.”
    “You know, that kind of self-reflection, self-aware stuff you’re always trying to avoid doing unless it’s for some scholarship you’re applying for.” He rattled the bag to dislodge the ones clinging for their lives to the sides.
    “I don’t try to avoid self-reflection.”
    “OK.”
    Jessa watched people hurrying by her on the street. She made her face all dreamy. “Long. Enough. What does it mean? See, this is me…reflecting.”
    “Impressive.”
    “What does it mean to me?” she mumbled again. But the landscape around her took over, invaded her mind. All the color and age of the place. What must it be like to have all this history around all the time? To wake up to a view of the Pantheon outside your apartment window each morning, to walk by St. Peter’s on the way to work? Jessa stared at the McDonald’s sign looming next to a crumbling column. Weird. Tyler stayed silent beside her.
    When they came to a stop outside the Forum, Francesca dove into a discussion about Julius Caesar, his orations, his betrayal, his cremation. Jessa couldn’t believe the crazy, open beauty of the Forum, its deteriorating sprawl—the columns shooting up from green ground, the crumbled stone, the