When I was three years old, my grandmother told me that when a heart breaks, so does a piece of the earth. She said that’s why we have lakes and valleys and mountains and cracks in the pavement. We would walk and she would say, “Look, Amelia. Another heartbreak. Never let someone hurt you enough to cause the Earth pain.” And I would believe her. I swore to myself that I would never get attached to anyone. Never love anyone. Only would I ever love my grandma, who would never break my heart. She would never wrong me, never make my heart ache. She told me that mortals would, though. She said attach yourself to someone and your heart will shatter. Love someone and lose yourself. 

We were a family that lived forever. She is almost 1,000 years old, and I’m somewhere around 200. I never really kept track of my age. 

So I never loved anyone. I talked to people on occasion, but never became attached enough to feel something real. 

This was until one crucial event happened. I walked down the stream, fetching some water for my grandmother’s and my cottage. 

“Hello.” 

I stopped and my heart jumped. Who was speaking to me? I had only ever heard the voice of my grandmother, never the sound of a boy who was maybe seventeen years old, which was almost the exact age I appeared to be. 

I turned around slowly, anxiously awaiting the sight of this beautiful voice. I could not see anyone. Not until I walked into the woods a little and saw him. Him. I liked the thought of that. The thought of knowing someone other than my grandma or the birds that sat at my window in the mornings when the weather was warm. He was real. 

He was sitting under a tree, reading a book. I was intrigued by this. What could he be thinking, talking to a strange girl deep in the forest? 

“Hello, sir,” I managed to stutter. 

“Please do not call me sir. My name is Benjamin.” He sat back against the tree, his face once again buried in his face in his book.

Benjamin? I loved the sound of his name. I loved the exoticness of it. The way the sounds of the vowels and consonants flowed together to make one gorgeous three-syllable expression.  

“Do you have a name?” He said it while still focusing on his reading, barely acknowledging my presence.

Oh, how silly of me. When someone introduces themself, you’re supposed to introduce yourself to them, right? “I’m Amelia.” 

“Well, I’ll see you later then, Amelia.” 

After that our story was history. We saw each other everyday. We laughed together, played together, sang together, and ate together. We were inseparable. Well, as inseparable as two people hiding from an immortal grandmother could be. She could never find out about Benjamin. If she had, she probably would have disowned me or kicked me out of our blissful little cottage. 

Each day I would tell her how I was going to pick berries, read a book, or play by the river caused by a poor man's tragedy. She believed me for a while. She was happy I was occupying myself so sufficiently. But after a few months, Grandmother got suspicious of my day to day “berry-picking and reading” journeys. 

She followed me to the tree where I would meet Benjamin everyday. We would sit and talk about his life at school, and my life with Grandmother. It was the most pleasant thing in the world. It was the only thing that made me happy. 

My grandmother hated this. She had hoped that the only thing that made me happy was being with her, not a strange boy meeting up with me in the forest. 

She plotted for a while, I assume, and she took action a few weeks later. Grandmother followed Benjamin home one day, and did the unthinkable. 

She murdered him in cold blood with an axe. 

Only did I get suspicious after the third day of not seeing him. He wouldn’t leave me alone like this? Would he? 

Turns out she would. I immediately went to the woods and searched for him. 

“Grandmother, I’m going out to pick berries.” 

I looked through the forest, following the path I suspected he followed each day to see me. I walked for a long time, seeing nothing but trees that looked identical and paths that seemed infinite. The feelings rushing through me were unbearable. Was he gone forever? Had I imagined him? Was he even real? Did he hate me? I could not bear to ask myself the worst question: did he die? That was too frightening. I hated him. 

And then I saw it. I saw him. I saw Benjamin laying behind a tree with an ax and his head laying on the ground next to him. Someone had taken an ax to his throat and left the murder weapon at the scene of the crime. 

With him left all my happiness, all my love, and what arrived was something much worse. I was going to find out who the murderer was and kill them myself. I had to tell my grandmother about it. She was my only hope. 

I walked into the cottage hastily, my voice breaking between sobs. “Grandmother, my friend has been murdered.” 

“What? You know no one else besides me, Amelia. How could this be?” 

“I had a friend named Benjamin. We would meet everyday. I just went to look for him and I saw him lying dead.” 

“Oh child, that is awful. But at least you won’t get too attached to someone and have your heart broken.” 

I continued crying. How could she not want to go and see the body? She didn’t even want to help me bury him or keep his memory alive. All she cared about was that I didn’t talk to anyone other than her. 

And then it hit me. She must have seen me sneak off to meet him. The only way she could be unfazed by such a story is if she had part in it. I asked myself the forbidden question: did she kill Benjamin? 

“Grandmother.” 

“Yes, Amelia.” 

“Did you kill Benjamin?” 

And that’s when the look on her face said it all. It said everything I needed to see. She couldn’t lie to me. 

I screamed and cried and kicked and punched at her. I was beyond angry. I was furious. How could she do such a thing? 

I went to the river to cry before I would run away from this terrifying and insane woman. No matter how much I thought about her I couldn’t convince myself to stay here and live with a monster like her. 

As I cried, the ground began to split. It kept splitting until there was a wide canyon beneath the ground. As I think back on it, my heart did not break because of Benjamin. It was because of my grandmother and her terrible obsession with being my only companion. 

I went into the cottage to pack my things, but she stopped me. She said that she did it for my own good, and she would never hurt me, only people that were dangerous to me. I asked her how that fixed what she did and she said what she did needed no fixing. She said it was the right thing to do and I would realize that one day. It’s 200 years later and I still don’t realize it. I think of Benjamin everyday, and I feel responsible for what happened to him. Grandmother acted on her emotions and warped values. 

I eventually left the cottage, though. I found my own place far away in a different wood. I lived my own life, found my own friends, and loved people that I wanted to. My grandmother was the only thing that ever stopped me from really living. I am still baffled that I let her control the first 100 years of my life with no second thoughts. 

I never ever found someone that remotely compared to Benjamin. He was kind, smart, funny, and handsome. He was smarter than I’ll ever be and he was only 17 years old all those years ago. Thinking of him is easier now. I look back on his life and I can only smile. He was an amazing person that gave me a lot of my favorite memories. 

Seeing him lying dead next to an ax my grandmother used to end his life still haunts me. Maybe my grandmother is still looking for me, or maybe she’s given up. All I know is I cannot live wishing to please her. It was really her fault that the canyon on the hill formed, as I would have been perfectly fine if Benjamin still lived. 

But losing Benjamin taught me two things: love as you will lose them tomorrow, and live as you will die tomorrow.