Business as Usual- a SmithersxBurns fanfic

Smithers' Journal, 1991

I hate it when people complain to me about heartbreak.

I've heard young women whine about how some crush doesn't notice them, or cry about how their boyfriend seems to have better chemistry with one of their friends than with them. I laugh at their "struggles." They might feel lost for a moment, but they'll move on. They'll find some other shallow guy to please them just the same. They feel a fraction of the pain I endure. A fraction.

They don't understand what it feels like to love a person so deeply that they're like a second beating heart in your chest. They don't understand how it feels to have your pillowcase stained with tears nightly, all while you know the exact person they're having sweet dreams about. They don't understand the jealousy that comes with being the second. Second place, second choice. It makes you feel worthless, like your person is the sun and you're just stuck in the orbit with millions of other spinning space rocks. Your only relief is when the shadows of bigger planets pass and you can again, just for a moment, feel their warm rays on your skin. That is, until another more notable object plunges you into frigid darkness. Never a master of your own destiny, you're constantly whipped around in the universe of their making.

Oh, I'm sure people think they understand. I'm sure anyone can think of a person who they believe they've been broken by. But let me ask this— have you been their closest confidant for 15 years? Have you memorized every fact about them in order to make their life more convenient? Have you been ranted to about their sex life and been insulted by them in the same breath? Have they isolated you, controlled you, consumed your life? Have they taken so much from you that you swear you'll never turn back- until they yank on your chains of affection once more?

Don't dare complain to me about heartbreak.