How to mend a broken heart: Part 1.

1. Try to find out why.
2. Be bored with yourself and others.
3. Meet a new pipsqueak.
4. Become hated.

Your heart is broken. Well, more of your heart’s valves won’t close all the way, so they have to fix it. At least that’s what you overheard from your parents. You’re not sure what you are doing in the hospital.
No one told you anything.

“We have to use this big needle, it’s a little risky, but she’ll …”
“What big needle Mom?”
She ignores you.
“What big needle Dad?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says.

You go to the “Play Pen” so you can stop watching Jeopardy with your parents. You like Wheel of Fortune better because you know how to shout out letters and sometimes you get the right letter, but you can never guess the phrase. You don’t even know what a phrase is. You want to play Lite Brite but pieces and stuff are missng and there’s electricity involved and you just realize this toy is nothing but a big light bulb. Boring. Your parents never understand any of the board games. You tried to teach them how to play Monopoly once, but ended up throwing the money all over the place and yelling, "Pow wow yow yow rocket shoes boom boom!" like you were Scrooge in Ducktails, although he does not shout those words. You wish you could dive into money.

You meet a new friend, but he’s annoying. He’s smaller than you are. He smells. He keeps saying, “Butterfingers! You’re butterfingers!” You’re too shy to respond. You don’t talk. You don’t know how to. You haven’t really interacted with other kids before. Your only friends are Mutant Ninja Turtles and Stacey. And one of them isn’t real.

You don’t feel well. Clowns are going to visit you too.
Be polite. Be amazed as they take a coin out of your ear.
Your stomach is killing you. You just want to lie down. You want to cry. You want to crap all over the place. But they want you to walk around the room. They want you to laugh with the clowns like the other children.
You can’t.
You feel bad.
Which is probably why clowns hate you.