Suffering reached out from the shadow of a dumpster and Sawyer found himself unable to just walk on by.  He felt the pain of others like it was his own, fostering waves of compassion and a desire to help.  Empathy drew him closer to the bloodied mass. 

He watched as the pulsing and bruised heap shivered within the confines of the shadows.  It was afraid but still reached out to him with a tendril of blood.  At times like this when Sawyer gazed upon hopelessness he sometimes wished his heart was constructed of colder stuff.

But it wasn’t. 

He knelt next to the skinless mass, its veins rising and falling like lungs on the edge of futility.  An empty Chinese food container would make a decent carrying case so he gingerly scooped it inside.  Cradling the wounded mound to his chest he took it home where he could better asses the damage. 

Clearing off his kitchen table which only had a few mismatching plates, he placed the food container reverently in the center.  He focused a lamp on it by tipping the shade, then leaned in for a more forensic examination. 

It looked as if it wanted to die.  It made no effort to save itself and Sawyer knew if he was going to bring it back from death he would have to do all the work.  The cracks along its side made it seem like a lost cause, but he’d seen this before and knew it was merely broken.  The breaks were deep and there would be much scaring, but it would live. 

A week later, after much tender care, Sawyer was able to take it out of the container; it no longer needed the food box to hold itself together.  And more importantly it seemed to want to keep itself together.  A good sign.

Sawyer was beginning to wonder what to do next, when his doorbell rang.  He stepped from his small apartment kitchen and answered the door.  A woman with mismatched clothes, as if she had dressed in the dark, stood hunched and haggard, staring up at him.  She appeared a few years older than Sawyer, but it was hard to tell.  She seemed hollow inside. 

Placing a hand on the doorframe, she steadying herself.  Her eyes were full of regret as her thin lips parted slowly.  "Do, you . . ." she paused to wet her lips.  "Do you have something of mine?"

Sawyer nodded sympathetically and motioned her inside.  "I wondered if you'd come.  I wasn't sure if you wanted it anymore."

They moved into the kitchen and when the frail woman saw her discarded organ beating healthy and strong she collapsed into a chair, her hands reaching for it.  "My heart," she said though labored breaths.  "How . . .  how did you do this?"

Sawyer took a chair next to her.  "With some attention and a gentle touch."

"I thought it was damaged beyond repair." A tear welled in her eye.  "That’s why I . . .  that’s why I threw it out."

Sawyer reached for her hand, caressing it tenderly.  "Only broken," he said. 

"It's not used to gentle hands." Her tears began to fall.  "Just cruel ones."

"Why don't we talk about how we can change that?" Sawyer's voice was soothing and sincere. 

She nodded, wiping her cheeks dry.  "I’m Beth."

Sawyer made coffee and they talked for hours all the while Beth's heart got stronger.  Over the next few weeks the two never seemed to stray far from one another.  Sawyer continued to nurture Beth's heart, rubbing the scares that would fade but never completely disappear.  It seemed that all Sawyer's compassion had finally come back to reward him.  His lifelong compulsion to bring home the strays and wounded had finally developed into something besides the satisfaction that comes from helping others. 

Sawyer was falling in love. 

He had already started to shop for the ring when he first noticed something was wrong.  They had had an argument, their first, and as Sawyer went over the blowup in his mind he couldn't get over the feeling that Beth had started the verbal assault on purpose.  More arguments followed and eventually it seemed as if everyday he was struggling not to fight with her.  Finally during the loudest brawl yet, over what, he didn't even know, Beth stuck out her chin and yelled, "You want to hit me?  Go ahead."

It was then that Sawyer realized that his gentle hands had turned into fists, one on each side of him, like deadly medieval weapons ready to do damage.

He peered down at them, mentally forcing his fingers to uncurl, still not believing what he was so close to doing.

"You're a wimp," Beth said.  "I don't know what I ever saw in you."  She threw the front door wide and turned to deliver her parting shot.  "You disgust me."

The door slammed shut, shaking the frame, sending shock waves throughout the apartment and Sawyer. 

For a month he wondered what he could have done differently, what he might have said that would have changed things.  His heart was broken and he would never know the reason why.  Maybe there was something wrong with him?

Time passed and his wounds healed.  Scare tissue seared across his heart and he wore it with pride, not because he enjoyed the pain but because he had survived it.

Beth's memory had just begun to fade when just by chance, he came across her heart again.  It had been beaten worse than before.  Blood ran free over massive bruises as it once again tried to find shelter in the shade of a dumpster.  Sensing Sawyers gaze it seemed to reach out to him like a drowning soul to a lifeboat.  He could see that if he didn't help this time it would die. 

Sawyer looked away, felt his heart frost a bit, and kept on walking.