The Wrong Heart

by Jennifer Hartmann

  Go play in traffic, Robert.

  Just when I don’t think it can get any worse, the woman to his right speaks up with her own tale of distress.

  “He won’t talk to me,” she sniffles, nose red and blotchy, her fist coiled around a well-used piece of tissue paper. “I just don’t understand why he won’t talk to me. He sees me so upset, so hurt by his avoidance, and I don’t know what to do. I’m not sure what else to say to get him to hear me, to look at me, to see me, and it’s just so painful that we can’t have a normal conversation because he won’t even talk to me—”

  “Maybe because he can’t get a word in.”

  I’m still slouched down in my chair, head tilted back with my eyes shut. The words just slipped through without warning, as they often do, because it’s easy to have no filter when you don’t give a shit. The silence is deafening, but that’s not what has me twisting in my seat, eyelids popping open.

  It’s a laugh.

  It’s a quick, genuine burst of laughter that seems to have been expelled as unintentionally as my own outburst.

  The new girl.

  She glances at me briefly before clearing her throat, then inching back into her seat, head ducking downward. She’s a contradictory mix of sunshine and sadness as she becomes engrossed with the dirty linoleum beneath her shoes.

  I keep my eyes on her another minute, more curious than interested, before Ms. Katherine breaks the awkward lull with a light humming sound.

  “Melody, why don’t you share a little about yourself? What brings you to Loving Lifelines?”

  I hold the groan in the back of my throat. Stupid fucking name.

  My eyes narrow as I watch the new girl fidget in place, toes tapping in opposite time, hands gripping the handbag in her lap. She sweeps trembling fingers through her hair, still looking down.

  “I, um, lost someone,” she replies, her voice no more than a shaky whisper. “And then I lost myself.”

  Ms. Katherine bobs her head slowly, brimming with artificial sympathies. “What brought you back from the point of no return?”

  “Hope.” Her response is swift and pointed. “I had a glimpse of hope in that dark moment.”

  “It’s a lie, you know.”

  There I go again, running my mouth. I feel their offended stares on me, but I pay them no mind. Arms still folded across my chest, legs sprawled out in front of me, I keep my gaze on little miss sunshine as she turns to look at me with a slow, languid crane of her neck.

  Wide, searching eyes meet my cool indifference as I continue. “Hope is a toxic false sense of optimism created to keep us going, but all it does is prolong the inevitable,” I say, unblinking and unemotional. “Hope is for the weak.”

  I’m ambushed by a collective round of murmurs and gasps, but I don’t flinch as my sights stay fixed on the frail woman across the room, frail in both body and spirit. She looks breakable in every possible way—the counter to my stone walls and steel truths.

  “Parker, I know this is an open forum, and we encourage healthy discussion,” the shrew cuts in, stealing away whatever objection may have escaped the new girl’s lips. “But let’s try to keep things positive.”

  I sniff, shrugging my shoulders and pulling myself to my feet.

  Works for me.

  Without another word, I see myself out, feeling the heat of her stare burning into my back like fiery rays of sunshine as I walk out the door.

  The gravel crunches beneath rubber tires as I pull into the driveway, scanning all the unfinished projects that litter my front yard.

  I’m busy as hell this season, my job being a one-man contractor specializing in building renovations and home improvements. I was employed with a larger construction company for most of my career, but found that I don’t work very well with others.

  Not exactly a revelation.

  Bree suggested I start my own business, which sounded awful at first because self-employment involves shining customer service and fake-ass smiles, but when she volunteered to take the reins in the people department, I was sold.

  I’m not sure how she does it. She works crazy long hours as it is, lots of overnight shifts, yet still finds time to keep my business up and running, securing new jobs and handling the customers. She even stops over to let my dog out for bathroom breaks as often as she can, occasionally leaving home-cooked meals or freshly baked desserts on my counter with a cutesy note.

  Today is no different when I walk into the modest house I built from the ground up in my early twenties. I’m thirty-two now, so I’ve had this place for nearly ten years. It sits partially off the grid in a secluded, heavily wooded area on the outskirts of Delavan, suiting me just fine. I hate a lot of things, but neighbors are at the top of that list, right along with football and hipsters.

  Walden lifts himself to unsteady legs as I push through the front door and toss my keys to the side table with a jarring clatter. He’s a Border Collie mix, older than dirt, and I get the feeling that the mutt enjoys life just as much as I do—which is not in the least. His black and white tufts of fur have been falling out since the day I found him wandering on the side of the road a mile from my house, feeble and malnourished. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him wag his tail.

  But every time I walk through the door, he stands and hobbles over to me. He doesn’t beg for attention or bark or lick my hand. He just kind of lurks a few feet away until I notice him, and then he shuffles back over to his dog bed with a sigh.

  I blow out my own sigh, scratching my head and tousling my mop of hair as I venture into the cramped kitchen. A plate of lemon pound cake rests on the portable island, covered in plastic wrap and taped with a note:

  Eat up, little brother. Lemon cake is the happiest dessert, and if anyone needs a bit of sunshine in their life, it’s you.

  And your dog.

  Please give that dog some damn lemon cake.

  —Bree

  I would smile if I did that sort of thing.

  Instead, I peel back the plastic and pluck a yellow, miniature loaf from the platter, eating half of it in one bite. I turn around, glancing at my dog from across the room as I chew, his melancholy eyes staring back at me while his chin rests between two paws. Swallowing down the cake, I reach for a red ball sitting atop the adjacent counter and toss it up and down with one hand, my attention still on Walden.

  I approach him, crossing into the living room, then crouch down and throw him the ball.

  He just stares at it, unmoving.

  I try again with the same result.

  Nothing.

  Totally unimpressed.

  The ball rolls right up to his wet nose, but Walden ignores it, his only reaction being a long, heavy sigh. Annoyance, maybe. He probably thinks I’m a fucking idiot, tossing him this pathetic toy like it’s supposed to be exciting or something.

  My dog looks at the red ball like I look at life.

  My chest hums with resignation, and I abandon the ball and straighten my stance. I debate whether I want to finish the custom dining table I have partially assembled under the carport while there’s still daylight, considering it’s due to be delivered to a client in less than a week, but I’m honestly not feeling it right now. I kind of just want to go to bed.

  It’s my favorite part of the day.

  As I make up my mind and choose the latter, I can’t help but glance over at my open laptop before I disappear down the hallway. I have a new e-mail notification, and I already know who it’s from.

  Magnolia.

  The wilting widow who I found myself responding to one night when sleep wouldn’t come, my demons were aggressive, and an anonymous outlet sounded strangely appealing.

  After years and years of unsuccessful therapy, a slew of doctors who considered me a lost cause, and no one, literally no one aside from Bree to care whether or not I took my next breath, this nameless, faceless stranger called to me somehow.

  While I couldn’t relate to her grief, I could relate to her loneliness, so I fin
ally wrote her back. And I actually slept that night.

  I pause my steps, hesitating between the edge of the living room and the hallway, palm massaging the nape of my neck.

  Fuck it.

  A moment later, I’m seated in my computer chair, opening up the e-mail, my eyes scanning over the stranger’s words.

  from:

  Magnolia

  to:

  Zephyr79@gmail.com

  date:

  Apr 18, 2021, 2:33 PM

  subject:

  Serendipity

  Zephyr,

  Do you believe in perfect timing? Fate? Aligned stars, serendipity, meant-to-be?

  I didn’t think I’d ever hear from you, and here you are.

  Right at the perfect time.

  So, now I have to wonder. I have to consider the possibility that maybe we are not alone in this. Maybe there’s something else out there calling the shots, like some kind of mystical mediator.

  Silly, right?

  Probably.

  But it gave me a real smile, and that’s something I haven’t done in a while.

  Thank you.

  — Magnolia

  Sighing, I send my reply.

  from:

  Zephyr

  to:

  greenmagnolia@gmail.com

  date:

  Apr 18, 2021, 6:45 PM

  subject:

  Re: Serendipity

  Magnolia,

  I hate to burst your bubble, but there’s no such thing as perfect timing.

  Perfection is an illusion, as is time.

  Manmade. A synthetic coping mechanism.

  I don’t like to bet on fate or circumstance. I bet on experience. Reality. Things that are tangible and proven.

  That’s probably why I’m forever wilting.

  You say I wrote you back at the perfect time, but maybe you were just searching for something to cling to in that moment—a reason to make a comeback.

  That’s not fate or aligning stars. That’s all you.

  Give yourself some credit.

  Zephyr

  I click “send,” then shut down my computer and head to bed.

  —SIX—

  I fiddle with the bandage encasing my wrist, picking at the sticky adhesive. It’s been two weeks since my brush with rock-bottom, and while the wound has been healing appropriately, the evidence of my crime is still glaring.

  A grisly, jagged branding of my pain. My ghosts are now corporeal, carved into my flesh, visible to the naked eye. I can’t hide them anymore.

  And I don’t have to hide them here, in this white room, with faces that are unfamiliar, yet so kindred. Fellow companions in pain. My eyes float around the circle, making up stories for each troubled soul. Loss, break-ups, mental ailments, death. Their sagas are written all over their faces, scribbled into their fine lines and shadows. Glowing in their hollow eyes.

  The eyes are always the mecca for grief.

  Except… it’s different with him—the dark stranger with hidden tales I can’t seem to read. He’s illegible. He doesn’t wear his pain like the others, and that fascinates me somehow. I want to learn how he did it, where he studied, what tools he used to perfect such a thing.

  Parker. I think that was his name.

  I can’t help but glance over at him, surprised to see him in the same seat, one chair over, after his dramatic exit the week before. He clearly finds no healing between these four walls, so what keeps him coming back?

  Raindrops cling to inky hair, one going rogue and gliding down the side of his neck—a testament to the storm raging outside the tall window, rainfall pelting the roof above our heads. I zone in on that lone droplet as it makes a languid journey to his shirt collar, collapsing into nothing, like it never even existed.

  Poof.

  While I’m spaced out, envious of a raindrop, the mysterious man looks up, feeling my attention pinned on him. Jade eyes assess me in a slow pull from my scuffed ballet flats to my curious stare, almost violent in their scrutiny.

  If he’s undressing me, it’s not my clothes he’s peeling off. It’s everything else.

  A hard lump clinches my throat, and I jerk away until my gaze is focused on the sterile wall across from me. A safer canvas. A reprieve.

  But I still sense his perusal prickling my skin, making me feel itchy and unnerved. He’s digging and digging, hollowing me out, pulling all my buried pieces to the surface. He’s a human excavator.

  Biting into my lower lip, I can’t help but glance over at him again, an invisible force drawing our eyes back together. He’s still staring. Still poking around my burial grounds.

  Still digging.

  He doesn’t blink or smile. His eyes are beryl and brimstone, unwavering, his jaw shadowed in stubble, cheekbones high, eyebrows dark like his hair. Like his clothes.

  Like his stare.

  Part of me wants to storm over to him and demand he back off, quit exhuming me. I feel vulnerable and exposed, laid out, shaking and bare. The nerve. The nerve of this man—this intruder. And yet, I can’t seem to do anything but stare right back at him.

  Our hold is eclipsed when a voice startles me, causing me to blink and cower against the plastic seatback, a feeble attempt to hide. A tension releases inside me, and I think that means he finally tore his eyes away.

  “I’m Amelia.”

  There’s a young woman standing in front of me, and I recognize her from the prior week. She sat between me and the dark stranger, quiet and timid, nearly blending into the background. She looks young, possibly still a teenager, and her hair is jet black with purple highlights. Her porcelain skin is studded with piercings and silver hoops, and her lipstick is black to match her hair. A soft smile upstages her harsh exterior. “Hi. I’m Melody,” I respond, forcing my own smile to the surface. The smile that has always sucked people in.

  It must still hold some power, because Amelia’s shoulders relax as she approaches, taking the seat to my left. Her softness lingers. “You don’t look like you belong here.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No. You remind me of sunshine… it’s too cold for you here.”

  My body stiffens at the analogy, the one I used to adore. The one that would spill from Charlie’s lips like a summer breeze, the perfect complement to the sun.

  Parker’s eyes find me again. I can see his head turn towards me, just a blur in my peripheral, but I keep my attention on Amelia. “Appearances can be deceiving,” I reply gently, then decide to change the subject. “Have you been coming here long?”

  Amelia twists her thin, stringy hair over one shoulder, her knees knocking together beneath a black shirtdress. “This is my fifth week. My parents enrolled me after I tried to hang myself inside my mother’s greenhouse. She always seemed to like it more than me, so it felt poetic somehow.”

  My mouth goes dry at her blunt confession. “I’m sorry to hear that. How old are you?”

  “I’m almost twenty.”

  Twenty. At twenty years old, I was falling in love with Charlie, making plans, envisioning a bright and fruitful future.

  She’s so young. Too young.

  But I suppose grief doesn’t take age into consideration—it just takes what it wants when it wants it. Grief is the most selfish thing in this world.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” I tell her through the lump in my throat. “I’m glad you changed your mind.”

  Amelia shrugs. “I didn’t. My dad and his mistress came barging in to screw or something. She started screaming her head off when she saw what I was trying to do.”

  Her honesty startles me, stealing a response from my lips. I have no idea what to say as I watch Amelia nibble on her chewed-up fingernails, her demeanor casual, as if we were discussing something insignificant like the weather.

  “Who would like to start us off today?”

  Ms. Katherine’s kind voice slices through my somber haze, and I straighten in my seat with a choppy exhale.


  Amelia responds first. “My hamster, Nutmeg.”

  Starting points. Little things we would miss about the world if we chose to leave it. It’s a powerful concept, something I couldn’t stop thinking about all week. Everyone has something big, something important they would leave behind, but what about those little treasures we walk past every day, such as ant hills in the sidewalk cracks, or butterflies with tangerine wings, or the way water laps at a sandy shoreline?

  What about the smell of deep-fried delicacies at a street festival, or buttered popcorn when you walk into a movie theater?

  Ms. Katherine’s eyes drift to me, so I speak next. “The sound of violins.”

  I’m not sure why I look at him after the words escape me, but I do, and I’m not surprised to find him watching me.

  “Such a sad instrument,” Ms. Katherine replies, her tone tender. “But so very beautiful.”

  “They make me feel,” I continue. “Whenever I hear the sound of violin strings, I always get this emotion in my chest and tears in my eyes, ever since I was a little girl.”

  “That’s fitting,” Amelia cuts in, her umber irises appearing a shade lighter. “Since your name is Melody.”

  I can’t help but chuckle. “Unfortunately, I’m musically-challenged. I’m pretty sure my parents started regretting the name choice the first time I attempted karaoke.”

  Everyone laughs except for him.

  The meeting continues, and we are given a “homework” assignment of creating a vision board, consisting of dreams and goals we aspire to reach one day. It’s supposed to keep us focused on a positive future.

  Halfway through the meeting, we are allowed to mingle and stretch our legs for fifteen minutes. It’s an intermission—an emotional recharge. I watch as fellow members engage in conversation and check their cell phones, collective sighs and laughter breaking the silence.