The Wrong Heart

by Jennifer Hartmann

“Don’t cry, Mel.” Charlie raises one unsteady hand to my cheek, thumb dusting over the tears, a gentle caress. “The sun doesn’t cry.” We say it at the same time: “The sun only knows how to shine.” But I’m the sun, and he’s the sky, and I don’t know how to exist without him.

“Fleeting beauty is the most precious kind. You appreciate it more.”

“The right words are easy when they come from an unselfish place. Don’t listen to anyone who doesn’t have your best interest in mind, babygirl.”

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

Parker is the opposite of me in every way, the antithesis to my very soul, and yet I’m drawn to him somehow. There’s a darkness inside of him that speaks to my light.

“My husband used to compare me to the sun,” I tell him softly, still working, still fixing him. “It was kind of our thing. I was the sun, and he was the sky, and for the longest time, I didn’t know how to survive without him. When you build your entire life around another person and that person just disappears… what’s left?”

“Anyway, I’m not the sun,”

“The sun only knows how to shine, and I’ve seen too much darkness.”

I let her touch me—when I let her take my hand between her palms and drag a lazy finger across the creases, like she was carving herself into me somehow. Branding me with sunshine.

It’s confusing, nonsensical, and fucking maddening how I hate everything she stands for, everything she represents, and yet… I don’t hate her at all.

“My father used to tell me that the dark is the very best secret-keeper. The things we say in the dark never have to leave it.”

I feel her head lift slowly from my chest, her eyes searching for me through the thick shroud of darkness, trying to see me. She’s always trying to see me.

It’s not the dark this time, and it’s not the storm—it’s all her. She’s twisting me up inside, smelling like lemons and grapefruit, feeling warm and supple in my hands, and making these little squeaky sounds that shoot straight to my groin. And I know I should pull away because her lips are far too fucking close to mine, but it feels like she’s breathing life into me, and I don’t know how to pull away from something like that.

our lips brush together. So soft, so light, hardly anything at all, but it feels electric. Catastrophic. I don’t move. I’m barely breathing. I just hold onto her so tight, I’m afraid I might break her. But I’m more afraid she’ll break me first.

I’m desensitized to other people’s misery because I’ve always been too wrapped up in my own.

“No, I’m sorry. I’m listening.” “Were you?” she teases, nudging me with her bony shoulder. “Definitely. The show with the nuts.” “The nuts?” “Macadamias.” “It’s actually… My Hero Academia.” I blink. “Oh.” Amelia nearly doubles over with laughter, cupping a hand around her violet-lined lips.

“He looks at you like he’s never seen anything like you before. Almost as if you’re one of those sacred relics perched behind tempered glass at a museum or a gallery, far too precious to touch.

“It must feel really good to have someone look at you like that—like they’re seeing you for the first time, every time, and they’re amazed all over again.”

“Pretty words for dark hearts.”

“I’m accepting. I suppose there’s healing in acceptance.”

“I’m a bit atypical.” “Yeah,” I smile. “I think that’s why I like you.”

“What did it feel like?” His voice is low, throaty and almost tremulous. I blink up at him, processing his question, not understanding. Then I hold my arm out as I follow his stare. My jagged scar is on full display, bathed in dusk. “The knife?” I murmur, croaking out the words. Parker’s eyebrows dip, but his gaze slides back up to mine. “To love someone that much.”

“It felt like completion,” I tell him, explaining it the only way that makes sense. “It felt like a pinnacle. Like everything in your life has come full circle, and this person is the culmination of every dream, every plea, every dandelion wish.

I’m purging my sickness, exorcising my demons, with eyes closed tight and my heart thundering its cleansing beats… I’m flying free. I’m swimming.

And then I start to sing. Don’t Stop Believing. Because terrible lake dancing obviously calls for a hideous karaoke rendition of Journey’s greatest hit.

He smiles. An amused burst of laughter accompanies his grin, and I go still, clinging to his hand. “Oh, my God.” “My thoughts exactly,” he mutters teasingly, looking down at me with eyes made of mint and mayhem. Or magic. Maybe it’s magic.

“You smiled… you smiled, Parker.”

“Smiles should be saved for things that bring us real joy.”

I brought him real joy. Me. Acting like a fool in a murky lake, singing off-key, and dancing like no one was watching. But he was watching. And it made him smile. My grip on him strengthens, and I can’t help but press a tiny kiss to the side of his neck, nuzzling my nose into the glistening skin above his collar.

“I’ll never feel things like you feel, Melody. I’m not wired that way.”

All this time, I’ve been wrong about her. She’s not sunshine. She’s glittering nightfall, pale moonlight, silver stars in midnight skies. She’s that beacon of light when darkness threatens and consumes. No, she’s not the sun… Melody is the moon.

“So, believe me when I say you’re more than just an itch. You’re a fucking revolution.”

You’d let me take you right here, right now, in the pouring fucking rain, like a wild animal.”

“I told you this wouldn’t end well.” “Why do you think that?” “Because,” he grits out, leaning in a little closer. “You’re so fucking… breakable. And I’m stone.”

“It’s a mess, Leah. He has the emotional capacity of a spatula.” She frowns, dropping her hands. “Not ideal.”

So, I decided to text her and get the plethora of burning questions off my chest, but all I ended up sending was: “Hi” Melody responded with her own “Hi,” but hers was followed by one of those little happy face emojis because she has a vagina.

Parker is changing, evolving before my eyes, and the hardened man I’d been drawn to for reasons unexplained is slowly cracking, his shell disintegrating little by little. I spent a lot of time studying him, trying to learn him, taking notes—he carried his pain so well, and I was desperate to know his secrets. But his pain was never tempered. It was buried.

if I’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that there is no healing in the shadows.

“Sunshine, of course. You make these eternal winters so much more bearable.”

This young woman is far too young to be so riddled with trauma and terrible stains. I swallow. “You have a beautiful heart, you know.” A chuckle greets me, almost self-deprecating. “That’s sweet of you to say, but my heart is all wrong.”

“Nobody’s heart is wrong. We’re given the heart that is meant for us, and if someone else doesn’t see the beauty in it, it’s not meant for them.”

I’m angry in that moment. Violently angry. I’m furious at every unfit woman in the world who claims the title of “mother” when they are anything but. They are not a guidance or warmth or nurturing hug. They’re a disease. They infect vulnerable, innocent children, poisoning them with untruths and cruel delusions, branding them with scars they will carry forever.

“We are not responsible for the choices that others make. It’s human condition to latch onto the whys and what ifs because that gives us power when we feel like we have none. But we’re looking for power in the wrong place,” she explains. “The power is not in the past—it’s in the present. It’s in how we choose to move forward, and how we can mold our grief into something useful. Something beautiful.”

Melody March is my true starting point. My reason for finally wanting… more. And that’s something worth fucking fighting for.

“You’re mine,” I grit out, my heart thundering, my soul alight. “You’re what I’ve been waiting for. You’re what I’ve been searching for my whole life, and I didn’t even know it.” Her gasp only makes me hold her tighter, and I swear I see tears glinting back at me, ready to fall. “Melody… you’re my starting point. You’re my turning point.” Pulling her forehead against mine, a strangled sound escapes her, and I finish with conviction, “You’re the whole damn point.”

I’m hers. As I come down from the high, I hold her, scooping her up and cradling her like a lost lover beneath the dusky moonlight. In this moment, nothing else matters. In this moment, everything matters. I feel everything.

As I come down from the high, I hold her, scooping her up and cradling her like a lost lover beneath the dusky moonlight. In this moment, nothing else matters. In this moment, everything matters. I feel everything. A blessing and a curse, and inevitably, my undoing.

We are both two broken souls, fractured in opposite ways.

But here we are, pulled together by forces unseen and unexplained, clutching each other underneath an August sky, soaked in sweat and heady truths.

“Then I realized: I do fucking know you, Melody. I know the deep, important shit, like the way your eyes light up when you’re dancing in the freezing lake singing God-awful eighties songs, and that you cry when you hear violins play, and that your mom would make you peanut butter and banana sandwiches whenever you were sad, and all the little things that keep you waking up each morning, living and breathing. I know your starting points.”