Page 36 of The Wrong Heart

I can’t help but study him through brimming tears, desperate to expose what lies beneath the anger and the rough foundation. I’ve never responded well to negative people—I gravitate towards kindness, smiles, positive lights. People like Charlie.

And when my own light dimmed and my smile waned, it only intensified my increasing feelings of despair. My grief was turning me into something I loathed.

Iwas that negative person.Iwas the thing people like me avoided.

My eyes dip down to the carpet when his sharp stare becomes too overbearing, and I determine his walls are far too hardened for me to poke through. “I wasn’t making a pass at you,” I mutter gently, swallowing down my own anger. “I assure you I wouldn’t be trying to seduce a man I just met in the bedroom I shared with my deceased husband.”

Parker’s silence has me glancing up, catching the wrinkle that creases his brows, the tiniest indication that he’s listening. He’s waiting for more words.

“I was inviting you out to the brewery tonight,” I continue, the paper bag now clutched between two hands, crumpled tight. “There’s a group of us going. Nobody you would know, of course, but I wanted to extend the offer. I thought maybe… maybe you could use a friend.”

His frown deepens, his grip on the drill tightening. Tension rolls off him in waves. “I don’t need any friends. I like being alone.”

“Do you? Or are you just more comfortable with it?”

“What does that matter?”

I force a smile, the smile that seems to irritate him somehow. The smile I offer so easily—so carelessly. Then I step forward, pushing through the bathroom threshold and setting the little bag beside him on the sink. “People like me might not be so different from people like you.”

Something flashes in his eyes, something fleeting, and he stiffens, his gaze drifting to the bag, then back to my face. We’re only inches apart now, and I feel his warmth, I feel his heat. He’s not as cold as he appears to be.

Parker remains silent.

Unmoving.

He’s watching me—waiting for what I’ll say next, what I’ll do.

So, I do what I do best.

I leave him with another smile and exit the bedroom.

—NINE—

9 Years Old

Idon’t like it here.

I think I’m supposed to. I think I’m supposed to feel grateful and happy that they rescued me from her. That they found me curled up in that closet one day, so thirsty and weak, and saved me from my brush with death.

But… have I really been saved?

Is being transferred from one horrible place to another actually being saved, or is it just a different kind of pain?

I don’t get burned anymore, so that’s good. I’m happy for that. I don’t have to worry about the cherries of a cigarette scalding my belly and chest, making me squirm and scream until I almost faint.

My mother would always laugh at me. She’d say I sounded like a squealing pig, and then she’d hit me to shut me up when I wouldn’t stop crying.

The memories are still fresh, still vivid in my mind.

I sit on my creaky mattress on the floor with only a thin blanket to keep me warm. It’s itchy, and I wonder if there are bedbugs crawling all over it. Dipping dirty fingers underneath my t-shirt and lifting it up, I inspect the marred flesh that lies beneath. Some of my burns are still fresh—still red and swollen. Some are faded scars, only a memory.

I remember every one of them.

“Ewww! You look gross!”

A young girl named Gwen pokes her head into the room and points at me. I drop my shirt quickly, embarrassed that she saw my wounds. My horrible truth.

“You look like a gargoyle,” she snickers, covering her mouth with her hand to hold back more giggles. “You should never take your shirt off.”

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