Page 130 of The Wrong Heart

A…violin?

My mouth goes as dry as the sand beneath my feet when I inch towards them. “Parker?”

A small smile lifts his lips, and Parker straightens on the blanket, reaching for the instrument between his knees. “Hey.”

“Hi,” I croak out, stopping my feet at the edge of the checkered spread. My eyes meet his, swimming with glimmering nerves. Green, jittery flecks. “You… you play the violin?”

Parker clears his throat, palming the neck of the instrument, glazed with a cherrywood varnish. He fingers the adjacent bow with his opposite hand. “I half-ass learned one song, but it’s not good. Fair warning.” His eyes close for a moment, chest puffing with a heavy breath. “I didn’t know what to get you for your birthday. I’ve never had to think about shit like this before, so my mind was racing with what you might like… books, clothes, girly house stuff. No fucking clue. I thought maybe I didn’t know you well enough to get you something worthwhile. Something you’d actually enjoy and appreciate.

“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.”

Tears trickle down my cheeks, pooling at my jaw, and I stare at him, dumbfounded.

Star-struck and bewitched.

Parker continues. “So, I built you this violin. It’s a little shoddy—not my best work because violins are kind of a bitch to hand carve, but… it plays.” Pausing, he reaches for his cell phone lying beside his right knee and scrolls his finger over the screen until a music app opens. His gaze connects with mine before he taps the song. “Dancing in the lake, the song,Unchained Melody, the sound of violins, peanut butter and banana sandwiches, August…” He waves his arm out, as if gesturing to the current month. “Sandwiches are in my bag.”

I don’t even remember moving, but suddenly, I’m kneeling in front of him in the sand, holding a heart-rending sob in the back of my throat. Walden perks up to sniff me, and I trail my fingers through his soft fur before returning my attention to the man who is stealing my heart.

Although… he can’t steal what was already his.

I’m blurry-eyed and sniffling as I watch him in wonderment, realizing how much he truly heard in those meetings. Even on the days I thought he was sleeping, he was silently listening. He was listening to me, noticing me. Absorbing.

Parker etched my words and purest memories inside of him, carrying them around until they outweighed his darkness. I’ve been a part of him for all this time.

My voice quakes as I lick the tears from my lips. “This is the most amazing gift. Parker, I… I’m speechless.”

“You’re about to be deaf in a minute. I’m telling you, this won’t be good. It took hours of YouTube videos to figure out what these damn strings even do.”

Laughter sneaks into the cry that escapes me. “I can’t believe you did all this…”

He taps his phone screen back on, then hovers his index finger over the song selection. A smile of apprehension greets me as he swallows hard. “Fuck, okay… ready?”

I nod eagerly.

Parker presses play, and my favorite song floats through the speaker:Unchained Melody.My heart feels like it’s weeping from only the first note, and then it falls apart, a quivering mess, the moment Parker places the bow along the four strings.

The instrument sings to life, so entirely out of tune and off-key, my tears fall harder. Parker chuckles through his blunders, shaking his head as he misses almost every note, but that only makes it sweeter.

Moreperfect.

Zephyr’s words flash through my mind as the strings assault me with preciously flawed melodies:Perfection is an illusion.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Perfection is right now, this very moment, sitting on my favorite beach with Parker Denison as he siphons every last drop of remorse and fear, every lingering shadow, from my wildly beating heart.

The sun rises inside me again.

He only lasts another thirty seconds before a final self-deprecating laugh spills from his lips, and he grits out, “Fuck it.”

In a flash, Parker sets the violin aside and pulls me up by the wrist while the song still echoes from the speaker. Walden watches with a cocked head as I squeak in surprise, finding my footing and skipping through the sand towards the water, Parker leading the way. “What are you doing?” I question through a stretched grin.

Parker kicks his shoes off, one by one, then yanks a white sock from each foot. “Your starting point was dancing in the lake, not sitting in the sand. Come on.”

“You… you’re going in the water?”

“Why do you think I wore shorts?”

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