Shark Heart by Emily Habeck

Author:Emily Habeck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books
Published: 2023-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

They laid snuggly together in his bunk behind the steering wheel of his truck, and when Tyler offered her a beige oblong pill, she took it unquestioningly. At first, she felt nothing at all, and then, half an hour later, her heart pulsed and swelled with false love and energy. She felt she could talk about anything, as if she’d known Tyler her whole life.

“My husband left me yesterday.”

“Maybe he just needs his space.

Men need that, you know.

Independence and frontier.”

“He said there were things he could not unsee.”

“Any man who’d leave you is a goddamned-fool-piece-of-shit, I’ll tell you that. Did I tell you my wife made this quilt we’re laying on right now?”

“No.”

“She made it without using a pattern or anything. She just cut the squares and sewed them all up together right on the kitchen table. Her hands had to touch every single part of it to make it. Miss her every day.”

“How did she die?”

“She’s not dead.

We’re separated.

Well, divorced, actually.

I hate saying ex-wife. It just sounds sad.

I sometimes forget I’m not married to her.”

“Too bad.”

“I brought it on myself.”

“What happened?”

“Didn’t ever learn the difference between loneliness and being alone.”

“So you cheated.”

“Yup.”

“In a hundred years,

we’ll all be dead,

and then nothing will matter.”

“What?”

“That’s something my husband said once.

It gives you this immediate perspective.

Maybe life has no ceiling, no floors, no walls,

and we’re free-falling from the moment we’re born,

lying to each other,

agreeing to make invented ideas important,

to numb ourselves from the secret.”

“What’s the secret?”

“Maybe what happens between birth and death isn’t as precious as we think.”

“Come here, girl. Stop that sad thinkin’. Just come here,” Tyler said, pulling her atop his chest. Then he started to laugh.

“What’s funny?”

“It’s just that

I’ve told you my entire life story,

but I forgot to tell you Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving, little bird.”

Wren closed her eyes, squinting tears out, and pretended Tyler was Lewis. Lewis’s hands, Lewis’s mouth, Lewis’s hair, Lewis’s neck, and the ceiling spun, spun, spun, spun, and her chest thumped, thumped, thumped, thumped. Then, just before dawn, she fell asleep in this strange man’s arms, in this strange man’s bed. But she was a stranger to herself, so what did it matter? They were two strangers holding each other for the night, and given the vast timeline of the universe, the difference between a night together and a lifetime seemed pretty much negligible.

She missed him so much.

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