I wrote this in college during a very tough time in my life (obviously). I’ve attempted to put together several adaptations of this story into graphic novel and/or short film form, but it has fallen through many times. Someday it will happen, I hope.

Love is a perverted, fickle creature. Sometimes you end up married for fifty-five years to your high school sweetheart. Other times, you end up with a knife sticking out of your chest. I am in the latter position at the moment, as that always makes a more interesting and compelling story than the married-with-three-kids-who-all-grow-up-to-be-doctors Disney ending. I feel something dying inside as I reach for the handle, my vision blurring and hearing gone mute, which is a strange feeling for me, considering the unusual circumstances of my birth. None of that matters right now, however. For the first time in twenty-three years, it just doesn’t matter. All I need right now is that cloth. It’s just out of reach, like most things throughout my life, but I don’t have time for grievance or complaint at the moment. I’ve almost got it…then all our monotonous complications can come to an end. I’m going to give myself one last push. C’mon, H…come on…

There once was a boy with no heart. It wasn’t that he was devoid of emotion or feeling; it’s just that he was born without a physical, beating heart. He lived despite this lack of the vital organ, and doctors from around the globe could not explain the phenomenon. They encouraged his mother when she was pregnant with him to abort the fetus because of its absent heartbeat, but she could still feel him kicking and moving around inside her, so she decided to bear him and suffer any consequences later. He was born eight pounds, nine ounces and screamed like any other child as he entered a world that would fall in love with him and, eventually, betray him.

His early years were like any other child’s. He was happy, playful, and spoiled rotten with any toy one could imagine. The other children got along with him quite well until they grew old enough to understand. As their parents talked, so did they as they stared at the anatomy diagram in their science books and then attempted to explain him. “How come you don’t have one?” they’d ask, and his only reply was to bow his head ashamed and question the very same thing. The doctors tried to explain to him that all his veins and arteries were still connected, but they just had no center; nothing pumping his blood. When he was born, everyone called him a miracle – now they called him a freak. The children began to call him The Heartless.

The name stuck, so much so that he even stopped calling himself by his birth name. Being told that you’re heartless, physically, can take its toll mentally – after all, the heart is the epicenter of all true, deep emotion, or so he was told. He began to question, then, if he really had any feelings at all, or just common visceral functions and reactions he mistook for the passions of love and hate. The closest he could tell, he was in a constant state of despair and despondence, which had its comforts in the sense that at least they were classifiable sentiments. At least “depression” had a listing in a medical dictionary.

High school was no easier for The Heartless and his loneliness only grew each day. He yearned for a chance to be conventional and commonplace. If he had to be singled out, he wanted to be because he had something – not because he lacked it. Rumors spread that he had some sort of disease that caused his organ’s disappearance, so those who had once considered befriending him dismissed this notion as quickly as they had dismissed his presence. Loneliness was taking its toll.

An estimated 35 to 40 million Americans living today will suffer from a major depressive illness during their lives, and some may never recover. And those who do may feel the repercussions of their depression for the rest of their lives. This seems like such a high number, yet so few really know what depression truly is. When you’ve got angsty teenagers brooding in their rooms lamenting the loss of a three month pseudo-relationship or fat, whiny, middle-aged, divorced assholes who haven’t gotten laid in seven years because they’re too lazy to even go to the bar anymore claiming to be “depressed,” it sort of takes away the significance of the term. It makes it appear as if anyone who’s going through a rough time or isn’t completely satisfied with their station in life is clinically depressed, when that’s really just called “life.” This was Sully’s attitude, and she used her biting sarcasm and cynical outlook to cover up the pure hatred raving inside like an infected animal.

She had a past. If one asked her about it, all they would get is, “…shit. Some fucked-up shit happened.” She was haunted by it every day…images of her father and those men; standing over her bed, their hands all over her…she would never be the same. When it was all over, when the custody battle gave her a new home and a new life, she never truly left the other one behind. She felt like a whore, so she began living the life of one, jumping from relationship to relationship with no intention of making them work…no intention of being treated right by a man. She called herself an “experimental” girl, willing to do anything “for a good time”. But it wasn’t a good time. It was never a good time when even the pills and the booze couldn’t stop the flashbacks…when even the warmth of another embrace and the taste of salty sweat on another’s skin did nothing to erase the past. It was only painting a bleaker future, and every dark brush stroke was another man…another whispered story…another callous rumor…another strand of pitch black hair hiding the face of a woman who should still be a little girl…who was just a little girl inside.

Sully had to grow up too fast, and her inexperience with adult problems began to show when she avoided these tribulations rather than faced them. It was easier to skip school and smoke pot than get good grades. It was easier to call off work when she had a hangover than to just go in. And it was easier for her to walk away from a relationship before it got too serious…before he cared too much or, god forbid, she cared too much. She could never see herself with anyone for that long…never mind four years. But this boy was different. This boy was dedicated…maybe a little too much for his own good.

“Destiny” or “fate” isn’t what brings people together – it’s tragedy. The aftermath of destruction, whether physical or emotional, is a spectacle few can resist – the convivial atmosphere of the car wreck. We all gather ‘round to turn away. I guess that’s why Sully and I were instantly attracted to each other. But right away, there was not two in our relationship, but three – Sully, myself, and depression. Abysmal, bottomless, incessant depression, and it linked us as much as it separated us. We search unabatedly, sometimes for a lifetime, for someone so much like us that we often forget that it’s difficult enough living with one of ourselves, never mind a pair. But that’s what we did for four years, and, despite its inevitable outcome, I wouldn’t take it back. If you believe in karma and the balance of the universe and all that shit, which I don’t, you could say that I had to lose for her to gain. I think I just had to learn this lesson in the hardest way possible – that we were both struggling with the same thing in two completely different ways. Thus, this produced two seemingly deviating yet intersecting paths leading to a tumultuous relationship at best and the Second Circle of Hell at its worst. But what else can come of it when one of you wants a romance and the other an affair?

I never wanted to care so much. Sometimes I wonder if it was love that kept me there or just guilt for leaving such a good thing behind. I didn’t always admit it, but I was in love…the best I know how to love, anyway. I never expected a man to treat me the way he did, so every time I knocked him down, I always expected him to just walk away like the rest. But he stayed. No matter how many times I humiliated him, betrayed him, cheated, stole, and just fucking kicked him as hard as I could while he was down, he just came crawling back. And all I would do was point that out to him and all I’d get in return were his citations of the “good times” and this twisted funhouse mirror of a mind that reflected a girl I still don’t know…I just can’t believe she’s in there, but that’s all he could see. He kept telling me what a good person I am inside and that there’s more to me than this life I lead, but just because my decisions were wrong in his eyes doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have made them. He doesn’t know what it’s like and neither does anyone else. I have to live with that shit every goddamned day…I keep telling myself I’m not a victim, but I am and it shows and I just don’t give a fuck anymore. I don’t have to be me when I’m fucked up on all that shit…I don’t have to be that scared little girl when I’m the one dominating. I’m not a victim when I’m the victimizer. I shouldn’t have tried for so long…I shouldn’t have led him on for four fucking years.

Love is selfish, though. If I did love him, and I just can’t help but think I did for lack of any other way to describe how I felt towards him, then I loved him because it made me feel good. You love someone to make yourself happy – you don’t take the other person’s feelings into account. Saying “I love you too” kept him around, kept him asking about how I was doing and genuinely wanting the blunt truth when I answered. I never met anyone else who really wanted that response, or could handle it once they got it. All those other assholes wanted the party girl, the carefree whore with drugs and sex appeal to spare. You know what? I take it back. Love isn’t selfish – people are. But not H. He sacrificed his happiness throughout our whole relationship so that I could have a little piece of my own…that is love. The rest was all bullshit.

What first drew them together was a glance. But it wasn’t just any glance. It was a glance that turned into a stare – the kind when your eyes focus on just one thing and everything else is just whitewashed background. It was the first time The Heartless had ever seen someone look at him without turning away, without judging him or shaking their head in disgust. “How could she not know?” he wondered, but she did know. It just didn’t affect her the way it did so many others. In truth, she knew exactly how he felt. While he was heartless physically, she felt that she was mentally – incapable of love or the emotions that came with, the one thing that could bring her close enough to someone where the alien notion of “trust” could be attempted. Sully felt that maybe it was time for her to stop bearing the burden of her abuse alone. And who better to share it with than someone who was used to maltreatment?

Thus began a symbiotic relationship of sorts, although it was never meant to be this way. In fact, the first year was very much a sweet, affectionate connection where it seemed that nothing or no one could touch them. Sully gave him love and, more importantly, someone to love, and H (as she called him, refusing to refer to him by that cruel nickname) gave her someone to confide in who wouldn’t see her differently afterwards, who could love her unconditionally. With renewed confidence in himself, he finished high school and went on to college, but locally, as to wait for her to graduate the next year. Their plans for the future were quickly growing larger than the pathetic little life one could realistically have in a shit town like theirs.

Sully’s previous lifestyle caught up to them by year three, since the past rarely seems to stay just that for very long. H had acted as her conscience all this time, and she liked that because it kept her focused on her intellectual pursuits, such as classes and penning poetry, rather than the obvious. But he could not stop the flashbacks. He could be a comfort temporarily, but she did not know how to tell him that his efforts just weren’t enough. His self-confidence was almost non-existent as it was, and without her it would probably have dissipated completely. She slowly began to count her blessing as a curse, another weight building pressure on her fragile mind. The other boys still noticed her, after all, and what are a few beers and some coke amongst “friends”?

H would have to learn to accept a Sully who wasn’t so perfect anymore. Hints of infidelity and drug abuse were ignored so that he could retain some semblance of the lifestyle he had been accustomed to, but that was when the excuses and the breakups began.
     “You’re not what I’m looking for.”
     “We just got too ahead of ourselves with our plans.”
     “All we do is fight…I’m just trying to end this before it gets any worse.”
She thought she was doing him a favor by pushing him away from her muddled mind and its amoral judgments, but he just wouldn’t accept this. He had finally found someone who could fulfill that blank space within his chest and he was not about to be hollow again. He’d beg and plead for days or weeks until she’d take him back, only to do it again and again when her decision would ferment into regret. Their last breakup was supposed to be their final meeting – the goodbye to end all goodbyes. But there would be one more reunion, one last contact that would bring with it both revelation and resolution.

     “I can’t help that I love you!”
“I can’t help that I don’t!”
     “Don’t say that…you can’t mean that.”
“I need space, H.”
     “No, you need help…and maybe it’s not the kind of help I can give you.”
“Well I think that’s fucking obvious!”
     “I think what’s also obvious is that your solution hasn’t helped much either!”
“What else do you expect me to do?”
     “If you can’t be with me, that’s fine…I guess I’ll just have to accept that, although I really don’t understand what I did wrong. But save yourself for fuck’s sake! Don’t let everything you have go to waste!”
“You didn’t do anything wrong…you were perfect…I just fucked up…”
     “Then fix it…”
“I can’t! Don’t you understand that?! I can’t turn this part of myself off! It’s not like flicking a switch! And believe me, there’s nothing to waste here. Being without you has given me a lot of time for self-reflection and there is nothing staring back at me when I look in that mirror.”
     “Fine…let your demons keep you company instead. I won’t waste any more of your precious drinking time.”
“Good! And this time, stay out of my fucking life!”
     The tears finally came. “I hope that fat stoner piece of shit is fucking worth it! I hope he’s worth throwing what we have away! I hope he’s everything I supposedly couldn’t be for you! I hope he…”
“Just get the fuck out!”

H stormed out. It was the first time that he had finally left her alone with her own tormented thoughts. It was always Sully who had to have the last word, the final door slam. Her mind began to race marathons, running past people, places…she was reliving it all at once. She burst out the door, not necessarily after him, just after her own sanity. Why won’t they just leave her the hell alone? It was over six years ago. She could have told someone then, but who would have believed her?
…foster parents…welfare…food stamps…gun…rape…beating…hold them back…broken glass…broken home…bruises…red marks…haven’t seen light in days…pounding…screaming…clawing…biting…no no no no….not again…
She ran out into the street, unaware of where or even who she was. Cars swerved to miss her, laying on the horn as if she could hear anything through the deafening silence. A truck pulled to the side of the road and suddenly a voice splintered the quiet like a stone through glass. “Sully?” was all he could say. After all these years, her name in puzzlement was all he could muster. Her face dropped as she turned around as if her features were literally melting from her skull and that is when her feet took over. She ran as fast as she could…she didn’t even know where they were taking her, but she would be there in record time. Keys were an afterthought.

She hit the door like a battering ram and slammed it behind her. Her head whipped around and something on the counter caught her eye. She wasn’t even conscious enough to know that she had removed it from its sheath – just that it would keep him away. Like an animal whose hunter had just become the prey, she gnashed her teeth and held the knife at her side, ready to strike at the first sign of movement. And it came. And she plunged it deep. As hard as she could…faster than humanly possible. Just one, singular stroke with all her might. And he was down.
     “Sully…what are you do…”

     “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
     “You’re amazing, you know that?”
“I do now.”
     “You really are. Don’t roll your eyes at me.”
“I was not!”
     “Don’t make me do it…” He ran his finger across her naked stomach, tracing just outside her belly button.
“Stop! Ok, ok, I believe you…now stop tickling me!” She squeezed his hand and placed it back at his side. Their fingers naturally began intertwining themselves.
     “Now why would I do that?” He went to move his hand back, but she held it firmly in place. “Alright, fine…I’ll be nice and act like a good pillow.”
“That’s more like it.” She rested her head on his chest and his arm wrapped around her, stopping at her bony hip and grasping it lightly.
     “We fit together pretty nicely.”
“Perfect.”
     “Perfect,” he reiterated.
“Do you think our kids will come out alright, considering our…”
     “Flaws? I honestly don’t know. I don’t wish my ‘gift’ on him, that’s for sure.”
“Maybe she’ll be missing a mind, like me.”
     “Stop it…notice I automatically call it a “he” and you call it…”
“…a she? Because that’s what it will be.”
     “Oh, you can determine that now?”
“Just one of my many superpowers. What’s yours?”
     “Getting women like you into bed with me.” He kissed her forehead as he gave her ass a squeeze. He grinned a jester’s grin.
“’Women,’ as in plural?”
     “Nah, just you, babe. I only tried out my powers once.”
“And you vowed never to use them again?”
     “Exactly. Look at the devastating effect it had on you.”
“Best thing that ever happened to me.”
     “It was good, but c’mon, it wasn’t our best…”
“You know what I mean.” She kissed his neck twice, the slight scruff stimulating her lips.
     “You’re everything to me.” He held her tighter, appearing as yin and yang as their bodies melded together; leg in leg, arm in arm, hand in hand.
“I love you.”
     “I love you too.”

~

The Heartless sank to the ground with a thud, wrapping his hand firmly around the handle as it protruded from his empty chest. He could feel everything around him slow down…Sully’s voice was high pitched but ticking along like a clock just about to run out of power. He turned his head from her to spit blood to the side…he would have to make these last words count. He looked up at her face, black rivers of tears and makeup paving lines down her soft cheeks. The blade pierced no more than his flesh and a bit of bone, yet, somehow, he knew he was dying. Yet this feeling brought with it a sense of relief…of finality…of assurance. Maybe he was not so unlike his fellow man. “I guess there’s something there after all,” he said with a confident smile. She could not stop the tears, but she mustered a smile in return. He did not have to tell her to go. She ran, but this time, she ran with a clear mind, on a mission with a true destination. The Heartless reached for a dish rag that hung from the chair nearest him. With one last ounce of effort, he pulled it towards him and covered the handle of the knife, wiping away her finger prints and with it, her guilt in this victimless crime.

Sully walked into the office, breathing slow, deep breaths of the pine-scented floors.
     “Can I help you?”
“Hi, I’m here…for the 2:30 group.”
     “Right down this hall. First door on the left.”
“Thanks…thanks.”