Damaged Hearts. Jan St. Marcus

don’t want you to get caught up in my bullshit. You don’t deserve this. Me. All my shit. You deserve better …” He trails off and hangs his head again. His feet kick at the carpet.

      “Look at me,” I say. “Look at me, Bran. Please.” He looks up. “I need you to be clear on something—crystal clear. Are you listening?” He nods. “I don’t want you to leave. Not over this shit. I like you. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m lonely. Maybe I don’t know what the hell I want or what the hell I’m doing. I’ll give you that. But for whatever reason, I like you and—” I stop as I feel myself getting emotional.

      “But I know this shit is going to ruin your life,” he spits.

      I take a deep breath and stare into his eyes. “All I know is that it’ll break my heart if you leave like this. That’s what I know.” I look down as I hear my words reflecting back to my ears. Did I really say that to him? Hell, yeah I did. I look back up and catch his eyes again. I speak very slowly and clearly as I stare at his eyes. “It will break my fucking heart.” Now it’s my turn to avert my eyes. I wipe my face and leave.

      I walk straight to my room, grab my bag, and head to the garage. There’s nothing more I can say or do. As I open the garage door, I glance down the hall and see Sparky looking at me with a puzzled expression. My thoughts exactly. My heart is beating fast as I power up the GT3 and open the garage door. I pull out into the alley and pause. Before I realize what I’m doing, I click off the stability management program so I can spin the wheels. I’m going to peel out and leave a fifty-yard-long strip of rubber on the pavement. I rev the engine and the moment my foot starts to stab at the accelerator, my left-brain takes over control, and I gently pull away. Probably a good thing, since my eyes are blurred with tears.

      ***

      Gratefully, I have managed to pull my shit mostly together by the time I pull into the garage of my building. I’m early, but then again, who cares? I don’t have a specific time or even a specific number of days I need to be in the office. I really hope to hell that Marty doesn’t push me today. I’m not in any kind of mood where I would try to keep my red friend contained. Of course, I’m not saying that I want him to appear and complicate my already messed-up life, but I’m kind of beyond caring right now. Yeah, I’m glad I’m early, it might give me time enough to get the rest of my shit together. As soon as I sit down at my desk, I begin going through my breathing exercises. I’m going to try to get through the morning without a panic attack and without a visit from my red friend. It’s a tall order, but I’m thinking I can make it. More like hoping, but either way, I’ll do my best.

      I spend the next twenty minutes returning innocuous emails and trying to stay off the internet. At ten minutes till eleven, I grab my bag and head down the hall to Sal’s office. When I get there, Marty is already there. I’m glad he looks nervous. Maybe he’ll not be so much of a tool.

      “Hey, Michelangelo,” Marty says with a gleam in his eyes. “I was just showing this to Sal. Did you see it?” He spins his iPad towards me and touches the screen. He starts laughing. “These douchebags on the boardwalk got totally owned by a guy a couple of nights ago.”

      I watch the video again, trying to mute my reaction. “Yeah, I saw it.”

      “It’s gotten like two million hits. Oh—here it is—the guy gets his arm broken!” A second later, I hear the cracking sound and then the screams. “I bet you wish you were a bad ass like that, huh?”

      I look at Sal. “Is it politically correct to laugh at someone getting physically hurt for being a douchebag?”

      “I don’t know. My subscription to Politically Correct Magazine got cancelled,” Sal says.

      Marty laughs. “Who cares? It’s karma, dude. Karma’s a bitch.”

      “You’re such a cliché, Marty,” I say. It’s only when Sal and Marty both look at me with a shocked expression that I realize I’ve said this out loud. “Oh, sorry. Did I say that out loud?”

      Sal smiles and moves quickly to diffuse the situation. “Let’s get started. You’ve got a conference call in a little bit, right Michelangelo?”

      “Yes I do. Thanks for remembering, Sal. So what can I help you with, Marty?”

      Marty puts the iPad away and opens his laptop. He shows me his screen and starts droning on about his assumptions and the various methods he’s tried to get his algorithm to work. I’m pretty good at acting like I’m listening without really listening. I don’t need an explanation when the equation is on the screen in front of me. I reach up and press the down arrow button to reveal more of his equation as I run the formulas through my brain. His voice fades to a low rumble as I become immersed in the symbols and numbers and variables. Then all I can hear is my heartbeat and the clicking of the down arrow button as I continue to scroll. I’m vaguely aware that I’m smiling as I lose myself in the equation.

      This is the coolest part of what I do. There’s something about math that takes over my brain and body. It’s so comforting to be immersed in a world that is pure and definitive and logical. There are no gray areas in math. There’s no room for interpretation or opinions. Or feelings. It’s as simple as yes or no. On or off. Correct or incorrect. Nothing in between to complicate things. I have no idea how long I’ve been working before I find the problem. It’s a pretty subtle inversion of a couple of variables in a sub-formula. I can see how it could have been easily missed by a less precise mind. It actually looks right, but the inversion causes a slight deviation in one of the principles . . . wait . . . this won’t make any sense to you. Let’s just say I found the problem. I reach up, highlight the problem area, correct the variables, and spin the computer back to Marty. “That should do it.” I stand up.

      Marty looks up at me like I’m an alien. “That’s it?”

      “Yeah,” I say matter-of-factly. “No biggie. Anything else?” Sal is shaking his head. Marty is reloading the equation and getting ready to run the algorithm. I’m heading for the door.

      “Don’t you want to see if it works?” Sal asks me.

      “No need. It works,” I state without hesitation. Then I realize that the polite thing to do would be for me to stay until Marty is satisfied. I smile. “Conference call, remember?” Marty is shaking his head. I can see the tops of his ears are glowing bright red. I realize that if I stayed, he would be even more embarrassed when he had to thank me. And then I’d be remiss if I didn’t get in a jab about how basic the problem was and Marty would feel even worse about himself than he must already feel. So in a big way, my leaving is not impolite at all. In fact, I’m actually being more polite by sparing him the embarrassment of having to admit in front of Sal that he is a dumbass. Yeah, I should leave. “See you guys later.” I glance at my office as I’m leaving and decide to step in and call Devon.

      “Hey, Devon,” I offer hesitantly when he picks up. “Are we secure?”

      “Yes. Secure. What’s up?”

      “I heard that the stupid video is getting out of control. Should I be worried?” I ask.

      “Nah. We scrubbed the video, made sure your voice was altered enough to prevent a positive voice ID, and we’ve put a sniffer out on the Bad Ass Samaritan tag. You’ll be in the clear.”

      I breathe a noticeable sigh of relief. “What about Bran?” There is a long pause, and I hear Devon breathe a loud sigh. Oh shit.

      “That’s going to be more . . . complicated.”

      “Shit.”

      “You want the good news or the bad news first?” he asks.

      “Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.”

      “Well, some of the commenters think they know who he is. At least, they claim to have seen him before. Might not be long before someone puts two and two together,” he explains. “I don’t think there’s any danger