Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

            But what would be left of me without neuroscience? Who would I even be without my burning need to correct people who say that humans use only 10 percent of their brain? (They even made a movie about this. For fuck’s sake, does no one fact-check Hollywood scripts?) Did you know that conservatives tend to have larger amygdalae than liberals? That taxi drivers’ hippocampi grow bigger as they memorize how to navigate London? That brain differences predict variations in personality? We are our nervous systems, the complex combination of billions of neurons firing in distinctive patterns. What’s more exciting than spending my life figuring out what a little chunk of these neurons can accomplish?

            I avoid my reflection as I brush my teeth. Maybe I love what I do too much. I should go back to school for something boring. Auctioneering. Naval architecture. Sports broadcasting. I should also stop crying. Or maybe not. Maybe I should feel all my feelings now, so I can be solution-oriented later. All wept-out for tomorrow, when I explain this mess to Trevor. When I tell Rocío to pack her bags.

            The second my head touches my pillow I know I’ll explode if I don’t do something. Anything. On impulse, I message Shmac.


MARIE: Do you ever think of leaving research?



            His reply is immediate.


SHMAC: Sure am today

                MARIE: You hate your life, too? What are the chances.

                SHMAC: Maybe we’re the same astrological sign.

                MARIE: lol

                SHMAC: What’s going on?

                MARIE: My project’s a shitshow. And I’m working with this total camel dick who’s the worst. I bet he’s one of those assholes who doesn’t switch to airplane mode during takeoff, Shmac. He probably bites into popsicles. I’m positive he sneezes in his palm and then shakes people’s hands.

                SHMAC: Eerily specific.

                MARIE: But true!

                SHMAC: I don’t doubt it.

                MARIE: How’s the girl?

                SHMAC: Still married. Plus, she probably thinks I’m a camel dick.

                MARIE: She could never. You two having a torrid affair yet?

                SHMAC: The opposite.

                MARIE: Did she at least get ugly while she was gone?

                SHMAC: She’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.



            My heart skips a beat. Oh, Shmac.


SHMAC: That aside, I’ve been thinking about how much easier my life would be if I quit and became a cat trainer. Except, I can’t even convince my cat not to piss under my living room carpet.

                MARIE: I can see how that would be an issue.

                MARIE: Do you ever feel like we put too much of ourselves into this?

                SHMAC: On the bad days, for sure.

                MARIE: Are there good days? Ever?

                SHMAC: My last one was in middle school. Second place at the science fair.

                MARIE: Did you win a Toys R Us gift certificate?

                SHMAC: Nope. A Marie Curie bobblehead, holding two beakers that glow in the dark.

                MARIE: Omg. I would MURDER for that.

                SHMAC: If we ever meet in person, it’s yours.



            We chat for a long time, and it’s nice to commiserate while it lasts, but once I set my phone on the nightstand I feel hopeless again. The last thing I see before falling asleep is Levi’s stricken expression when I threw at him all the things he did to me, painted on the back of my eyelids like the poster of a movie I never want to watch again.





7





ORBITOFRONTAL CORTEX: HOPE



MY ALARM RINGS, but I let it snooze.

            Once. Twice. Three times, five, eight, twelve, why the hell is it still ringing, why did I even set it—