Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

            I pat her back. “Sounds like the loveliest of evenings.”

            At home, I just want to stuff my face with peanut butter cups and send twelve @WhatWouldMarieDo tweets about the injustice of Sausage Referencing™, but I limit myself to checking my DMs. I smile when I find one from Shmac:


SHMAC: How are things?

                MARIE: Weirdly, much better.

                SHMAC: Did camel dick burst into flames?

                MARIE: Lol, no. I do think he might be less of a camel dick than I thought. Still a dick, don’t get me wrong. But maybe not camel. Maybe he’s like, idk, a duck dick?

                SHMAC: Have you ever seen a duck dick?

                MARIE: No? But they’re small and cute, right?



            I watch the wheel spin as the picture he sends me loads. I initially think it’s a corkscrew. Then I realize that it’s attached to a little feathered body and—


MARIE: OMG WHAT IS THAT ABOMINATION

                SHMAC: Your colleague.

                MARIE: I take it back! I un-demote him! He’s a camel dick again!

                MARIE: How’s your girlfriend?

                SHMAC: Yet again: I wish.

                MARIE: How are things with her?



            There’s a long pause after, in which I decide to act like the motivated adult that I’m not and put on running shorts and my Marie Curie & The Isotopes—European Tour 1911 T-shirt.


SHMAC: A mess.

                MARIE: How come?

                SHMAC: I fucked things up.

                MARIE: Beyond repair?

                SHMAC: I think so. There’s a lot of history here.

                MARIE: Want to tell me?



            The three dots at the base of the screen bounce for a while, so I check my Couch-to-5K app. Looks like today I need to run five minutes, walk one minute, and then run five more minutes. Sounds feasible.

            Oh, who am I kidding? It sounds harrowing.


SHMAC: It’s complicated. Part of it is that I first met her when I was younger.

                MARIE: Please don’t tell me you have a secret stemlord past.

                SHMAC: I have an asshole past.

                MARIE: How many ladies have you harassed on the internet?

                SHMAC: Zero. But I did grow up in a hostile, uncommunicative environment. I was an uncommunicative person before I realized that I couldn’t spend the rest of my life like that. I got therapy, which helped me figure out how to deal with feelings that are . . . overwhelming. Except every time I talk to her my brain blanks and I become the person I used to be.

                MARIE: Ouch.

                SHMAC: I never suspected how some of my actions came across, but in hindsight they make complete sense. Still, something she said makes me wonder if her husband told her some lies that aggravated the situation.

                MARIE: You should tell her. If it were me, I’d want to know.

                SHMAC: In the end it doesn’t matter. She’s happy with him.



            I take a deep breath.


MARIE: Okay, listen. For years I thought that I was happy in a relationship with someone who turned out to be a chronic liar. And in my experience relationships that are based on lies can’t last. Not in the long term. You’d be doing her a favor, if you came clean.



            I don’t mention to him that all relationships can’t last. People tend to get defensive when I do. They have to figure it out on their own.


SHMAC: I’m sorry that happened to you.

                MARIE: I’m sorry this is happening to you.

                SHMAC: Look at us. Two sorry scientists.