Your Man’s Heart
Wasn’t Mine to Steal
But it was his to give.
Which, I suppose, is why I’m writing here.
You only know him as the imprint on the other side of the bed. But me, I knew him as a shady blackjack dealer. After-hours market man. He warned me right off the gate he couldn’t give me it. His heart. What he meant, I later discovered, was the deed to it. He couldn’t sign it over on paper, because he’d already sold you it in advance.
He would, however, cut me a fine deal. His myocardium in ellipses, he could afford to re-mortgage, as long as I promised to wave innocently at you from across the parking lot.
You never asked, so I saw no reason to tell. Our little arrangement suited me splendidly. My young shoulders, held back and cocky, weren’t strong enough to shoulder a full man’s heart anyway. I liked him best in bits and pieces, and he liked to ricochet between you and me.
Put yourself in her place, my friends say when I explain my predicament. Your place? But I’ve already sat in position. I’ve donned his arm slung casually around my shoulders. Why on Earth would I need to imagine your place?
I like to play rough, because bad girls don’t get hurt, so I thought.
Truth, I think I envied you more than I let on. And why wouldn’t I? You were Choice Numero Uno. What I failed to realize then was that as long as there’s a choice, neither of us won at all.
First choices only exist in the shadow of seconds. Us seconds know to sit obediently out of frame when the wife calls, or there’s an anniversary. But we’re tied. At the end of the day, there’d be no stealing your man’s heart if he wasn’t your man to begin with.
As you can tell, I’ve reconsidered since. Belatedly, I took my friend’s advice, and put myself in your place. Not exactly. I could never do my hair quite the same way. Could never have the same eyes, even as they held the same love when I gazed at him.
Close enough.
I realized the only thing sleazier than him leaving my bed to return to your table were the slow dances, the kiss-my-necks in the backseat of his car, the whispered doubts of your togetherness.
Trying to imagine my man talking like that about me to another woman turns my stomach. I got violently ill when I pictured my dreamboat man serenading another woman. And not even having the gallantry to flip to the B side.
No two women should have to dream on the same song. About the same man.
In regards to your man, I think we both lost, but me less. Because at the end of the day, he’s still your man.
This is a letter I’ll never send. I’m no homewrecker, after all. Instead, I’ll let it out here, to stand on its own, in the hope that maybe someday, when he’s out, you’ll wander down to his pond. See what other fish he’s got swimming in there.
Because you’re far too beautiful a woman to be just another koi in his f — ing pond.
Thank you for reading. It’s been a serious perspective shift for me, one I was fortunate to encounter quite young, that we’d be a lot better served to work together, instead of competing with one another. That’s the point of this. As long as a relationship requires you to hate, denigrate, or in some way sabotage another woman, then it’s way too steep, babe.
