11 Paper Hearts (Underlined Paperbacks)

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11 Paper Hearts (Underlined Paperbacks) Page 8

by Kelsey Hartwell


  “Your brain looks like it’s working a mile a minute,” Andy says, making me wonder what gave me away. It makes it more annoying that he’s right. “Do you have any other theories?” he asks.

  “My only theory is that you’re not going to be as good at ice-skating as you think you’ll be.” I smile, opening the latch to the rink and gliding right on.

  I start going fast right away, which is ironic because I can’t even drive a car by myself these days, but I just love the feeling your heart gets when it feels like it can’t beat any faster—and your lungs feel fiery like your hands do by a warm winter fire. It’s an adrenaline high, really, that I can’t explain, and the only other thing that can probably make my skin hot like this is kissing someone. I quickly glance at Andy before I begin to skate faster.

  I zip along the ice now, picking up speed on a straightaway. I love that the rink is practically empty, with only a couple of people to avoid, including the girl in her Frozen tutu, who has stopped twirling and is clutching her dad as if her life depended on it.

  As I turn the corner, it takes everything in me to not stop skating from laughing so hard. Andy’s still at the entrance, holding on to the side of the rink like the little girl who is still clutching her dad’s hand. I bite my tongue so the search can begin.

  I make my way to the far side of the rink, where my last Instagram picture was taken. Once I get there, I slow down, examining the edge of the rink. The outer walls are white, just like the ice below my skates, so a watercolored heart should be easy to spot, but as I move along the side, I find nothing.

  Suddenly, there’s a pit in my stomach. I was so sure the next heart would be here. What if my admirer expected me to get here last night and the cleaning crew already found my paper heart?

  I shake my head. I have to trust whoever this mystery person is—so far, they’ve been leading me in the right direction. Sherlock Holmes doesn’t look for clues, he just looks. Andy’s voice echoes in my head much to my annoyance. Maybe if I stop looking hard, the paper heart will come more easily? I remember the photo from my Instagram. It looked like I was genuinely having fun from my smile. It was a candid photo, from what I could tell, where I’m gliding along with my hands raised in the air. If only I could go back to that moment, when the biggest things I had to worry about were college and planning the school’s Valentine’s Day Dance.

  I take a deep breath and start skating again, this time faster. I glide in circles until the world dissolves. In my peripheral vision, I notice that Andy’s finding his groove too.

  I don’t know exactly what I’m expecting to happen. Maybe for another paper heart to come flying at me like I’m an Olympic ice skater who has just performed?

  Maybe for the girl from the entrance to come dashing to the rink with a box of chocolates and the next clue?

  What I don’t expect is absolutely nothing.

  Did I read the clue wrong? No, I think. This place is the epitome of winter wonderland. I’m thinking about all the possibilities as I glide to a halt next to Andy, who I’ve ignored this whole time. But when he turns, my jaw drops.

  His face is as red as a valentine, covered in blood.

  * * *

  After we find a mountain-size box of tissues, Andy tells me his sob story over hot chocolate by the outdoor fire. Thank goodness it was just a bloody nose, which often looks way worse than it actually is. Normally, I would have more sympathy, but I’m here to find my next paper heart and this is slowing me down. I want to chug the hot chocolate in front of me to move things along, but I can only take little baby sips without burning my tongue.

  “It was the little Frozen girl’s fault,” Andy explains across the table. “She skated right in front of me and I tried to get out of the way so I didn’t pummel her and then I ran straight into her dad, who was trying to rescue her. But then once I was bleeding, she started laughing at me like she knew what she was doing. That girl is an Elsa, not an Ana.”

  I just shake my head. I’m half listening, thinking about where to check next at the same time. Maybe I should search the cubbies in the corner.

  “What?” he asks defensively.

  “Nothing,” I say, turning my attention back to him. “It’s hard to take anything you say seriously with tissues coming out of your nose.”

  “I’m a hero,” he says. “This is a battle wound. Harry Potter. All the Marvel superheroes have had them. It’s too bad I won’t get a scar. Chicks dig scars.”

  Not on myself, I think.

  “A bloody nose is hardly a battle wound,” I say instead. “And are you done bleeding yet? I’m trying to be nice here, but I still have a paper heart to find.”

  “Thanks for your concern, Ella, but I’m not the only one holding us up here. You’re not even close to finishing your hot chocolate.”

  I look down at the large mug in front of me. It’s still hot, but I pick it up and take another sip of the foamy top layer just to speed things up.

  “My conversation is that bad, huh?” Andy asks flatly, but his eyes say he’s joking. “Or is it the blood?”

  “Both,” I deadpan. Some people might find my sarcasm mean, but Andy grins in a way that makes me forget what I’m doing for a second. I take another sip of the hot chocolate and burn my tongue again.

  As if he’s trying to redeem himself from his poor ice-skating performance, Andy blows on his chocolate and takes a sip while pinching his nose with his other hand.

  “Pretty impressive,” I say.

  “Is that a semi-compliment from you? I’ll take it.”

  I laugh, and for a second it makes me forget all about the paper heart. Okay, not quite—the thought is still nagging me.

  “Let’s play a game to distract you,” Andy says, like he can read my mind.

  “What kind of game?”

  “A people-watching game,” he says, smiling.

  “Sounds creepy,” I reply, in part because it does sound creepy but mostly because I want to get this show on the road. The point of him coming was not to hold me back.

  “First of all, it isn’t nearly as creepy as these paper hearts,” he says. “Ever wonder if you have a serial killer on your hands leading you to your death?”

  I roll my eyes. “Yes, someone like that would really want to break into Arlington High School to deliver a paper heart.”

  “Wait a second. I thought you said you didn’t know who was sending these?”

  “I don’t, only that I got the first one in school.”

  Andy’s eyes widen. “How can I be your detective if you don’t give me all the clues, Ella?”

  I put down my hot chocolate. It clinks on the table. “Can you just tell me this theory already?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he says sarcastically. “Okay, so the theory is you can tell how much someone loves somebody by the Hot Chocolate Test.”

  I squint my eyes. “Go on.”

  He drops his tissues and smiles widely like he’s fully excited about what he’s about to disclose. “It’s all about how they drink their hot chocolate. Take that couple, for example,” he says, pointing his finger on the table diagonally to the two people sitting on a stone bench by the fireplace. To me, they look like your average couple. The girl looks effortlessly cool in patterned leggings and a puffer vest, only I’d give her the benefit of the doubt and bet that she didn’t try on everything in her closet this morning like I did. She’s sitting next to the guy and talking.

  “I don’t get it,” I admit, wondering where on earth this is going. “What am I looking for?”

  “You don’t see it? She’s paying more attention to her marshmallow than her fellow.”

  I glance back at the couple. It’s a stretch—she looks like she’s just drinking her hot chocolate to me.

  “Now look at him,” Andy says, watching my eyes. “See how when he tak
es a sip, he doesn’t take his eyes off her?”

  Even though I think this is ridiculous, I want this game to be over, so I do as Andy tells me to. Only when I do, I realize he doesn’t take his eyes off her and Andy’s observation is right. Still, the Hot Chocolate Test sounds like a stretch.

  “So what does that tell you about their relationship?”

  He eyes me intently. “You really want to know?”

  “Isn’t that the point of the game?” I ask, confused—why is anything with the words hot chocolate getting taken this seriously?

  “I’m not sure your romantic heart can handle the truth.”

  I groan. “Please just mansplain your theory to me so we can get this over with.”

  There’s a long pause, and I’m not sure if it’s because he’s debating whether or not to tell me or because he really doesn’t have a theory and he’s just thinking about what to say now. That’s the vibe I’ve been getting from him lately—that he’s making everything up as he goes along. The guy who will just chase paper hearts with some girl he barely knows for the entertainment of it. He’s the complete opposite of me, who overthinks everything, including why this long pause is taking so long. I’m about to open my mouth when he finally does.

  “The way they’re drinking their hot chocolate tells me a lot of things, as does their body language. Right now, he’s the nice guy who dotes on her every word, but eventually he’ll grow tired of being taken for granted and break up with her. She’ll be heartbroken and beg for him back. Maybe he’ll take her back or maybe he’ll realize there are more important things than a pretty face and find someone that wants to look at him while she drinks hot chocolate too. There are just some people who love the idea of love but not love itself.”

  I blink at him uncontrollably. “Geez. All that because she was trying to get a marshmallow?”

  “Yeah, when there’s a guy that’s sweeter right in front of you.”

  I roll my eyes. “What has made you so incredibly jaded? Did some girl break up with you or something?”

  His eyes blaze like I hit a nerve, and I have the instinct to apologize immediately until he shakes his head at me. “No, but I’m just not the type of person who follows some paper hearts aimlessly over town.”

  He grins, but I don’t grin back. It’s a low blow and he knows it.

  “Oh come on,” he starts, but I’m already getting up. I don’t care about what he has to say to me next or that I haven’t finished my hot chocolate or that he got a bloody nose, because suddenly it feels like he deserved it. I stomp toward the exit.

  “Wait, Ella,” Andy says, following me. “I didn’t mean it like that. I like that you have hope someone is really out there doing a romantic scavenger hunt for you. It’s endearing. You really are a glass-half-full kind of girl.”

  I shoot my head around. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  My words are harsher than I mean them to be. His grin fades fast, and I think about apologizing. After all, he doesn’t know about my accident or why this is so important to me.

  I have the thought now to tell Andy about everything. If I don’t, I’m lying by omission, right?

  But as I open my mouth, I can’t bring myself to say anything. Maybe it’s because I’m secretly enjoying this banter we have going on. It’s silly. It’s fun. Opening up about something serious would be a buzzkill—or at least, it feels like it could be.

  Besides, everyone I know tells me it’s so great that I’m moving on. Isn’t talking about it taking a step back?

  Something tells me these are just excuses. But if I tell him I was in an accident, he’ll ask about the accident itself. It’s only natural. But then I can’t even answer the question—because I don’t remember what happened. I don’t remember this huge thing that feels like the catalyst for my life. I get this feeling in my stomach—maybe it’s anger.

  Or maybe it’s the same stupid feeling I have when I don’t know the answer to a question in class. Either way, every time someone tries to talk about it, I feel like I’m in class and don’t want to be called on. So I shrink down and avoid eye contact at all costs.

  I look away now, and as I realize what I’m doing, the answer slides into my brain like it’s on ice skates.

  The next heart is at the peak of winter wonderland.

  I was right about Mohonk Mountain being a winter wonderland, but I’ve been so focused on going back to the location of my Instagram photo that I completely misinterpreted the other part. Peak isn’t just referring to the mountain—it’s literally saying the highest part of the mountain.

  I yank my skates off before grabbing my boots from the cubby. “Where are you going now?” Andy asks.

  “I was totally wrong before. We need to go to the highest peak. I need a map.”

  “There was one at the entrance,” Andy says, taking his skates off now too.

  After I put my boots back on, I rush over to the front desk with Andy trailing behind me. Then I grab a map and begin scanning the different trails.

  “There,” I say with my pointer finger on a black dot with a tower off the high ledge. “That’s where we need to go.”

  * * *

  “So, are you going to tell me why you blew up back there?” Andy asks.

  We’ve been walking in silence up the mountain. My boots aren’t made for hiking, especially since these trails still have snow on them. I slip a little when Andy calls me out—I forgot that I overreacted. But of course Andy wants to remind me.

  “It was nothing,” I say. “I was just irritated you were typecasting me again.”

  “Typecasting you?” he spits out, a little breathless from the steep incline.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Well, what did you mean by I don’t know anything about you? I’m trying to get to know you here.”

  I know my cheeks turn super red in the cold, but they must be even redder now. My eyes shift from him to the view. You can see everything from up here—the mountain house where travelers stay, the ice rink. When I look back at Andy, I still don’t know what to say.

  But then, behind him—I see something up ahead. A wooden tower that you can only reach by crossing a short footbridge. From this angle, it appears as if it’s floating in the sky. I forget all about my poor choice of footwear and sprint toward it.

  “Be careful,” Andy yells from behind me.

  “What are you, my mother?” I retort back as I keep running toward the bridge. But when I reach it, I slow to a walk and feel Andy catch up behind me.

  As soon as I enter the wooden tower, I cover my open mouth with my hand. There, dangling from the pointed top of the ceiling, is a long ribbon. At the end is my next paper heart.

  I turn around to Andy. “I guess it’s not a bad thing being a glass-half-full kind of girl,” I say smugly.

  But when I pull the heart off the ribbon and read the message, my smile disappears.

  Chapter 10

  People always ask what it’s like waking up in a hospital when you don’t remember what happened. Nosy people, that is—that’s why I don’t feel bad giving a generic answer. Something simple, like it was scary. Or it was like an out-of-body experience.

  But the truth is, when I woke up, I didn’t really believe what was happening to me.

  The first thing I remember is the pain, but I’ll skip the gruesome details. Second is my parents at the side of my bed telling me I was in an accident after the Valentine’s Day Dance. They didn’t know I couldn’t remember the dance yet—not until later, when I was asking for Pete. The third thing is my hands.

  When I first woke up, I couldn’t move my body much, so I spent the first couple days in the hospital bed looking at my hands. A nurse saw me staring one day and told me that the little piece of plastic attached to my finger was called the pulse oximeter. It was used to measure oxygen in my b
lood. I thanked her, although it sounded more like a moan. But she had been mistaken—I wasn’t looking at that piece of plastic or the machine I was hooked up to.

  I was examining my bare fingernails. It didn’t add up. There was no way I went to a dance with unpainted nails—Carmen wouldn’t have let me. I remember feeling like I was in some bad sci-fi movie. These people by the side of my bed were pretending to be my parents.

  This of course was paranoia, most likely caused by the painkillers. I later found out that doctors take nail polish off patients before surgery, which explained why I wasn’t wearing any. But when I was first staring at my hands, they were like proof to me that I couldn’t possibly have been in an accident after the dance. Except as I told my parents I didn’t believe them, they looked at me with the same concerned expression that Andy has now while driving to the next paper heart.

  You paint the gown red

  (Ask for Sydney)

  I pull the paper heart out in the car and read it again, even though I instantly knew where I needed to go—“paint the gown red” is one of my favorite Essie shades, and Carmen and I always go get our nails done at the same spa before big events. This includes our first day of high school, before her sweet sixteen, and before any kind of dance. In Carmen’s eyes if you forget to do your nails, you might as well be wearing sweatpants. That’s a little extreme if you ask me, but as judgmental as that is, I always do enjoy getting ready with Carmen—sometimes it’s the small things that make a big event fun. We used to beg our moms to take us, and then by the time we could drive, it was a full-fledged tradition.

  When Andy pulls up to the entrance of the inn where the spa is, he’s facing me with a furrowed brow. “Thanks for the ride…really,” I add, because even though he thinks I’m ridiculous for chasing these hearts, he has helped me so far. Now it’s time to do this on my own.

  I’ve been to this spa hundreds of times before the accident but never once afterward. I considered coming back to see if it would help reignite my memories, but I chickened out. The doctors said the chances are slim to none anyway, and the thought of returning felt eerie, like it is now.

 

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