11 Paper Hearts (Underlined Paperbacks)

by Kelsey Hartwell

  “I should go before I lose the nerve,” I say, unbuckling my seat belt.

  “Lose your nerve? Why’re you nervous? You look kind of freaked out.”

  I don’t respond because I don’t even know why I’m nervous. Maybe it’s just because the thought of being back where I was the day of the accident is a little unnerving. The girl I was then must have been excited to go to a dance with her best friend. She had no idea what was about to happen to her that night.

  “Do you want me to wait for you?” he asks. “Really, it’s no problem, I’m not working today. I took the day off.”

  Suddenly, I feel a twinge of guilt. Did he take the day off to be with me?

  “Don’t worry,” he says like he can read my mind. “Someone covered for me. Sarah Chang, do you know her? She goes to your school.”

  I wince at Sarah’s name but then nod, feeling guiltier than ever. Sarah’s working an extra shift because I needed a ride.

  “Well, thanks for the offer,” I start to say. “But my sister is coming to get me.”

  This is true. I texted her on the way and she’s getting me with Steve on their way back from snowboarding. Maybe she agreed because I sent her a bunch of SOS emojis in a row. Or maybe she did feel guilty about not taking me this morning.

  “Oh, okay,” Andy says softly, like he’s disappointed. He grips the steering wheel tighter, like he doesn’t want to let go.

  “For the record, I’m sorry about what I said back there. I can tell whatever you’re looking for must be important,” he says, gently touching my elbow.

  His eyes are sincere and it makes me want to explain why it’s so important. But how do I even begin? I’m about to try when he removes his hand to press a button by his window. There’s a loud click from the door unlocking.

  “Was almost going to trap you in here with me.” He winks.

  I laugh. “Almost worked. But yeah, I should actually go now. Thanks for not holding me hostage, and for everything.”

  “Don’t mention it. I hope everything goes well.”

  “Me too,” I admit.

  He smiles as I slide out the door, heading to the entrance of the building without looking back. The inn is in the middle of nowhere, which is why people from NYC like to stay here for quaint weekend getaways. But the spa is open to everyone, not just guests, and I’m glad for that. It’s one of those places that doesn’t look like much from the outside. But when you enter, it transforms into a hidden oasis. I swear they do that on purpose to trick people so it’s never crowded and always a soothing experience. As soon as I open the door, I’m hit with the calming scent of lavender.

  See? This is supposed to be relaxing, I tell myself. This is going to be fine.

  I wipe my snowy shoes on the doormat before heading to the front desk off to the right. When I do, I’m greeted by a woman with rosy cheeks and long shiny jet-black hair. “How can I help you?” she asks when I’m standing in front of her. The desk is covered with pamphlets of all the spa services—massages, facials, you name it. But I’m not here to browse.

  “I’m…I’m looking for Sydney,” I say, repeating what the paper heart said. Once the words escape my mouth, I realize how ridiculous they sound. I don’t actually have an appointment—there might not even be a Sydney that works here.

  But the woman looks at the computer on her desk like she knows who I’m talking about. For a moment my heart speeds up, until she frowns. “Name, please,” she says.

  “Ella,” I reply softly, realizing that I could be completely wrong after all. “Ella Fitzpatrick.”

  The second I say my full name, her head snaps from the computer to me. Her rosy cheeks instantly pale. “Just one moment,” she says. There’s a phone on the desk that she lifts now as she presses a long fingernail to the screen.

  “Ella Fitzpatrick is here to see you,” she says after a couple of seconds. It must be Sydney. I can’t hear what she says back on the other end, but the woman with the jet-black hair nods. “Yes, absolutely,” she says before she hangs up. Then she turns back to me, her expression now warm. “Sydney will be with you in just a moment. Please take a seat.”

  I raise my eyebrow. How did I go from almost being turned away for having no appointment to this?

  As I head over to the velvet couch, I can’t help but think about who my admirer is again. It seems like Carmen’s still my best bet. She can be a force when she wants something. The GoFundMe account is a good example of that. Besides, if not her, who could it be?

  I try to remember all the possible admirers I wrote down in my notebook aside from Carmen, but for some reason I’m drawing a blank, like I do sometimes when I’m anxious. I suddenly feel light-headed and am relieved to sit down. Across from the couch there are magazines to peruse while I wait, but I don’t currently care what hairstyle is trendy right now or what celebrity is dating who.

  I’m sitting here for what feels like forever, which is probably more like ten minutes, when a woman with short red hair pops out of the glass door. She rushes over and hugs me like she knows me. As she lets go and sees my face, her eyes are all wide, as if she’s messed up already.

  “You must be Sydney,” I say with a smile.

  “Yes, dear,” she says. “I’m sorry for coming on so strong. I’ve just been waiting for you to come back for a while now….When I heard you might finally be ready…” She trails off in almost a wistful way.

  “You’ve been waiting for me?” I ask. “Who told you I’d be coming?”

  “Oh, come on now. You know I can’t tell you that. I’m sworn to secrecy.”

  Fred from the flower shop said the same thing. I’m sworn to secrecy.

  Who are they protecting?

  I nod so she knows I understand, but really I don’t.

  She gives me a small smile. “Let’s get started with your mani-pedi.”

  * * *

  I skim the nail polish rack, paying as much attention to the names on the bottles as the actual color. Adore-a-Ball, Diamond in the Cuff, Sole Mate. Eventually, I settle on Paint the Town Red for my hands and Scavenger Hunt for my toes, which seems extremely fitting.

  As I hold the bottles in my hand, I realize one thing. Sydney may be sworn to secrecy about my admirer, but she may still be able to tell me about the last time I was here before the accident.

  I sit in silence as Sydney fills the tub. Normally, the sound soothes me, but now the rushing of the water makes my questions rush to the brim of my mind too. Once she turns the knob off, I can’t hold them in any longer.

  “Do you remember anything about that day?” I ask. I don’t have to specify what day I’m talking about. The way she bites her lip now tells me she knows what I’m asking.

  Sydney grabs one of my feet out of the tub and begins to file my toenails before looking up at me from her stool.

  “I had a feeling you were going to be curious.” She eventually sighs. “And I really wish I could remember more.”

  You and me both, I think. There has to be something she remembers.

  “Well, was there anything Carmen and I were talking about?” I ask.

  “Carmen?”

  “Sorry, the friend I was with,” I answer.

  She shakes her head. “I’ve seen you here with another girl before, but that day you came alone.”

  Alone? Why wouldn’t Carmen have come with me? That doesn’t even make any sense.

  She must see the confusion on my face, because she offers a small smile.

  “I do remember one thing,” she says, dipping my foot back in the water and grabbing the other to file. “You were texting some boy even while I was trying to give you a manicure—that’s why I remember it.”

  A boy? But I broke up with Pete three weeks before the dance.

  “Was his name Pete?” I ask.

  She shakes her head
. “I wish I knew, darling, but we didn’t talk about it. I was just worried about you not messing up your nails with all the texting.”

  I nod. “Sorry for being a brat on my phone while you were trying to work. You must have thought I was really rude.”

  “Oh, I didn’t think that. No,” she says, looking at me with a glimmer in her eyes. “Actually, I thought you were just in love.”

  “That can’t be right,” I say, mainly because I know I’ve never been in love—not really. But also because Pete and I had been broken up by then.

  She shrugs. “You asked me what I remembered, darling. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”

  With that, I’m left speechless. I sit through the rest of my pedicure in pure shock. As she paints my nails with Scavenger Hunt, all I can do is wonder why my admirer wanted me to come here. Was it so I could hear that?

  After my manicure, I’m so dazed, I don’t even realize that I’m leaving the spa without a new paper heart.

  Chapter 11

  Carmen doesn’t text me back the whole weekend. At first I try to pretend that she just didn’t see my message…but I know she’s glued to her phone if she’s talking to Anthony, so it’s official: Carmen’s ignoring me.

  I can’t remember the last time she was this mad at me. She’s been annoyed at me before plenty of times–whenever I can’t have a sleepover because my parents want to have a family game night, or that time I refused to coordinate our outfits for Spirit Week because I already had put together one for myself. Even when I accidentally revealed her crush to another friend in the eighth grade, she got over it.

  But she has never gone on a full-on texting strike…especially not when I need her the most.

  I have so many things I want to say to her. I’ve asked you about the night of the dance before and all you said was you didn’t know why I left early. Why did you conveniently leave out the fact that we didn’t even get ready together? Were we fighting? Did I leave early because of you? Is that why you won’t tell me…do you feel guilty? Whenever I begin to text these questions, I can’t bring myself to push send.

  My biggest question for her, though, is about what Sydney said at the spa about being in love. Was it with Pete? Was that possible, when we had broken up three weeks before?

  If I was being honest with myself, while Pete makes the most sense, he also doesn’t.

  When Pete first told me after the accident that I’d broken up with him, he’d said the reason I gave him was simple—my heart wasn’t in it anymore. But coming to that realization wasn’t so simple. In fact, as he said it, I was proud of my past self for finally putting to words the feelings I’d been having for a while…the ones I tried to push away.

  People at school always call Pete by his full name because Pete Yearling rolls off the tongue. To me, though, he was just Pete. Everyone would say we were the it couple, or goals. But to me we were just us.

  The first time I officially talked to Pete was after a basketball game at the diner. I didn’t even think he knew who I was at the time. Did you have fun? he asked me. It was such a striking question to me. He was the one who’d played his heart out, and he was checking to see if I had enjoyed myself. It was the first of many moments that proved he was different.

  Pete is kind and selfless, unexpectedly so for being Pete Yearling—people would still like him if he wasn’t. He has this happy glow to him all the time, but I guess I’d be happy too if I was as good at everything as he is and everyone liked me. But why did they like him in the first place? There’s just something about him that you can’t dislike. Maybe it’s because he’s the opposite of egotistical and can make people feel special, like he did with me that day after the game, when he’s the real star.

  But as much as everyone likes Pete, could I honestly say I loved him? When I was with him I felt really comfortable…like a caterpillar wrapped up in a cocoon, but I was constantly waiting for butterflies.

  Maybe our breakup was some sort of catalyst, though. Maybe it took setting Pete free to realize I really did love him. People say that can happen sometimes. The classic you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.

  I also knew a couple of things about Sydney. One, she could be exaggerating. And two, she could be flat-out wrong—maybe I wasn’t in love with anyone. Maybe I was just excited to go to the dance and I was texting someone in the nervous, giddy way you get when you’re first talking to someone new, like Carmen is with Anthony. Or maybe the person I was texting was Carmen, and she had some logical reason why she couldn’t get her nails done with me that day—a dentist appointment or something. I bet it’s that simple, and the only reason my mind keeps racing all over the place is because she’s giving me the silent treatment.

  The worst part is that I can’t exactly tell her I need her right now. I can see her just rolling her eyes at me and saying isn’t that ironic? in the sassy voice she has perfected. She’d be right—the whole reason Carmen’s mad at me is because she needed me at the game. She had asked me to go with her, and I completely bailed.

  I know I screwed up, which is why I’m surprised Monday morning when a one-word text appears under my rows of apologies.

  Outside

  I open it while I’m sitting at the breakfast table with my mom, eating cereal, and I crunch hard in shock. Then I sigh in relief. Carmen has driven me every single day since the accident, but I was worried since she was ignoring me. I was just about to ask my mom.

  “Is everything okay?” she asks me now as I get up quickly to clear my cereal away.

  “Yeah,” I say, rushing over to dump my leftover milk in the sink. “Carmen’s here. Don’t want to keep her waiting.”

  She eyes me. “Okay, just checking. You seemed a little distracted this weekend.”

  I smile. “I was just trying to finish Pride and Prejudice.”

  After the last paper heart, I locked myself in my room the rest of the weekend. As I reread my favorite book, I was reminded why I love it so much. The characters. The sarcasm. The will they/won’t they love. I even enjoy how the chapters are broken up with letters—it makes me wish people still wrote them today. How great would it be to get one in your mailbox? I guess it’s not so different from receiving these paper hearts.

  But as I started flipping through the pages, I realized something else I absolutely adore: someone had underlined their favorite passages and doodled on the pages, just like I do. My favorite is a pair of heart eyes when the reader meets Mr. Darcy. In other places, there are reactions and questions. At first, I examined the handwriting, hoping I’d recognize it, but it’s inconsistent. Sometimes it looks like the person was reading the story in a hurry; other times there’s a thoughtful note. In a couple of places, when they liked a quote, they would write it out in the margins. When I got to one, it felt like it was directed to me.

  Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.

  I read it over and over again. It was almost like they were telling me to stop beating myself up for not remembering—it’s not going to improve my future.

  I wish life was more like books and someone could write margin notes for you along the way.

  But I don’t tell my mom this, like I don’t tell her a lot lately. She smiles at me now, gently. “Just wanted to check and make sure nothing happened at that game. I know people can sometimes be insensitive about the accident.”

  I cringe at the word check. My mom is what I call a checker. She’s never worried per se, but she likes to check up on people. It’s probably what makes her a good doctor. If I’m looking flushed, she’ll check my temperature. If I’m just hangry or in a weird mood, she’ll ask me if there’s something more going on and examine my face to see if I’m telling the truth. If she’s squinting, it means she doesn’t believe me. When I drive places I’ve never gone before, I’m supposed to tell her when I’ve arrived. All pretty stan
dard Mom Behavior.

  But after the accident, her checking turned a full 180. It was way too much. I couldn’t leave the room without her smothering me. Eventually, my psychiatrist thought it would be a good idea for me to bring her to a session to tell her how I was feeling. She made more of an effort after that. But every so often, she does her routine checkup with me. How are you doing? Any headaches recently? At least it’s feeling like things are going back to how they used to be.

  Sometimes I wonder what’s going to happen when I go off to college. Will she expect to “check up” on me every day? But I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

  It’s weird. College is something I used to obsess about all the time. But now that I’m in, I wish I could hold on to high school just a little longer. Maybe that’s why when my psychiatrist suggested a gap year to take care of myself before being thrust into a stressful environment, I seriously considered it. Or at least on some days. The others, I think my mom put him up to it.

  I shake my head. “I promise nothing happened at the game.”

  Because I didn’t go, I think. But lying by omission is best. She’d be way more worried if I told her I was chasing paper hearts. I could see her mind jumping to worst-case scenarios like a stalker or serial killer because of all the criminal podcasts she listens to. It reminds me of what Andy said. I still can’t believe how jaded he is, even if some girl did break up with him. Maybe it has more to do with his parents’ divorce. But as frustrating as he is, I can’t think about that right now. I have bigger things to worry about.

  * * *

  Carmen barely looks away from the steering wheel when I say hi to her.

  After Ashley and I buckle our seat belts, Carmen peels out of our neighborhood without talking, so we sit there quiet too. Carmen’s fingernails are short, which means she has been biting them. That’s how I know she’s really anxious. She only messes up her nails if something is chipping away at her too.