Paper Hearts

by Ali Novak

It was Alec’s turn to blush. “My mother always said it’s important to apologize to someone in person.”

  Ohmygod. A gentleman who isn’t embarrassed to talk about his mom?

  “Plus,” he added, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t like talking on the phone, and you deserved more than a text.”

  “Alec, you have nothing to be sorry for.” I wanted to reach across the table so he could feel the truth behind my words, but I tucked my hands under my butt so I didn’t do anything stupid. “For the record, I didn’t believe any of it. What they were saying about me in the magazines, I mean. I don’t care about tabloids.”

  Which was ninety-nine point nine percent true. The only details in the articles that remotely piqued my interest were the bits about Violet being Alec’s girlfriend. Part of me wanted to ask him about her, to clarify whether or not she was his girlfriend, but the other part of me didn’t want to hear his answer.

  Alec didn’t bother to hide his relief. “Good.”

  I sank back into the vinyl cushion of the booth, feeling that same release of tension. Somehow, while making the milk shakes, I’d turned whatever I thought he was going to say into something negative. In reality, he was worried about how the rumors and gossip had affected me. That along with his apology proved to me that Mom was wrong about him. Alec was a genuinely nice guy.

  But now that he’d said his piece, I wondered if he would leave. He had no other reason to stay. My heart dropped at the thought. I didn’t want him to go.

  Say something, Felicity, I thought. Anything.

  Well, maybe not anything. I’d already humiliated myself enough by going on about blueberry milk shakes. The problem was that a lock of Alec’s impeccably gelled hair had come loose, no doubt a result of the rain. It fell right above his eyes, brushing the top of his eyelashes, and made it impossible for me to concentrate.

  Or breathe, for that matter.

  Just as I was starting to flounder inside my head, he ran a hand through his bangs, smoothing the escaped strand back into place.

  He cleared his throat. “You have two copies?”

  “Huh?” I was clearly related to Shakespeare or some other great literary genius, because honestly? My talent for words was inspired.

  Alec smiled and pointed at To Kill a Mockingbird, which I’d tossed next to the napkin dispenser.

  “Oh, right! Actually, I have three. The one you saw yesterday is a first edition, so I never take it anywhere. This is my travel copy so I can read it whenever I want, and I think Asha has the third one. She has a bad habit of borrowing things and forgetting to return them.”

  “Asha?”

  “My best friend,” I explained. “She was the one who was supposed to give me a ride home from the charity ball.”

  Alec nodded as if this was interesting information. He took another sip of his milk shake and said, “Can I borrow it?”

  “What?”

  “Your book. I promise I’ll return it.”

  His question sent a jolt through my body, and I didn’t know which I found more exciting: the fact Alec was interested in To Kill a Mockingbird or his promise. Probably the latter, because in order for him to keep that promise, we’d have to see each other again.

  “You really want to read it?”

  “You took the time to listen to my music,” he said, as if me cozying up to a mysterious masked stranger at the ball had been such a chore. “I want to read your favorite book.”

  My stomach flipped. I knew he was only being friendly, but still. It was possibly the most romantic thing a guy had ever said to me, that he wanted to read the book because it was my favorite.

  Alec must have mistaken my astonishment for reluctance, because he played nervously with his headphones. “If you don’t feel comfortable loaning—”

  “No!” I blurted out, quickly finding my voice. “Not at all.” Before he could change his mind, I shoved the paperback across the table.

  His eyes searched mine momentarily, looking for any signs of doubt, but then he smiled and picked it up. “I should warn you. I’m a slow reader. You might not get this back for a while.”

  “That’s fine,” I told him, “as long as you don’t mind my notes. I’m a notorious margin scribbler.”

  “Margin scribbler?”

  “Yeah, like I leave notes in the margins of the book? Mainly thoughts and questions I have while reading.”

  Alec immediately flipped through the pages to see what I was talking about, and something came loose and fluttered out. We both looked down. Resting on the table was a piece of paper the size of my palm, and it was folded into a delicate heart.

  Air whooshed out of my lungs at the sight of the origami folding. I blinked. And blinked again.

  “Felicity?” Alec looked from me to the paper heart and back to me again, his eyebrows creased together. “Do you need your bookmark back?”

  Unable to respond, I shook my head. All I could think was Rose, Rose, Rose.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, doubt layering his words.

  My throat was thick, but I forced myself to swallow the lump that had risen there. “Yeah, it’s fine. I have about a million of those.”

  “Yes, but it’s important to you.” His response wasn’t a question, but a statement.

  Was it that obvious? And, more importantly, what was I supposed to say? While I didn’t have any issues talking about my father, Rose was a different story. She was still an open wound—too raw, too personal—even after four years. I ducked my head, needing a minute to collect my thoughts.

  “It’s not the heart that’s important,” I said at last, “but the memory behind it.” Hopefully, I sounded removed, as if I wasn’t on the edge of tears.

  But I couldn’t fool Alec. “Of someone.”

  “What?”

  “A memory of someone,” he clarified. “Someone important to you.”

  Seriously, how did he see through me so easily? We hardly knew each other. And yet I found myself opening my mouth to explain. “My sister, Rose.”

  “The other girl in the picture?”

  At first his question confused me, but then I remembered yesterday and how he’d asked about my family. “Yes,” I said with a nod. “She was obsessed with origami. She’d fold whatever she could get her hands on—napkins, wrappers, receipts—into something beautiful. My favorites were the paper hearts. One year for my birthday she folded… Oh, I don’t know, must’ve been more than a hundred of them, and she hung them from our bedroom ceiling. Her wrist was so sore she had to wear a brace for a week.”

  I couldn’t tell Alec the rest of the story, how after Rose left, I would stare up at those damn paper hearts for hours, praying for my sister to come home. And when she didn’t, I’d torn them all down. I’d wanted to throw them out, to burn them even, but a small part of me still hoped. So I’d boxed them up and banished them to the back of my closet.

  Every now and then, I’d discover a heart covered in dust behind my desk or trapped in the crevice between my headboard and the wall. Finding one was like getting a paper cut, a split second of sharp pain that faded to a dull throb. But seeing one of Rose’s paper hearts here? Now? It was a blade in my gut.

  “Was?” Alec asked.

  I shook my head to clear away the pain and memories. “Sorry?”

  “You used the past tense, and yesterday you said it was only you and your mom. Is your sister…” He hesitated, as if he didn’t like where he was taking the sentence. “Did she go to live with your dad?”

  His question startled me. I turned to the Electric Waffle’s big front window as I thought about my answer. The rain had stopped, but judging from the clouds, it was only taking a momentary break.

  “No,” I said eventually. But the truth was, I couldn’t actually answer Alec, because I had no idea where Rose was. For all I knew, maybe she was with ou
r dad. It was highly unlikely, considering how angry she was when he left, but there was always a chance. “Actually,” I corrected myself. “I’m not sure.”

  A beat of silence passed. “You…you don’t know where your sister is?”

  “She ran away four years ago.”

  I felt the need to provide more of an explanation, but that was the only information I had. And that lack of understanding always ate at me. I’d spent countless hours wondering what made Rose leave so suddenly and without explanation. The only reason that came to mind was a fight she and Mom had had the week before her birthday. It stuck with me because the two of them came home together at two o’clock in the morning, and I’d thought it was strange that Mom was out so late. As soon as they stepped in the door, the screaming started and I’d promptly put on my headphones. Now, thinking back on that night, I wish I’d listened, even if it was only for a minute. Maybe then I’d know why Rose had left.

  “So…what happened?” he asked.

  My mouth twisted. “We haven’t heard from her since.” There would be no mistaking the pain in my voice, not with Alec’s keen observation skills. I could feel white-hot anger building inside me. “I don’t remember much about my dad, but my sister did. From the little my mom has told me, I think the two of them were a lot alike, both headstrong and wild. Mom always said they had more wanderlust flowing in their veins than blood. Rose tried to pretend that him leaving didn’t crush her, but months after he moved out, I’d still hear her crying herself to sleep. One night, it was particularly bad, so I crawled into bed with her and asked why our dad would want to hurt us so much.”

  I paused, reliving the memory: Big Blue clutched against my chest, Rose laughing softly and wiping her eyes, her arms pulling me close so I wouldn’t fall off the narrow single mattress. I took a deep breath and released it, letting the air hiss past my lips. “Instead of giving me an answer, she promised she’d never do the same thing to me, but…”

  “She did,” he finished.

  “Yes. I want to hate her for it, but I can’t.”

  Alec looked at me for a long moment, as if considering everything I’d told him. Then he said, “I don’t blame you.”

  Whatever reply I’d been expecting, that wasn’t it. After all, I’d just admitted to feeling darkly about my sister. “You don’t?”

  “My sister, Vanessa, and I are super close, so I can imagine how hard it must be for you to be apart from Rose,” he explained. “And sometimes the people who mean the most to us, like our family, do things that make it difficult to love them, but we do anyway because that’s what love is.”

  From what he’d said about his father, I had a hunch he was speaking on a personal level. “Is that how you feel about your dad?”

  He shifted in the booth before nodding. “Let’s just say the relationship I have with him is…complicated.”

  “But you still love him.”

  “He’s done some pretty shitty things, but yeah. I do.”

  I wasn’t purposely digging for information on his private life, but hearing that Alec didn’t have the easiest relationship with his dad helped soothe some of my own self-loathing about what had happened with Rose.

  “Speaking of my father…” Alec tugged on the collar of his shirt. “Every year he has this barbecue for all his artists. I hate his parties, but he’s making me go, so I was wondering… Would you like to come with me?”

  Wait. Did he just… Is he asking me on a date?

  Alec kept talking, oblivious to the sudden pounding of my heart. “It’s next Friday at noon. The party goes until six, but we don’t have to stay the whole time if you don’t want. And I can pick you up if you need a ride.”

  Holy shit. He was asking me on a date.

  I stared at him, openmouthed and bewildered. When Alec drove me home after the ball, there had been a moment of tense anticipation as we sat in my driveway. It was like in the movies when the guy walks the girl to the door, and she wonders if he will kiss her. Part of me had hoped for the chance to spend more time together, to get to know him. But now that it was actually happening, it didn’t seem real. I knew I needed to respond, but words failed me.

  “If you already have plans…” he trailed off.

  “I don’t.” Except for work, but Alec didn’t need to know that. I could easily trade shifts with one of the other waitresses. “Basically, you need someone to suffer alongside you?” I asked, and satisfaction shot through my chest at my witty, almost flirty response.

  His mouth quirked into a crooked grin. “Exactly. It will be terrible. I promise.”

  “And what does terrible include?”

  Alec, whose arms were folded in front of him on the table, leaned in on his elbows. “Lots of pain. Lots of torture.”

  “Well, gosh,” I said with a growing smile. “How’s a girl supposed to say no to that?”

  • • •

  Two hours later, I was clearing my only table of the day—a couple who, judging by their accents, were visiting from Australia—when the door of the Electric Waffle opened with a bang. A pair of heavy boots clomped inside. It was the type of obnoxious commotion that could only be caused by Boomer. Sure enough, he was shaking the rain from his hair when I looked up. Asha stood next to him, struggling to close an umbrella.

  “Hey, Felicity!” he yelled in typical Boomer fashion.

  “I’m at our regular spot,” I called back to him. “I’ll be done in a minute.”

  There was a five-dollar tip pinned under the ketchup bottle, and I shoved it in my apron pocket before grabbing the remaining dirty silverware and heading to the kitchen. After dumping the bus tub in the sink, I gathered our usual refreshments (soda for Boomer, a slushy for Asha, more coffee for me) before making my way over to my friends.

  “Two blueberry shakes?” Asha asked as a way of greeting. “Must have been a bad day.”

  I set the serving tray down and slid into the booth next to Boomer. He’d pulled his Game Boy from his pocket, but Asha shot him a Seriously? look, and he heaved a sigh before shoving the gaming device back into his shorts.

  “Actually,” I said, passing out our drinks, “besides the lack of customers and this god-awful weather, my day was good.”

  Which was all because of Alec. I tried to keep a straight face as I thought about him, but it was impossible not to smile. A few minutes after he invited me to his father’s party, the two Australian tourists had arrived and asked for a table. Regrettably, I’d had to return to work, but he’d waved off my apology as he tugged his coat back on, promising to pick me up on Friday. And this time around, I didn’t mind saying good-bye because I knew I’d see him again.

  “It was a good day?” Asha ripped open three packets of sugar and dumped them into her cup as if there wasn’t already a gallon of high fructose corn syrup in the drink. “Then what’s up with the ice cream overdose?”

  “I only had one,” I said, reaching for a sugar packet. If I didn’t snag one now, she would use them all. “The second was Alec’s.”

  “That famous dude with the F12?” Boomer asked. “Did he drive it here?”

  “Yes, and no. Well, actually, I don’t know,” I said.

  Boomer frowned and scratched his head, disheveling his already crazy curls.

  I quickly clarified, “Yes, it was him, but I have no clue what car he drove.”

  “Oh, he drove it,” Boomer answered even though he was the one who’d asked the question. “You don’t own a car like that and not drive it places. God, I would have paid to see it.”

  “Of course you only care about the car,” Asha replied with an eye roll, but then she stiffened. “Holy hell. You mean he actually sat here?” She looked down at the bench she was seated on, her voice tinged with awe, before glancing at the empty milk shake. “And that was his drink? The straw he drank from?”

  I groaned and covered my
face with my hands. “Please don’t go all creepy fangirl on me.”

  “I’m sorry, but this is… Wow!” She was shaking her head, her gaze still fixed on the glass, as if this information was too much to handle. “Wait a minute. When did you make plans to meet with him?”

  I flinched. Secretly, I was hoping this wouldn’t come up, because I knew Asha would be miffed I hadn’t told her. “Yesterday after you guys left,” I admitted.

  And I was right. She was pissed.

  “But we were on the phone for over an hour last night! Why didn’t you say anything? I could have come earlier. I could have met him!”

  “Which,” Boomer said, pointing a finger at her, “is probably why she didn’t tell you. Remember the time you met that one guy?”

  He didn’t need to elaborate. Asha and I both knew exactly who he was referring to. Last year on Boomer’s birthday, Asha had spotted Ryan Klan, one of the actors from Immortal Nights, while we were eating dinner at Vine & Dine. Not only did she scream Ryan’s name to get his attention, but she knocked over a waitress carrying a tray of food in her mad scramble to reach him.

  “So I wanted an autograph,” Asha said, batting her lashes in an attempt to look doe-eyed. “What’s the big deal?”

  “You got us kicked out of my favorite restaurant—on my birthday,” Boomer grumbled, but it was in a good-natured way, and I knew there was no lingering grudge.

  “Asha,” I interjected, before they continued to bicker. “I wanted to mention it last night, I swear. But our plans weren’t concrete, so I wasn’t entirely sure he would show up.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t you want to hear what happened?” I asked, cutting her off before she could really start complaining.

  The frown on Asha’s face disappeared, and she leaned in, eyes wide and gleaming. “Something happened?”

  An uncontrollable grin returned to my face, and I glanced down at the coffee mug nestled between my hands. The steaming warmth was reassuring, and I bit my lip before saying, “I think Alec asked me on a date.”

  Some of the red slush sloshed over the rim of Asha’s cup and onto the table. “What?”