Paper Hearts

by Ali Novak

  “Sorry,” I responded, practically throwing myself into the car. “But I’m grounded. My mom wasn’t exactly thrilled about my impromptu road trip to Seattle.”

  “Is that why you climbed through the window instead of using the front door like a normal person?” I turned to see Oliver, who was sprawled across the middle seat of the limo. He offered me that Oliver Perry smile of his.

  “You guys saw that?” All three boys nodded and I winced. “Wonderful.”

  “We’ve never harbored a fugitive before,” JJ exclaimed. He grinned as if aiding and abetting was an experience he’d been meaning to check off his bucket list.

  “Have too,” Xander said. “What about that time in Mexico when—”

  JJ cut him off. “That doesn’t count.”

  “What was his name again? It was something ridiculous, like Hot Dog or—”

  “Dude, we don’t talk about Cheeseburger. Ever.”

  Oliver snorted at his friends before saying to me, “We have to swing by the airport to pick up Stella, and then we’ll be on our way. You brought a different outfit, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, patting my bag. My dress, heels, and makeup case were packed inside. “But I need somewhere to change.”

  Unlike myself, the guys were already dressed for the evening. Oliver wore a deep burgundy suit, no tie, with the top few buttons of his black dress shirt left undone. It was the kind of outfit most men couldn’t pull off, but looked stylish and cool on the few who could, and he easily fell into the second category. JJ, on the other hand, had opted for a more classic look, a black suit and tie combo, and its slim fit made his already broad shoulders look massive. Of the three, Xander was the only one not wearing a suit. He was sporting dress pants, a white button-down, and navy blue suspenders with a matching bow tie.

  “Not a problem. Stella does too,” Oliver said. “Once we check into the hotel, you’ll have plenty of time to get ready.”

  “Okay, cool. And speaking of Stella.” I retrieved the small, white box I’d wrapped her present in and handed it over. “This is for you.”

  He pulled off the lid, and his eyes lit up. “Wow. Felicity, these are perfect.”

  Xander leaned over and peered inside the box. “What’s that for?”

  “Stella’s and my anniversary.” Oliver lifted the bracelet out of the tissue paper to inspect it. “She’s going to love this,” he told me. “Felicity, you rock. How much do I owe you?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, waving off Oliver’s attempt to dig his wallet out of his pocket. A few weeks ago I would have been more than happy to let him pay me, but now the money wasn’t important. “You’re helping me with Alec. Besides, without your suggestion, I never would’ve started my own jewelry business, so clearly I’m the one who owes you.”

  Oliver’s answering smile was so big, it was as if I’d told him I’d won a Nobel Peace Prize. “That’s awesome! How’s everything going?”

  “Well, I’m not operational yet, but I want to start out small and only sell a couple of designs. Once I get the hang of things, I plan to offer more options and maybe even do custom orders. Fingers crossed people like my stuff.”

  “You’re going to make a killing,” he assured me. “And by the way, I still expect a bill. There’s no way I’m not paying you.”

  Before I could decline a second time, Oliver knocked on the glass separating us from the driver. Then we were on the move, disappearing down the street before my mom realized I was gone.

  • • •

  “Pretty sure that bathtub is larger than my bed,” I said when Stella flipped on the light. Oliver had rented a suite for the evening, and everything about the room was over the top, bathroom included. “There should be a sign: No lifeguard on duty. Bathe at your own risk.”

  Stella laughed. “Believe it or not, I’ve seen larger.”

  “For real?” Why anyone needed such a huge bathtub was beyond me. Unless, of course, they were hosting a swim meet or playing the world’s largest game of Marco Polo.

  She nodded and claimed a spot next to the sink, unzipping her toiletry bag before dumping its contents out on the marble countertop. A package of face towelettes, a toothbrush, and a tube of Colgate fell out, along with travel-size bottles of shampoo and conditioner.

  “Do you need to shower?” I asked. After a six-hour flight from New York, I was willing to bet she felt grimy.

  “You don’t mind, do you? I’m going to rinse off, and then we can do our makeup together.”

  Twenty minutes later, we both had changed into our dresses and were standing in front of the mirror, me with a stick of eyeliner and Stella with a mascara wand. I was trying to make my wings even, but my fingers were shaking, and the left side looked more like a heart-monitor line than the crisp edge I was going for. Some strange screamo band called the Sensible Grenade was blaring from Stella’s phone, but when I heaved a sigh and tossed the liner onto the counter, she hit Pause. “You okay?”

  “I’m nervous,” I admitted.

  What if Alec won’t accept my apology? Or maybe he’s already moved on? My thoughts were spiraling, each new scenario I imagined worse than the last. Oh God, what if he refuses to talk to me at all?

  “Don’t be.” Stella set down her mascara and smiled at me in the mirror. “You two will work things out.”

  I drew my bottom lip in between my teeth. “You sure? I was pretty horrible to him.”

  She touched my shoulder. “I promise.”

  “But…” I hesitated, not sure I wanted an answer to the question I was about to ask. If Alec had confided in anyone about how things ended between us, my guess was that he’d chosen Stella. “He told you what happened, right?”

  Her smile faded. “Yeah.”

  “And…you don’t hate me?”

  “Well, it’s not like I’m happy with the way you treated him,” she said, placing a hand on her hip. My throat tightened, but then she sighed. “That being said, I know Alec isn’t an open book. Sometimes misunderstandings happen, and people say stuff they don’t mean. What matters is that you’re sorry, because he needs you, Felicity. You’re good for him.”

  My cheeks warmed at the compliment, but I frowned. “How can you be so sure? You hardly know me.”

  “Because I know Alec, and I’ve never seen him smile the way he did that night around the bonfire,” she explained. “What’s more, he’s been completely miserable since Seattle.”

  I wanted to argue with her, but a knock at the door interrupted us. Oliver was standing at the edge of the bathroom, and he quickly settled into a comfortable position against the doorframe. As he looked at Stella, the corners of his mouth turned up into a dimpled smile. It was so different from the slick, arrogant grin he wore for the media that I almost didn’t recognize him.

  “You look beautiful,” he told his girlfriend. Then, remembering they weren’t alone, he glanced at me. “You too, Felicity. Nice dress.”

  I glanced down at my masquerade gown, smoothing out the fabric that was now stain free. “Thanks,” I said. It was the only dress I owned fancy enough for the occasion, and wearing it felt poetic, considering this might be the last time I ever saw Alec.

  “So, you girls ready?”

  “Give us two minutes,” Stella answered. “I’m just going to help Felicity fix her makeup, and then we’ll be right out.”

  “Two minutes it is,” he said and backed out of the room.

  When he was gone, Stella picked up my eyeliner and gently tugged me toward her. “Close your eyes,” she instructed. Two seconds later, I felt the gentle brush of her hand on my cheek and the tip of the charcoal pencil against my lid. “I know you’re scared to talk to Alec, but it’s going to be all right. He’s hurting right now, and believe it or not, that’s a good thing. If he wasn’t, it would mean he didn’t care about you. People don’t agonize over someone
who hasn’t touched their heart.”

  She had a point, and it helped ease the churning of my stomach. “Thanks, Stella.”

  “No problem. Okay, you can open up.” She took a step back and inspected her handiwork. “There! Alec won’t know what hit him.”

  I glanced at the mirror. Somehow Stella had managed fix the squiggly line above my eye.

  All right, I thought, sucking in a deep breath. You can do this, Felicity.

  It was time to crash Vanessa Williams’s wedding.

  Chapter 20

  “I’ll be back in two hours tops,” Oliver told me as JJ, Xander, and Stella filed out of the suite.

  I raised my hand in parting. “Have fun.”

  As much as I wanted to make things right with Alec, I wasn’t going to ruin Vanessa’s big day by upsetting her little brother. I’d decided it would be best to wait until the ceremony and dinner ended before confronting him. The nuptials were taking place in the hotel’s grand ballroom, and once the party was in full swing, Oliver would pull Alec away from the reception and bring him upstairs.

  Which meant that strictly speaking, I was only crashing the wedding in the broadest sense of the term.

  “If you get hungry, order room service,” Oliver told me. “I’ll try to save you a piece of cake, but with JJ at the table, I can’t make any promises.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I replied. “Never been much of a frosting fan anyway.”

  JJ gasped. “Told you she has no soul.”

  Oliver rolled his eyes as he stepped into the hall. “See you in a bit,” he called, and then I was alone.

  Not quite sure what to do with myself, I turned in a circle and surveyed my surroundings. There was a piano tucked into the far corner, a wall of shelves filled with books, a glass rock fireplace, and a handful of other luxuries I never expected to find in a hotel room. Any other day I would have been impressed with the grandeur of it all, but it was hard to appreciate when I could feel my heart fluttering around my chest like a caged bird. Without anyone to keep me company, my mind immediately found Alec. I had this terrible image in my head of him storming away as soon as he saw me, and I kept playing it over and over like some kind of sick movie.

  When my palms started to sweat, I knew I needed a distraction. Some way to kill time so I didn’t have a heart attack before he arrived. I grabbed my travel copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, the one Violet had returned to me yesterday, and took a seat on the couch. I was too worked up to focus on reading, but there was comfort in holding my favorite novel.

  As I flipped through the first chapter, I noticed something different about the usually familiar pages. Beneath my margin scribbles someone had left comments in near-perfect penmanship.

  I drew in a sharp breath.

  It was Alec’s handwriting. I was sure of it.

  Not only had he read the book, but he’d responded to each of my thoughts. There were answers to the questions I’d posed, along with his own ideas and analyses. He even jotted down part of a song after the passage where Atticus tells Scout about Tom’s shooting. The lyrics were unfamiliar to me, but they fit the story so perfectly it was as if Harper Lee had written them herself:

  With these wings we fly

  Toward the clouds, sun, and sky

  Until the dark of night arrives

  And shatters us forever

  From cover to cover, Alec had filled my book with fragments of himself. I was so absorbed in reading them that I didn’t realize Oliver had returned until I heard him speaking.

  “This will be real quick, I promise.”

  “Can’t it wait until tomorrow? I should be with my family right now.”

  My head shot up at the sound of Alec’s voice.

  “I know, I know. But this is important,” Oliver told him. “Just bear with me.”

  I tossed the paperback onto the cushion beside me and jolted to my feet. A second later, the boys stepped into the room, and my chest hitched at the sight of Alec. The tux he wore sent me back to the night we first met, back to before I’d ruined us. His brows were knit together in a frown, as if he was trying to figure out why he’d been dragged away from the party. As I watched, he patted his hair, checking to make sure every blond lock was in its designated place.

  Heart throbbing at the back of my throat, I waited for him to spot me. Finally, he glanced up, and when our gazes locked, he came to an abrupt stop.

  “Welp, I’ve done my part,” Oliver said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m going to leave you two alone now.” He shot me a thumbs-up before inching backward in the direction of the exit.

  The moment we were alone, I wanted to rush into Alec’s arms.

  Instead, I planted my feet and lifted a hand in greeting. “Hi.”

  For a long time, a painfully long time, he said nothing. I stared at him, my breath bottling inside my chest as I waited for a response. If he didn’t say something soon, I was going to run out of oxygen.

  “Felicity.” His tone was guarded, careful. “What are you doing here?”

  The question stung, but I ignored the pain and answered. “I wanted to see you.”

  “Why?” he asked, his steel eyes narrowing.

  I felt myself wince, like his words were a slap across the face. To have him look at me like that—like I was poisonous—was excruciating. Things could be worse, I tried to convince myself. At least he’s talking to you.

  “Because,” I said. “A super smart guy once told me that his mother said it’s always important to apologize in person.”

  Alec crossed his arms and waited. Okay, so he wasn’t going to make this easy for me. I guess I deserved that.

  Taking a quick breath, I started over. “Violet came to see me yesterday.”

  That got a reaction out of him. “What? Why would she do that?”

  “To set the story straight,” I replied and began inching my way across the room. “She said King went back on his promise to let you produce her record, and that you begged her to reconsider when she contemplated signing with another label.”

  I stopped a yard away from him and gave myself a moment to work up enough courage for what was coming next. You’ve got this, Felicity. All you have to do is open your mouth and say you’re sorry for being the biggest ass in the world.

  “I know this isn’t the best time, but I need to apologize for what I said in Seattle.” I glanced at the carpet, tucked a loose curl behind my ear, and then looked back up at him. “Alec, I’m so sorry. You were nothing but kind to me, and I automatically assumed the worst. I-I didn’t trust you, even though you never gave me a reason not to.”

  “Why?” he asked again. It was quickly becoming his catchphrase of the evening.

  “Why am I apologizing?”

  “No.” He swallowed hard. “Why didn’t you trust me?” His voice broke at the end of the question. Clearly, he’d been torturing himself over the answer.

  I was at a loss for words. The honest truth was that I didn’t have a good response to give him.

  “Um, well…I may have overheard your conversation with Stella when we were at Oliver’s uncle’s place. I thought you were talking about me. That combined with your phone calls to Violet, and I just sort of figured…” My explanation was so terrible I couldn’t even finish it.

  But then something amazing happened. Alec took an actual step in my direction. Now we were only two feet apart. Close enough to reach out and touch him, but still too far in all the important ways for me to actually do so. “Felicity, I would’ve told you anything you wanted to know. Why didn’t you ask me?”

  He made it sound so easy, which felt a little unfair, especially coming from someone as reserved as him. Alec and I had clicked from the start, but that didn’t mean we’d settled into the ease of a long-term relationship, one where we were completely comfortable with each other. Nobody could le
t their guard down that quickly.

  “I guess I was afraid,” I told him.

  “Of what?”

  With a shrug, I focused my gaze on the swirling pattern of the carpet. “I don’t know. Lots of stuff, I suppose. I didn’t want you to think I was crazy or ruin things between us by making assumptions.”

  “But you did make assumptions.” His voice was gentle, which made me feel worse. Why was he so calm and composed? Couldn’t he just yell at me? The pain in his eyes would be so much easier to deal with if he was angry.

  “Everyone was lying to me, Alec,” I said, forcing my gaze to meet his again. “My mother was keeping this monumental, life-changing secret, and my two best friends were purposely hiding their relationship from me. I know it’s no excuse, but I felt like nobody was being honest anymore.”

  It happened so fast that I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw Alec’s lips twitch. “I’ve always been honest with you.”

  Not when we first met, a petty part of me wanted to say. You said your name was Aaron! But that wasn’t fair. We hadn’t know each other then.

  I hung my head. “Yeah, I know.”

  There was a long pause during which I chewed on my lip and tried to think of something else to say, some way to make things right, but I came up with zilch. And maybe that was because there was nothing left to be said. Maybe I didn’t deserve his forgiveness.

  “Well, I’ve said my part,” I told him, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I-I understand if you can’t forgive me. God knows I don’t deserve it, but I wanted you to know how sorry I am. Give me a minute to grab my things, and then I’ll leave.”

  Turning away from Alec, I pressed a hand to my lips. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. I wasn’t going to let him see my tears, so after giving myself a second for the heat behind my eyelids to subside, I moved toward the couch to collect my book and bag.

  Then Alec spoke.

  “The mockingbird is beautiful.”

  I was so caught off guard by the sudden change of topic that at first I didn’t know if he’d actually said something or I’d imagined his voice. On top of that, I wasn’t entirely sure what he was talking about—the book or my necklace?—but I turned to face him.