Lucy stared down at the list. She recognized some of the names—the newly famous star of a recent blockbuster movie, rumored to have simultaneously dated three of his costars without any of them knowing; the heir to a billion-dollar cosmetics fortune; the son of a prominent celebrity lawyer.
“I don’t know,” said Olivia. “Maybe?”
“Eh,” said Liza. “Not sure this would be any fun. He’s not even cute.”
“Wait,” Gil said. “Wait, this is perfect.” And she touched BEACON DREW, 18, ROCK STAR. And his face swirled up. Lucy instantly recognized it from the cover of his album, which was currently being advertised everywhere. He’d started out playing at underground blues and jazz clubs when he was only thirteen, but had only gained serious mainstream stardom when he started singing and playing other people’s pop songs. He was known for being a huge “partier,” and he was always popping up on gossip blogs with a never-ending stream of adoring hot women. Everything about him oozed complete utter jerk.
“Ah yes,” Olivia said. “He’ll do just fine.”
Liza ran her fingers through her hair. “Well, hello there, stranger,” she said to the remains of his face. Her breath blew the rest of him away. “He’ll be a blast to break. I assume I’ll be on offense?”
Olivia nodded. “Now we just need to figure out where to find him,” she said. “Actually, wait, isn’t he playing at a festival in a couple of days? Sound something?”
“SoundWave,” Lucy said. “I think it starts this weekend. But tickets are impossible to get.” Lucy only knew about it because Tristan was obsessed with going to it. He tried and failed every year because tickets always sold out within seconds.
“Impossible for whom?” Olivia said with a grin. “Well, so now that we have our target, it’s time for a little research.”
Olivia took a sleek laptop off the table and handed it to Liza, who started typing quickly.
A couple of minutes later Liza’s mouth twisted into a smirk and flipped the computer around. On the screen it said, WELCOME BEACON, and there was what appeared to be his email inbox.
“What magic did you use to do that?” said Lucy.
“None.” Liza shrugged. “I broke the heart of a hacker once, and he taught me a few things first.”
Lucy read over Liza’s shoulder. TOUR DATES was the first email subject. I’M MAILING YOU MY PANTIES was the second. They spent the next half hour combing his inbox for all emails to or from or about girls, but there were so many they eventually just searched for all emails containing the phrase “I love you.” There were twenty-two from six different people. Three included naked pictures. “Too bad he’s a dude and an idiot,” Liza said. “He’d make a great Heartbreaker.” She clicked through a few of the emails. “Hey, listen to this one he sent his manager. It’s from two weeks after his last album came out. ‘I don’t want to be associated with this shit forever, it’s barely even music.’ Doesn’t seem to think too highly of his own songs, apparently. Which shows he’s not quite as stupid as he looks.”
“Um . . . you guys?” Gil’s voice was quiet. “There was something else in the envelope.” She held up a sheet of what looked like shimmering cellophane. There was a broken heart printed on each of the four corners, and in the center was a golden thread twirling itself around and around. Gil put her thumb and forefinger over one of the hearts, Olivia pinched another, and Liza grabbed a third.
“Come on, apple pie,” said Olivia, and Lucy reached out for the last one. As soon as she was holding the final heart, the thread started swirling itself into words.
Due to recent allegations that some families have been recruiting new sisters solely for the purpose of entering the Breakies, this year there will be an additional requirement for entry—not only must all families be complete with four members, but also each member must have broken at least one heart post–tattoo ceremony. The prizes in this year’s pack are too powerful to be entrusted to new baby Heartbreakers. Good luck.
The thread swirled into a heart shape, then disappeared.
Lucy looked down. She felt them all watching her.
“Lucy, this means . . . ,” Gil started to say. But she didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.
If Lucy didn’t break a heart, they couldn’t enter the contest. And if they couldn’t enter the contest, she couldn’t save Tristan.
Lucy knew what she had to do.
Nine
Lucy woke to the sound of screaming. A second later, she realized the screams had been her own. The sky through her window was velvet black. The clock on her nightstand glowed 12:23. She reached her hand up and pressed her heart. It couldn’t break, but it could still thump the hell out of itself. She’d been dreaming, she realized, dreaming about Tristan. In the dream, the two of them were on a boat, and the boat started to sink. Lucy could see the shore from where they were, and she remembered shouting, “We can swim! We’re close enough to swim!” But Tristan just shook his head and opened a little door in his chest and took out his heart. He pressed a button on the side, and it started to inflate like a balloon. He handed it to her. “Use this,” he said. And then before Lucy could stop him, he dove into the ocean and she knew it was too late to save him.
Half-asleep, Lucy reached for the phone. It wasn’t until it had rung three times that she fully awoke, and quickly hung up. What was wrong with her? She didn’t just call Tristan in the middle of the night no matter what time it was, knowing he’d either be up already or happy to be woken by her. She didn’t call to tell him about a funny dream she’d just had, or to ask him to tell her a joke if she’d had a nightmare. She didn’t call Tristan in the middle of the night anymore because she didn’t call him at all.
Lucy lay back down. It was just a dream, she reminded herself. Tristan hadn’t drowned. His heart was broken, but she was going to fix it. There was nothing to worry about now. She breathed deeply, trying to slow her heart.
A few minutes later, her phone began to vibrate.
HELP! AN EVIL WIZARD TRAPPED ME IN A PHONE! flashed on the screen.
Lucy stared at it for a split second, confused, and then smiled. Over the years, Tristan had programmed himself into her phone as dozens of different things. For a week last summer he’d been THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and changed his ringtone to the national anthem. For another he’d been MY INTERNAL MONOLOGUE and would call and pretend to be speaking as Lucy. That past spring he’d been I’M STANDING RIGHT BEHIND YOU, and even though she knew it was him calling, she’d been incapable of seeing that flashing on her screen without turning around to check who was there.
Lucy raised the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
Instead of words she heard a ssh, a crackle, then music—a few bluesy harmonica notes, followed by an acoustic guitar and in the background the pat, pat, pat of drums. The music cut off and then Tristan began to speak. “Heeeey there, listeners.” His voice was deep and low. “This is W-L-U-C-Y radio, broadcasting from Tristan’s truck. You’re live on the air.”
Lucy smiled, her brain still thick with sleep. Her body flooded with relief. This was Tristan. Her best friend. Sounding exactly the same as he always had.
Lucy put on a fake nasal voice. “Longtime listener, first-time caller. Did I win the tickets?!”
Tristan laughed. And then there was silence.
“I hope I didn’t wake you up,” Lucy said. “I’m sorry for calling before, I just had . . .” She stopped. “I was just calling to say hi.” Lucy bit her lip. “Were you sleeping?”
“Yes, I was sleep driving,” Tristan said. “It’s a good thing you called when you did.”
“Sleep driving is very unsafe,” Lucy said.
Silence again.
“Sorry I missed you before, bud, I was just saying good night to someone.”
“Oh!” Lucy said. “Like a daaaaate?” She tried to sound teasing the way she might have before things got so weird between them.
“I don’t know,” Tristan said. “Nah. I don’t think
so. Maybe?”
And Lucy smiled because the response was so typical Tristan. “I don’t go on dates,” he’d told her once. “I hang out with people. And sometimes those hangouts include some smoochin’.” He’d pronounced it just like that, without the G. As a joke. Except he wasn’t kidding.
“Listen, are you at home?” Tristan went on, “I’m going to be driving right near your house in about three minutes. Think Suzanne and Georgie would mind if you pop outside and say hello to your buddy?”
Lucy hesitated only for a second. “Well, Suzanne and George can’t mind if they don’t know.” She felt a wave of confused relief. Was she imagining or did Tristan sound happy? Like, actually happy. Was that possible? “I’ll be outside in two,” she said.
But before she left her room, she took out that tiny pot of almond-scented Empathy Cream and rubbed a dab into each palm. It felt wrong to look into Tristan’s heart on purpose, but what choice did she have? If she wanted to help him, she’d have to break another heart. And if she was going to do that, she had to know Tristan needed her to, that there was just no other choice.
Ten
Okay,” Tristan said. “Ready for the rest of it?” He leaned over and opened the passenger door, and Lucy slid in. He tapped the PLAY button on his phone, and the song that had been playing earlier kept going. The guitar stopped and was replaced by the rich and velvety notes of a cello. The harmonica came back in, and the sounds of the two instruments wrapped around each other, like two voices singing a duet. It was hauntingly beautiful right up until the very last note.
“My god,” Lucy said slowly. “That was gorgeous. Who was that?”
Tristan shrugged. “Oh, go on, you sweet talker,” he said. But when Lucy turned, she could have sworn she saw him blushing. “That was me and Phee.”
“Phee?”
“She’s who I was just with. She’s a girl I met at the diner, and we got to talking about music and things. She plays cello and is a huge music nerd and has a whole studio thingy set up in her basement, so that’s where we recorded this.”
Lucy turned and looked at him. He brushed his hair off his forehead, a tiny secret smile playing on his lips. When their eyes met, she realized something:
The longing she thought she’d seen at the party just wasn’t there. Instead, there was only that familiar twinkle of excitement. He looked like his old self.
Maybe his love for her hadn’t been so serious after all. Maybe she was egotistical for ever having assumed it was. And whether it was or not, he now seemed to be over it.
They held each other’s gaze, and Lucy felt a warming in her belly. It was funny, she’d been so scared of making eye contact with Tristan when she thought he loved her, that she’d barely seen him in quite a long time. “She’s really talented,” Lucy said.
“Freakily so,” said Tristan.
Lucy smiled. “I’m really glad you came over.”
“Me too.” Tristan smiled back. “I missed you.” He pulled her toward him in a sudden hug. “Sorry I’ve been a little MIA lately.”
Lucy felt the warmth of Tristan’s body through his T-shirt. She felt herself begin to blush. It was just that they hadn’t hugged in so long, that no one had really hugged her in so long except for maybe Gil. Lucy put her hand on his arm to steady herself. And then, just like that, Lucy couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t anything. Her hand was still on his arm. She closed her eyes. The blood drained from her cheeks. A drum beat in her ears.
“Luce? You okay?” Tristan asked.
But she wasn’t. Not at all.
She felt a bolt of twisting pain in her heart, and a weight on her chest, so heavy it was hard to breathe. Underneath it all was a multilayered love that hit her in wave after wave, swelling so big she could have drowned in it.
Lucy looked down at her hand on Tristan’s arm.
This was how Tristan felt—these were his feelings rushing through her.
It was worse than she could have possibly imagined. “Luce?” Tristan was staring at her, eyebrows knotted, like she was the one who needed worrying about.
Lucy pulled her hand away. His feelings drained out of her.
“Wow, you looked really freaked out for a second,” he said. He tipped his head to the side.
“Yeah.” Lucy tried to force out a laugh. “I don’t know what happened there. . . .”
How was he going around in the world feeling like this? Getting up, going to school, meeting friends, going to parties? How was he even surviving?
The answer hit Lucy like a brick in the face: because Tristan was an expert at bearing pain and making it seem like nothing at all.
Tristan and Lucy became friends back in fourth grade, but she knew of him before that. Everyone did. He was the kid whose mom died. Her illness came on fast and he’d missed the last three months of second grade, then came back after the summer and done second grade again, all the while acting like nothing had even happened. Lucy remembered seeing him in the hall, noticing the way he smiled and joked with everyone. At the time Lucy decided he must not have loved his mother—either he was terribly mean or she was.
It was only two years later when they became friends that Lucy realized how wrong she’d been. He was the sweetest person in the world, and he’d loved his amazing mother endlessly. It wasn’t that he’d actually been okay when he came back to school—it’s just that he was a master of hiding his feelings, of burying them deep and putting on a smiling face. And since then, he had only gotten better at it.
“Lu?” Tristan said finally.
“I’m okay,” Lucy said. “I’m okay. I’m just . . . suddenly not feeling that well. I think I should go back inside.”
Lucy opened the door.
“Feel better, bud,” Tristan said. And he smiled back, that same sweet smile as ever. But this time there was no chance of convincing herself she didn’t know what was actually behind it. Or that there was any way around doing what she knew she had to do.
Eleven
YES!!!!!
Lucy stared at Colin’s text and felt her stomach sink. Late the night before she’d sent him a message, asking if he was free that afternoon and wanting to do something. And she’d woken up to his response, sent at 6:01 a.m. Lucy squeezed her phone and shook her head. She imagined Colin smiling sweetly while he typed out his message, probably still cozy under the covers. She imagined him trying to decide how many exclamation points he should use and then deciding “Oh what the hell,” and sending them all. She imagined him hopping out of bed, so happy and excited, because he had no idea what was coming for him, no idea that by the time he got back into bed, he’d have a broken heart. The whole thing made her sick.
But the alternative made her sicker.
Sometimes it isn’t about choosing between right and wrong—it’s about choosing between bad and worse.
When Lucy got to school, she desperately tried to ignore what was coming and just focus on the here and now. But it was impossible. There were eight hours left until she’d have to do it. What on earth was she going to say to him?
With seven hours to go, she saw Jason and Jessica in homeroom, desks pulled up next to each other. They were staring down into their notebooks, but under their desks their fingers were intertwined. And Lucy found herself sending out a silent wish that neither of them would ever break the other one’s heart.
T-minus six hours and forty-five minutes, Lucy saw Alex in photo class. He asked for her opinion on a photo he’d taken of the girl he’d cheated with, night swimming in a bikini. “Her ass is a bit overexposed,” Lucy said, once again amazed that she ever dated someone so ridiculous. But was what he’d done to her any worse than what she was about to do?
Four hours went to three went to two went to one. And then the school day was done and there was nothing left to do but call the poor boy and get this over with. She hit TALK.
“Lucy!” Colin picked up after a single ring.
“Hey,” Lucy said. She felt her throat star
ting to close, the words all stuck inside it. She couldn’t continue, but she didn’t have to because suddenly he was doing all the talking.
“I was so, so happy to hear from you this morning,” he said. “I’ve been smiling all day. I was worried I’d scared you off by texting too much and seeming like a stalky weirdo—I’m usually really shy when it comes to girls. . . .” The words tumbled out in a jumble like he’d been rehearsing them. “The thing is, I just really like you, and I feel like we have some kind of weird special connection or something.” He paused for a moment. “I know that sounds crazy, or really stupid.” He continued more slowly. His voice was soft and low and when he wasn’t rushing, actually kind of sexy. Too bad it was entirely wasted on her. Someone else would like him. Lots of other someones would like him. She just needed to set him free. “Especially since we don’t even really know each other. I mean, for all I know, you could be the stalky weirdo. Ha! I’m just kidding. Sorry. I make weird jokes when I’m nervous, and I’m really nervous right now. I guess what I’m saying is, I . . .”
This was too much. Lucy had to stop him. “Listen,” she said. “I feel like some ice cream. Do you want to take me out for ice cream?”
“I would absolutely love to,” he said. He sounded thrilled. Lucy cringed. But she knew what she needed to do. And this time, nothing—not his sweet face, nor his kind eyes, nor the ball of guilt swirling in her stomach—was going to stop her.
Twelve
Thirty minutes later, Lucy sat watching Colin’s back as he walked away. At the door he turned and gave her this sad little wave. Lucy waved back, then reached down for her tear-catcher necklace and squeezed. A tiny saltwater ocean was now trapped inside it.
Thank goodness this was over.
Thirty minutes before, he’d come bounding into Sundaes and Cones like a happy puppy and she still hadn’t had any idea what she was going to say to him or how she was going to do it. He’d sat down in front of her all wide-eyed and smiley and “So did you see the video everyone’s been posting . . . ?” and “Have you heard that new song . . . ?” as though he’d spent the entire afternoon coming up with conversation topics. And Lucy knew the time for careful planning had passed and she just needed to do it. The words were coming out of her mouth before she fully realized what was happening—“I’m sorry, Colin,” she’d said, “I just can’t do this. The you-and-me thing, I mean. I wish it didn’t have to be like this. I’m really, really, really sorry.”
The Book of Love Page 5