by Jen Klein
ALSO BY JEN KLEIN
Shuffle, Repeat
Summer Unscripted
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by Jen Klein
Cover photograph copyright © 2019 by Getty/Xsandra
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Klein, Jen, author.
Title: Hearts made for breaking / Jen Klein.
Description: First edition. | New York : Random House, [2019] | Summary: Challenged by her best friends to break her serial dating patterns, eighteen-year-old Lark gets to know transfer student Ardy and learns about broken hearts and the power of real love.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017051554 | ISBN 978-1-5247-0008-9 (trade pbk.) | ISBN 978-1-5247-0009-6 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-1-5247-0010-2 (ebook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | Love—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.K645 He 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
Ebook ISBN 9781524700102
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
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Contents
Cover
Also by Jen Klein
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Acknowledgments
About the Author
for my writer village
Yesterday, my heart was “broken,” which is why today I’m sitting on a glossy but practical daybed with hidden drawers for extra storage. The mattress is firm, the spread is a bright floral pattern, and the throw pillows are wide and comfortable.
Yep—IKEA on a Saturday morning. That’s me. It’s not exactly something I like to publicize, but this is what I do every time I fake a heartbreak. What better place to try to forget what’s wrong with me than here: a collection of perfect rooms, just like the rooms in the houses I want to design someday. Perfect houses for perfect families full of perfectly normal people.
That’s the dream.
I stay where I am through visits from a handful of other families who are interested in outfitting their homes. In the past, I’ve gone to a compact kitchen or one of IKEA’s cleverly designed space-friendly living rooms, but yesterday’s relationship dissolution propelled me here. There’s something comforting about the idea of eventually owning a home that I might want other people to visit. A place to be peaceful, a place to be proud of…
Until there’s an earthquake.
At least, that’s what I first think when I jolt awake, startled by the bed’s movement beneath me. Horribly aware that Southern California is a hotbed of geologic activity, I grab for the frame, jerk to an upright position, and scramble to remember the closest exit.
Except then the fog wisps away from my brain, and I realize three things all at once:
I was asleep in IKEA.
There was no earthquake after all.
Undateable Ardy Tate is sitting on the end of the bed, looking at me with undisguised curiosity.
“Sorry, Lark.” His eyes are wide and brown and blinky behind his dark-rimmed glasses. I notice the light freckles scattered across the pale skin of his nose. “I didn’t realize you were actually asleep.”
“I wasn’t.” Lie #1.
“I wasn’t trying to freak you out.”
“You didn’t.” Lie #2. Ardy is all kinds of cute and lanky and—let’s be honest—a little awkward as he perches beside me in his screen-printed tee and skinny khakis. I realize I have no idea what to say to him, and that’s the part that’s freaking me out because usually I know exactly what to say to a boy.
No, not usually. Always.
This double standard is how I know the universe is unfair: because Ardy Tate is labeled Undateable, when, despite all appearances to the contrary, it should be a description for me: Lark Dayton.
My third and fourth fingers are tapping against the bed frame, so I make a tight fist to still the movement. “What are you doing here?” I ask, before thinking the question through, because it’s definitely not one I want to answer in return.
“My mom sent me out for candles.” Ardy looks rueful. “And, yes, I know I’m nowhere near the candles. This place is a maze.”
“Tell me about it,” I say, grasping the lifeline he’s unintentionally thrown out for me. “My parents wanted me to get…napkins.”
“Napkins?”
“The cute striped ones,” I say, remembering a package my mother bought one time. “I ended up in Guest Rooms and needed to take a break.”
“It’s not for the faint of heart,” Ardy agrees. “I think napkins and candles are both in the Marketplace. You want to go find it?”
I nod because what else would I do, and moments later we’re winding our way past closet storage systems and toward the staircase. My fingers tap against the leather strap of my messenger bag, and I hazard a sideways glance up at Ardy. He’s tall—much taller than I am—with a sharply angled jawline and the finest dusting of shadow around his mouth. Maybe he doesn’t shave on weekends. I wouldn’t know, because this is the first time I’ve seen him outside of REACH High.
It’s October now; Ardy Tate transferred to my school at the beginning of our senior year, so I’ve only been aware of him for a couple of months. When he arrived, even though I was newly flirting with Rahim Antoun, I noticed that (a) Transfer Boy existed and (b) Transfer Boy was quirky-hot and seemed smart. At first I didn’t pay much attention to him because Rahim and I soon were finding places to make out on campus, and I was enjoying that New Boy rush. By the time Rahim and I stopped hanging out (after I invented superstrict parents who would never let me go anywhere with him), two new things had come to my attention: (c) Transfer Boy’s name was Ardy Tate, and (d) Ardy Tate was Undateable—something about an event that occurred at his old high school—plus, he was basically stapled to Hope B
urkett’s side. Hope’s boyfriend, Evan, is stapled to her other side, so supposedly she and Ardy aren’t together, but they seem like they are, and that’s enough for me. Although I may mess around with lots of guys, I do not go after those who belong to other people. Not by a long shot.
A girl has to maintain some ethics.
As we reach the bottom of the stairs, I can’t help asking the question. “What’s Hope doing today?”
Ardy looks confused. “I don’t know, homework or hanging out with Evan, probably. What’s Dax doing?”
His question throws me for a loop. Sure, Dax is the boyfriend who fake-broke my fake heart last night, but our short-term dalliance wasn’t front-page news or anything. Has Ardy been paying attention to who I date?
Or, rather, “date”?
“I don’t know,” I tell Ardy, because I don’t want to go there.
We step into the controlled chaos of the IKEA Marketplace: a tangle of aisles filled with interesting, low-priced items. The shelves closest to the stairs are brimming with galvanized metal wall letters, the type you buy separately so you can assemble them into words like FAMILY and LOVE and TOGETHERNESS to decorate your home.
There must have been elementary school–aged kids here earlier, because the top row currently spells out the word BUTT.
Ardy stops to play with the letters. “What should we say?” he asks, picking up an R and an E. “How should we leave our mark on the world?”
“I don’t know why we’d even try.” I point to the BUTT. “We can’t top that.”
“Clearly.” Ardy sets the E down and finds an L, then hands it to me. “Okay, just our names, then.”
Two minutes later Ardy’s name is spelled out in block letters on the upper shelf, and mine is along the left side, vertically, one letter to a shelf. Ardy nods approvingly at mine. “Top to bottom, I was not expecting that.”
“It’s more visually interesting,” I tell him, and then we leave our names there. Not together…but close.
When we find the candle section, Ardy grabs two of the wax pillars—a yellow and a blue—and juts them toward me. “You’re an excellent judge of beauty. Which color?”
Instead of looking at the candles, I gaze up into his dark eyes, deciding to fall back on my old comfortable standard: flirtation. I give him a wide smile. “What makes you think I know how to judge what’s pretty?”
I assume he’s going to say something about how I look—because that’s what boys do—but he doesn’t. Instead, his eyebrows make a tiny dive toward each other. He shrugs, taking a step back.
“You drive a pretty car, you have pretty hair, you date pretty boys.”
It’s not that he says it rudely; it’s that…
Well, maybe he does say it rudely. I can’t tell with Ardy Tate.
My face must give my thoughts away, because suddenly he looks awkward, maybe even a little concerned. “Sorry. Did I make it weird?”
“No—” I start to say (lie #3), but then stop because Ardy has raised both candles to the top of his head and is waggling them like alien antennae.
“This would be making it weird,” he tells me, solemn. It’s so stupid that a burst of laughter comes out of me before I can stop it. Ardy lowers the candles, grinning at me in return. “I’m going with blue.”
As he starts gathering blue candles, I quell my laughter, feeling unbalanced by the encounter. I point to another aisle. “Found the napkins. Thanks for the navigational assistance. I have to run. Meeting someone at the mall.”
And I escape. But not without looking back at Ardy…who hasn’t stopped looking at me.
Really? Ardy Tate?
* * *
I shove the bag of IKEA napkins into my messenger bag as I push through glass doors into the air-conditioned glossiness of the Burbank mall. We never came here last year while it was under construction, but since it’s become a sleek, modern building, the teens (and, sadly, the tweens) flock to it on weekends. Cooper is waiting for me right inside the entrance. His outfit—white trousers and a white Oxford—makes me roll my eyes. “Let me guess,” I say, and then switch to an overly polished British accent. “Brunching on the green with Ian?”
“You can stop that.” Cooper knows exactly what I’m doing. “There’s no brunch, there’s no green.”
“You look like you’re trying to make a sale at the Gap.” Which is true. This is my friend who’s been known to set off his Persian skin tone by lining his huge dark eyes with turquoise. I’ve seen him with a Mohawk, with a nose piercing, and, at one momentous middle school event, in a leopard-print tuxedo. But today he’s the buttoned-up version of himself. Even his hair has been slicked down with some sort of product. It’s as if his entire personality has been muffled.
“I happen to like the way I look.” Cooper strikes a pose. “I think I’m quite dapper.”
“True…” I take a quick visual survey of the nearby stores and then grab him by the shoulder, spinning him in the direction of a little indie clothing shop: Cali-Cool. “But usually when you want to be dapper, you wear something like that.”
Cooper’s eyes light up at the sight of the black T-shirt in the window. A bright rainbow soars across the chest, and underneath are the words NOT STRAIGHT.
“Oh, I would rock the pride out of that.”
“I know.” I motion to the Every Guy in the World outfit he’s currently wearing. “And yet…this.”
“There are many facets to my personality,” he tells me. “Sometimes I like to blend in.”
A voice comes from behind us: “Only when you’re with Ian.”
Cooper droops but stays where he is, continuing to face in the direction of the rainbow shirt. I spin to see my other best friend, Katie Levitt. Her creamy cheeks are brushed with peach blush, and her long blond hair has been newly blown out. I smile at her. “Cooper didn’t tell me that you were here, too.”
Beside me, Cooper exhales a short puff of air. “I was pretending it wasn’t true.”
Katie makes a face at the back of his head. “I ran into Captain Crabby at the food court. He let it slip that you were coming, so I stuck around.”
Cooper finally turns to look at both of us. “It wasn’t an invitation.”
“You don’t need one,” I assure Katie.
“She’s crashing our party,” Cooper insists.
As always, Katie is unfazed by him. “I’m invited to all the parties,” she tells us.
She’s not wrong. Not that I’m complaining. It doesn’t hurt my own popularity that one of my BFFs is absurdly gorgeous and has an unspoken season pass to everything.
Everything except—as far as Cooper is concerned—my friendship with him.
“What’s your problem with Ian, anyway?” Cooper asks her.
“I don’t have a problem with him.” Katie’s violet eyes go purposefully huge as she slides them toward me. “Do you, Lark?”
Well. That’s hardly fair. Cooper doesn’t need to hear a pile-on about Ian. “He’s fine,” I say. Cooper’s new boyfriend is so basic it hurts, but the last thing I want is to start a fight.
“That’s a lie,” Katie says.
“Speaking of lies…” Cooper pops his fists onto his hips and stares at me. It’s a challenge. “How’s Dax? Still hooking up with him?”
“No.” I lift my chin, knowing where this is going. “He broke up with me last night.”
“How could he break up with you?” Katie asks. “You weren’t really dating.”
Cooper doesn’t say anything, continuing to stare at me until—because he knows me better than anyone—I cave. “Fine. I might have given him a tiny push.”
“Please.” Cooper snorts. “You don’t give tiny pushes. You walk boys to the edges of cliffs and tell them to close their eyes before you shove them off.”
“Not true!” I retort.
<
br /> “So true,” Katie says. She cups her hands to her mouth and mimes shouting into a canyon. “Watch…your…step!”
“Whatever,” I say. “Let’s go look at that shirt.”
“In,” says Cooper.
Katie makes another face, but she tags along, and five minutes later we’re all critically scanning Cooper’s image in the clothing store’s mirror. He’s still in his boy-next-door trousers, but over them he’s now wearing the shirt from the shop window, and he’s jammed a scarlet fedora onto his head.
“See, there’s the Cooper I know,” I tell him. “You’re glorious.”
“This is true,” he returns. “Am I pulling off the hat?”
“You should take off the hat,” Katie says, and then laughs at her own wit.
Cooper and I roll our eyes at her. “You should get it,” I tell him.
He removes it to check the price tag, and when he does, his hair flies up with it. I think it’s adorable, but Cooper is horrified. He tosses me the hat so he can paw at his head, but—thanks to what must be an immense amount of product—his hair remains sticking straight up, a dark frizzy halo hovering above him. “I need lubricant,” he says.
“Gross,” Katie says.
“I mean water.”
As Cooper keeps messing with his hair, a familiar figure appears in the mirror behind us. I spin around to greet Glen Jackson with a squeal and a hug, which turns into a bit of a roller-coaster ride when he lifts me off the ground and spins around before setting me back down. When I catch my breath, I give him a playful slap on his giant biceps. “Glen! I didn’t know you work at the mall.”