Hearts Made for Breaking

by Jen Klein

  This time Principal Barlow doesn’t miss a beat. She calls out Shiri Crosby’s name. When it’s my turn to shake her hand, she makes eye contact and gives me a warm squeeze, like she’s done with everyone before me. She has no idea I’m the one orchestrating the off-script part of the event.

  I’m back in my seat when Cooper Felder earns a round of cheers for his cartwheel—which he somehow manages to do, even in his gown—before he smacks the next square onto the pole. Another turquoise one.

  Will Hartsook is the next to place a square. Yellow.

  I keeping my gaze firmly fastened on the podium, clapping loudly when Katie Levitt walks. I’m gratified to see that, a few rows up, Cooper is doing the same.

  It’s a while until Dax Santos takes the stage. He was the hardest sell, but eventually I convinced him. It may have had something to do with the photo of me shoveling horseshit that I printed on a canvas and signed for him. At first he laughed really hard, and then, finally, he agreed that I’d been put through enough.

  Now I watch closely as he stops in front of the flagpole. Dax pulls out his square and smacks it up there beneath the rest. Turquoise.

  Then he faces the audience and gives a full-body eye roll before trotting off the stage. Around me the whispers start anew. “Is it a football thing?” “Spirit club?” “No one asked me to do it.”

  That last comment was from Jessica Dent, but I don’t answer. I can’t, because Ardy Tate is now in line to get his diploma. I can’t, because this may be the last time that I can unabashedly stare at him, that I can admire his tall, lanky figure and the angle of his jawline and the swoop of hair cresting back from his forehead. I wonder if he has figured it out, what the squares mean. I wonder if he’s amused or touched…or if he’s angry and resentful. Or maybe he’s focused on graduating and doesn’t care about the culmination prank of a high school he barely attended.

  “Gerard Tate,” Principal Barlow says into her microphone, and Ardy swings across the stage.

  Watching him, everything inside me hurts.

  Ardy doesn’t pause at the flagpoles. He does the shake-and-take, then keeps right on going. The only time he stops is right before he descends the steps, and it’s not to look at me. It’s to gaze out into the audience and give a fast nod, I assume to his mom.

  He doesn’t see that I’m clapping so hard my hands sting.

  It’s ten more minutes before the last student is waiting at the edge of the stage. It’s Joe Zola, who I flirted with last year but never kissed. When I approached him this week about helping me, he was startled and amused…and he had a question. “Why didn’t we ever hang out?”

  “You didn’t seem interested,” I told him.

  “We weren’t in the same classes. I never really knew you.”

  I looked up at him, realizing something as I said it: “I didn’t really know any of the guys I hung out with.”

  “That’s a bummer.” Joe gave me a slow smile. “A lot of nice guys here.”

  Now, as I watch him cross the stage, I know he’s right.

  Principal Barlow speaks his name—“Giovanni Zola”—and they shake hands. Joe accepts his diploma and heads off the stage, stopping at the edge. A moment later a final square graces the flagpole. This one is bright pink. A splashy break in what was shaping up to be a familiar pattern. Familiar to me, at least, and hopefully one other person.

  If Ardy got it. Who knows.

  As Principal Barlow waits for Joe to get back to his seat, I tap the pattern against my left leg, for good luck. Then I silently forgive my parents—or at least I try. I can’t explain why they keep choosing the worst version of themselves, but I know I can’t break their pattern. I can only break my own.

  I hope.

  Principal Barlow leans forward toward the microphone, a big smile on her face, to pronounce us all “commenced.” There’s a hushed expectation throughout the gymnasium. The families are ready to stand and applaud and take pictures. The seniors are ready to cheer and throw their hats in the air….

  Except Principal Barlow doesn’t have a chance to say anything, since suddenly the giant screen behind her comes to life. It must cast a glow over her podium; she stops speaking before she’s even started. She turns around to see what the rest of us are looking at.

  It’s a video that is now dozens of yards high, on full display for everyone here.

  “What the hell is that?” Jessica Dent asks.

  “That’s a fractal,” I tell her. Because, thanks to Peter Talbot, we are all watching a swirl of rainbow colors grow in an ever-expanding, ever-evolving, ever-the-same pattern. “We learned it in Calculus.”

  “Okay, but why?” Jessica asks.

  I don’t answer her. I don’t need to; the words I wrote are about to do it for me. They appear, starting tiny from the bottom of the screen in a slow scroll à la Star Wars, because of course that’s how Peter would program it.

  On the edge of the stage, Principal Barlow is engaged in an animated whispered conference with Assistant Principal Longley and Ms. Cole, whose job has something to do with the school computers. Ms. Cole is gesturing around the gymnasium while both principals shake their heads violently. I don’t know who’s fighting for what, but it doesn’t matter. My message has crawled up high enough to be visible to all:

  REACH high and break all patterns.

  The gymnasium explodes into applause, since of course it seems like a celebratory message to the first-ever graduating class of REACH.

  Those words continue their scroll up the screen, and suddenly there’s a stark, cold terror in my chest. Every heartbeat pumps ice instead of blood. I’m horrified by what I’ve done, but there’s no way to stop it now. It’s already happening.

  But I don’t have to watch it.

  I jerk to my feet and start to edge out of my row.

  “What are you doing?” Jessica whispers.

  “I have to pee,” I tell her.

  I could have ended it right here, with the pattern and the fractal and the message. Ardy probably would have known it was me. Or maybe he wouldn’t have, but at least the rest of our class and the teachers and our families wouldn’t have, either. But now they will. When Cooper and I came up with the idea, I wanted to do the scariest thing possible. I wanted Ardy to see me being my most honest and my most exposed.

  And, frankly, my most weird.

  I head across the wide expanse of gym floor between the senior seats and the double doors we all marched through an hour ago. I’m about there when the final words pop onto the screen. I don’t turn to look, but I know it’s happened, because there’s a collective gasp from the hundreds of people in the giant room.

  I love you, Ardy Tate.

  I’m sorry.

  #larkkarma

  As I yank the doors open, Principal Barlow’s voice echoes from the speakers:

  “As seems only appropriate for the individual and creative nature of our fine school, that was, uh, an unorthodox ending to our graduation. And now please join me in congratulating the graduating class of—”

  That’s when the doors slam shut behind me.

  I go to the flagpoles outside because it seems like the natural place to wait for Ardy, but when after fifteen minutes he still hasn’t shown up and I’ve fielded several very confused texts from my parents, I head for my car. Everyone is going to start coming out of the gym soon, and I don’t want to answer the questions. I don’t want congratulations or reprimands.

  I just want Ardy.

  I slide behind the wheel and then shoot him a text:

  Call me.

  Of course, I don’t know if he’ll get it. He might have blocked me, after all. He might even have done it in the fifteen minutes since I put his name in ten-foot-tall letters for everyone to see.

  Ardy’s street is quiet when I pull onto it. There’s no minivan in his
driveway, so I park in front of his house to wait. Except he’s not the one who comes home.

  Hope is.

  Her parents’ sedan pulls into her driveway, and all three of them get out. I slink down in my seat, but of course she’s already seen my car. I watch her have a conversation with her dads before they go into their house and she heads toward me. I get out to meet her.

  Hope stops a few feet away. Her hair is even shinier and blacker than usual against the yellow of her gown. We regard each other for a long moment until she breaks the silence.

  “Ballsy.”

  “Necessary.”

  “Get this: Evan wants to get back together.”

  Well, that’s news. “Are you going to?”

  “I don’t think so.” She gives me a half smile. “I don’t think it’ll ever be right with him, and I don’t want to die a virgin.”

  “I don’t either.” I return her half smile. “At least I want to know if I am or not.” My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I reach underneath my robe to find it.

  “I’m always going to be friends with Ardy,” Hope tells me.

  “Good.” I locate my phone and pull it out.

  “That’s all it is,” she continues. “But I’m not going away.”

  “I don’t want you to,” I tell her. “One of the best things about him is how he does friendship.” I check my screen for the text that just came through. There are no words, only a photo. I look back up at Hope, my half smile growing into a giant grin.

  “I have to go.”

  “Good luck.”

  Although I’m sure she meant it all along, this is the first time I actually believe it.

  * * *

  Ardy Tate is standing at the railing, looking out over the valley, when I arrive on the Ridge patio. I’m far enough away that he couldn’t have heard me among the chatter and the clinking of silverware of the diners, but he turns around anyway. He watches me thread my way between the tables and chairs to him.

  I had pulled off my gown as I was handing over my car to the valet. I’m surprised to see that Ardy is still wearing his.

  I can’t stop myself from asking the question.

  “You didn’t want to take that off?”

  Amusement shines from his brown eyes. “You know there was talk of the senior class going naked under the robes, right?”

  “I did. Sounds unhygienic.” I look down to where I can see his shoes peeking out from beneath the hem of the gown. Surely, surely, Ardy is wearing clothes under there….

  His voice brings my head back up. “That was a ballsy move.”

  “Funny, that’s what Hope said.”

  “I’m always going to be friends with her.”

  “She said that, too.” I gaze at him, trying to make my sincerity visible on my face. “I want that for you both.”

  “I got a text today.”

  “Yeah?”

  “From Trissa.” For the first time in what seems like forever, he smiles. “She apologized for not hearing me out after the forest fiasco.”

  Warmth blossoms inside my chest. “I’m glad.”

  “Me too.” His smile doesn’t waver. “Another ballsy move on your part.”

  I shrug. Everything I’ve done seems more desperate than ballsy.

  “And weird,” Ardy continues, stepping closer. “Really weird.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I also take a step toward him. “I think maybe I’m weirder than you think I am.”

  “Nah.” He cocks his head, staring at me. “I think maybe you’re exactly as weird as I think you are.”

  “I’m sorry.” I reach out to touch his wrist. “I should have been honest with you from the beginning. About everything.”

  “Honesty is hard.” He finds the zipper at the top of his graduation gown and starts tugging it down. Okay, he has to be wearing clothes, because there’s no way Ardy Tate is about to get naked at this restaurant. I keep my eyes on his face. On his thick dark hair and his angled jawline and the sunlight glancing off the frames of his glasses.

  I can’t believe how badly I messed things up with this boy, or how badly I want him now.

  Ardy’s zipper reaches the bottom of his gown, and he looks back into my eyes. “Want to see?”

  There’s no way to answer, because, truthfully, no matter what’s under there, the answer is yes. I swallow and nod.

  Ardy pulls his robe open and shrugs it off his shoulders, revealing ripped indigo jeans and a plain white T-shirt. Except it’s not plain. Written on it in thick black lettering is a sentence. It’s broken up and posted vertically, in chunks, with some of the letters missing:

  I tear my eyes up from the shirt. A small smile crosses Ardy’s face. “Can you read what’s missing?”

  I nod, an absurdly huge grin forming across my face. Ardy was planning to give me a message, too. Each of us was trying to tell the other the same thing. “Too cheesy?” he asks.

  “I think it might be perfect,” I tell him. “Also, I love you, too.”

  And then Ardy’s mouth is on mine. It’s warm and delicious and perfect. It’s better than every other kiss that’s ever happened, because this time nothing is blurry.

  Everything is crystal clear.

  Finally.

  There was this time when I spent three years as a writer on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy. Three years knowing and loving (and sometimes fighting) and working (and sometimes crying) with a big, wonderful, dysfunctional, and yet fully functional group of writers whose names are, INPO*: Bill and Stacy and Naser and Ariel and Dan and Jim and Michelle and Zoanne and Lauren and Azia and Nayna and Charles and Jalysa and Bridgette and Parriott and Ellen and Fred and Austin and Barbara-Friend-who-really-likes-seeing-her-name-in-a-book and Andy and Meg and Tia and Drizz and Finch and Darren and Shonda.

  I wrote four books while hanging out with these nerds. This is the last one, and the reason I need to give some extra-special love to my sweet gingers—Karin Gist and Elizabeth Klaviter—who still talk me through the days when the world spins in the wrong direction. Thank you.

  Also, a heaping dose of gratitude to the following:

  My shining-star editor, Chelsea Eberly, for asking the hard questions and helping find answers.

  Lisa Gallagher, who continues to be an agent extraordinaire.

  The whole team of wonderful, talented, supportive people at Random House: Mallory Loehr, Michelle Nagler, Jenna Lettice, Barbara Bakowski, Angela Carlino, and Josh Redlich.

  Racer’s Edge in Burbank, California. Especially that guy named Drew who gave me a tour of the facility.

  Sky Falconry near San Diego. They’re all about raptor education and conservation, plus you can fly a bird of prey in real life.

  Everyone who participated in the “Ship Name” game on Twitter, but the loudest shout-out to Samantha Sirsky for #Heaven.

  My friend and fellow writer Clyde Morgan—on behalf of us all, thank you for the story about your unfortunate kiss. You will always be Snapper Doodle to me.

  One more thing: The original concept for this book wasn’t a game but rather a bet. It was loosely based on a thing that happened a long time ago with now-theatre-teacher Maria Used-to-Be-Smith Moore. Yes, it was about boys. No, I won’t tell you what it was. Neither will she.

  * INPO means “in no particular order.”

  JEN KLEIN is the author of Shuffle, Repeat; Summer Unscripted; and Hearts Made for Breaking. When she’s not writing YA novels, Jen is an Emmy-nominated television writer. She’s written on Grey’s Anatomy and Star and is currently writing on the series The Resident. Jen lives in Los Angeles.

  jenkleinbooks.com

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