Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things

by Jacqueline Firkins

  Edie glowered, suspecting Henry had more than help on his mind.

  “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I’m strictly transportation.”

  “I find that hard to believe. Unless you have a broad definition of transportation.”

  “Transportation, maybe, but I have a very clear definition of consent.” Henry leaned close to Edie and lowered his voice. “Besides, there’s a ticking time bomb I need to help detonate.” He nodded toward Maria and Rupert where they stood halfway across the living room, him babbling cheerfully, her keeping a close eye on Henry. “Oh, wait. I forgot. ‘They have plans.’”

  “You’re malignant.” Edie stepped away.

  “You’re wonderful.” Julia burrowed into his neck.

  With a broad grin and a mischievous wink at Edie, Henry set off toward the bathroom with Julia still wrapped around him. Not trusting him with either cousin, Edie scoured the party until she found one of Julia’s friends to play chaperone. She planted the girl outside the bathroom with strict instructions to be on the lookout for a hot guy with tight clothes and loose morals. Then she confirmed that Maria was safely parked next to Rupert. They were showing photos of their prospective summer house to some friends, not a time bomb in sight. Meanwhile, Henry had been swept into a group of college girls who were practically leaping on top of each other for a chance to entertain him.

  Crises at least temporarily averted, Edie attempted to approach Sebastian and Claire for the hundredth time that night. Things didn’t have to be weird between the three of them. They were all friends. Edie’d simply merge in with whatever discussion they were having. No big deal. She was halfway across the living room when Sebastian leaned down to nuzzle Claire’s nose. Edie stopped short. Okay. Things were weird. She instantly initiated plan B: escape from the party. She’d spent enough time watching Sebastian give his smile to someone else and Henry give his smile to everyone else. Julia was drunk. Maria was occupied. The rest of the Saint Pen’s girls were scattered through the house with their classmates and dates. If Edie was going to be lonely, she’d rather be alone.

  She pushed her way through the crowd and stepped onto the back patio, filling her lungs with warm night air. A few of Rupert’s friends were smoking in the corner and a couple was making out on the steps that led down to the yard, but a circle of empty chairs beckoned at the far end of the lawn. She followed a winding brick path toward what turned out to be an empty fire pit. There she folded herself into a wicker rocking chair and added a post to her lexicon.

  Vanish

  verb

  Recede from view, become nothing.

  Like car-ish, but bigger.

  Act of disappearance you crave whenever you don’t fit in, but you’re not sure how to reconcile the idea of wanting to become nothing with the reality of wanting to become something. Or someone.

  Edie stared at the screen, willing it to light up with a reply.

  Her screen faded to black, as unresponsive as always.

  She leaned back and watched the stars for several minutes. They were clear here, twenty miles from the center of Mansfield. She located the Big Dipper, Orion, the Seven Sisters, and a few constellations she invented herself, pictures and stories made of speckled light: a bird, a hand, a series of music notes, maybe even the face of her mom.

  Who would you be if you could be anyone? she thought as she searched the sky for inspiration. Cassiopeia? No, too vain. Andromeda? Too helpless. A nameless girl made entirely of stars and sky? Possibly.

  Edie smiled. She’d felt so small in Norah’s house, so clumsily large at school, and so insignificant in Rupert’s, but out here in all this space, for the first time since she’d reached Mansfield, she felt exactly the right size.

  Chapter Eleven

  * * *

  Edie snapped awake in the wicker chair. Her head was canted back at an awkward angle, her back was arched, and her hands were pressed between her thighs. She glanced around, frantic, jerking her head like a meerkat scanning the tundra. She was sitting alone in Rupert’s backyard while the party continued inside and around the house, too far away for witnesses. Thank god.

  Her dream had unfolded slowly, gently, almost like a ritual. Sebastian held her and kissed her neck, her back, her stomach . . . lower than her stomach. His hands ran down the sides of her body, tracing her rib cage the way he’d traced the top of the picket fence, his fingers exploring every little ridge and ripple, lingering like he was committing her entire body to memory. His touch didn’t quite tickle but it did make her twitch, unexpected and electric. More important, he looked at her in a way she’d always wanted to be looked at: like he really saw her and he was happy with what he saw. The whole experience was breathlessly beautiful, except that it happened at Disneyland for some reason, probably because her cousins’ Cinderella obsession had recently resurfaced, thanks to a pair of shiny shoes.

  As the warm night air blew across the sweat on Edie’s neck and shoulders, sending a not entirely unpleasant shiver down her spine, she came to three conclusions:

  Liking a guy was way more complicated at seventeen than when she was ten and expressed her interest by leaving little presents in the tree branches.

  If she didn’t at least kiss someone by graduation she might overheat in her sleep and burn down her bedroom.

  Nothing ruined a perfectly good sex scene like the arrival of a creepy theme park mascot, unless you were into that kind of thing.

  The vividness of Edie’s dream soon receded as she glazed over at the night sky and tried to reclaim the just-the-right-size feeling she’d had before falling asleep.

  “‘Oh, bright star,’” she recited absently. “‘Would I were as steadfast as thou art.’”

  “Keats,” said a low but gentle voice. “Even I know that one.”

  Edie spun toward the voice. Sebastian stood beside her, his smile mirroring the crescent moon, his head haloed by starlight, his loose linen clothes rippling in the breeze.

  “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.” He pulled out a chair and sat down. “I have a bad habit of doing that.”

  Edie scanned the yard, searching for Claire, but Sebastian was alone. She was glad they’d finally have a chance to talk, but she wasn’t sure an intimate conversation was the best idea while she still felt the imprint of his hands on her skin. Could he tell? He could totally tell. Was there such a thing as post-sex-dream face? Oh, god, of course there was. It probably even had an emoji and a hashtag.

  “How are the shoes?” he asked.

  “They’re having a blast. They love a good party.”

  He smiled, which meant she blushed, grateful for the darkness.

  “I mean, how are you doing in the shoes?”

  “Actually, I’m getting used to them, which I feel kinda weird about.” She rotated an ankle, sending a ripple of moonlight across the buckles. “Today: cozy in heels. Tomorrow: mani-pedis with the Ladies Who Lunch Club.”

  He leaned back, kicked out his long legs, and balanced one foot atop the other.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re still you, even in the fancy shoes.”

  “Stop being nice.”

  “Stop being smart.”

  He smiled again but Edie couldn’t quite smile back. His teasing tone hadn’t changed since they were kids, but the implications behind it were different now. She turned toward the house where silhouettes of people chatting, dancing, and making out filled each illuminated window, casting their shifting shadows onto the lawn like a page from a comic book. Edie was reluctant to return to the throng but she knew she shouldn’t sit there alone with Sebastian, amassing more almosts, feeding her crush. She started to stand while still forming a departure excuse that didn’t involve the word thing.

  “I brought you a quote,” Sebastian said. “As promised.”

  Edie sat back down, her resolve yanked out from under her in an instant. She seriously had to work on that.

  “It took me a while to find something you might not have in your coll
ection, and to memorize it.” Sebastian tipped his head back and gazed up at the sky. His words came out softly, sweetly, the way his kisses always felt in Edie’s dreams. “A quote about quotes. ‘I envy my words once spoken, for they’re closer to your ear, closer to your heart than I am. They live, inked in your memory, when I’m absent. They tiptoe through your dreams when you sleep, and if you speak my words, they’ll lie more softly still upon your lips, where I have yet to dwell. My words go where I cannot and I’ll never forgive them their trespasses.’”

  Edie’s last shred of willpower completely vanished as images of trespassing lips swam across her brain.

  “Two for three,” she said, full of wants that had no words at all. “Who said that?”

  “I’m not telling. I’m simply going to enjoy the fact that I gave you something you didn’t find on your own.” A triumphant smile crept across his face, still turned to the sky.

  “It should be a song,” Edie said, already hearing a tune form. “It sounds like lyrics, but so do most things. To me, anyway. Do other people think in lyrics or do most people think in prose?”

  “It probably depends on your medium.” He rolled his head toward her. “Maybe mathematicians think in numbers and artists think in colors. Maybe Picasso spent an entire day thinking, Blue, pink, brown, eyeball, ochre, ear.”

  Edie laughed as her eyes trailed to the spot where Sebastian’s hand gently gripped his armrest, inches from hers, not unlike the “hell of a held hand” she’d mentioned from The Age of Innocence. Two sets of fingers that slowly laced together, finding what connection they could in the limited time available, a moment so painfully brief but so ecstatically electric, bursting through all the off-limits things. A quickening of breath, an exploration of skin. Fingers, palms, wrists. That was it, but that was everything.

  “What do writers think in?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet. Coffee shops, apparently.”

  As they exchanged a smile, she inched her hand closer to his, convinced he wouldn’t have shared a quote about dwelling on lips unless he’d at least thought about kissing her. Okay, so he had a girlfriend, and, yes, Edie really wanted to prove she’d learned something from what she did to Shonda, but this was different. She had real feelings for Sebastian and he obviously felt something for her. Besides, his hand was right there. She could simply brush his pinky with hers. If he flinched away she could say it was an accident and never touch him again, ever, but if he didn’t flinch away—

  A shadow fell over their hands, one that smelled like expensive perfume and cheap buzzkill.

  “Hey, handsome.” Claire stepped up behind his chair. “Oh, Edie! I didn’t see you there. You’re so quiet sometimes, it’s easy to overlook you. I’ll try not to do that again.”

  “I’ll try to be less overlook-able,” Edie muttered. “Save you the trouble.”

  Claire’s eyes narrowed, barely, but enough to make Edie acutely aware that her impulsive response might’ve turned an already strained friendship into an actual rivalry, one she had no chance of winning. She felt ashamed of herself. What was she doing out here, talking about dwelling on lips and thinking about holding hands? Claire and Sebastian were happy together. Edie needed to leave him alone before she ruined not just one friendship but two.

  While she tried to decide if bolting would make her private convo with Sebastian seem unnecessarily suspicious, Claire leaned against his chair and draped an arm around his shoulders, looking all sexy with her Wonder Woman hair, her sparkly little mini-dress, and her impossibly long legs, crossed at the ankle above a pair of heels Edie could only imagine wearing while lying down.

  “What were you two talking about?” Claire asked. “Out here? All alone? Under the stars?”

  Edie said, “Coffee shops,” as Sebastian said, “Picasso.”

  “Interesting.” Claire smoothed a wrinkle in his shirt. “Did I miss anything especially illuminating?”

  “Not especially.” Sebastian linked his hand through hers and smiled up at her sweetly, but his expression twitched as if part of his brain was working through complex equations or conjugating irregular verbs.

  “Actually, we were just looking at the stars,” Edie offered.

  Claire chuckled softly.

  “Don’t tell Henry you’re a stargazer. He’ll start rattling off poetry about velvet nights and spangled skies.”

  “Your brother likes poetry?” Sebastian darted a glance at Edie.

  “My brother likes anything he can use on girls. Why else would anyone read all those stuffy old writers, except to pass AP English?”

  Sebastian shifted his focus to his armrest, where his fingers drummed away, agitated. Edie tried to catch his eye but he wouldn’t look up. Why wasn’t he saying anything? He loved all those “stuffy old writers.” When the silence went on too long to bear, she leapt in.

  “Sebastian’s going to be a—”

  “Lawyer.” He shut her down with a look.

  “And a damned good one.” Claire blinked down at him, confused. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “It doesn’t.” Sebastian drew Claire into his lap and quickly diverted the topic by pointing out patterns in the sky, playing into Edie’s suggestion that they’d simply been stargazing.

  Edie almost fell out of her chair as the truth smacked her sideways. Yesterday when Sebastian said he was worried about fulfilling everyone else’s expectations instead of his own, he wasn’t just talking about his parents. He was talking about Claire, too. Holy crap. Maybe Claire and Sebastian weren’t that happy. For two people who always had their hands all over each other, they clearly had some issues. Edie had no idea how much Sebastian hid from Claire, or what motivated him to hide anything at all, but she knew one thing for certain: she needed to let them sort it out for themselves.

  “I should go check on Julia,” she announced as she stood. “She over-spritzered herself tonight.”

  “No kidding.” Claire chuckled again. “Last time I saw her she was practically molesting Henry.”

  “I’m sure Henry can take care of himself.”

  “Yes, but he’d be much happier if you took care of him.” Claire smiled archly.

  Edie bit back a diatribe on all the ways she’d really like to take care of Henry, most of them involving sharp objects, toxic substances, or one-way tickets out of Mansfield. She was searching for a way to condense all that into what she hoped would come out as a brilliantly cutting retort when she noticed Sebastian eyeing her intently, as if he was hanging on her response. He really needed to stop doing that. She could almost interpret his interest as, well, interest.

  “You need a ride later?” he asked.

  Edie hesitated, still drawn in by any hint that he wanted to be near her. She quickly shook off the thought. He lived next door. He was only being polite. He was cradling his girlfriend in his lap, for god’s sake. One hand was on her bare thigh. The other was tucked under her shoulder strap. She was rotating her body toward him with a bent knee creeping up his chest. They were seconds away from stripping each other naked and going at it, right there in the goddamn chair.

  “I’ll, um, get one of Maria’s friends to drive me,” Edie stammered as she stepped away. Her heel slipped off the side of the brick path, making her wobble and undercutting her attempt to make a smooth getaway. “You guys have fun.”

  “Don’t worry. We will.” Claire leaned toward Sebastian with a hand on either side of his face.

  Just before their lips met, Edie turned and fled.

  Chapter Twelve

  * * *

  Edie crouched at the side of Rupert’s house, her back pressed against the rough wood siding, her shoes full of bark bits. She deep-breathed through her frustration while pep-talking herself into returning to the party. She hated that she was so upset—or in Norah’s words, “being temperamental”—but she had to feel what she had to feel. There was no way around it. Thinking Sebastian was dating the perfect girl had been hard enough. Knowing he ch
ose to be with someone he had to hide his goals and interests from? Way worse. Edie should’ve steered clear of him from the moment she found out he was in a relationship. Better yet, she should’ve followed her mom’s advice about never falling in love in the first place. But was that possible? What if love wasn’t always a choice? What if it just happened? Like chickenpox, mildew, or Wednesday?

  Edie was still cycling through a thousand questions when Henry, Maria, and Rupert exited the house onto the back patio a few yards to Edie’s right. Edie edged her way behind a rhododendron, anxious to avoid Maria’s scolding about how she was hiding from the party instead of joining in on all the fun everyone kept talking about but didn’t always seem to be having.

  Through a network of leaves, Edie watched as Maria perched sidesaddle on the balustrade while Henry and Rupert settled themselves on either side of her.

  “I told you you could see a million stars out here,” Maria said.

  “And I’m not disappointed in the view.” Henry locked his eyes on Maria.

  “The view’s better farther from the city,” Rupert babbled cheerfully, “not that we’re in the city but we could be farther, or not as far, but you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, sweetheart,” Maria cooed. “We know what you mean.”

  “The city lights block the stars, which are also lights, I guess, though not like the lights on the houses, or like the streetlights, but maybe brighter, but—”

  “I’m a bit chilly.” Maria rubbed her bare arms. “Rupert, will you please fetch my coat? It’s in the pile on the bed.”

  “You bet. Can’t have my girl getting goose bumps.” He turned to go. Then he turned back again. “What does it look like? Your coat, of course. I know what a goose bump is.”

  “It’s black. With a zipper. You can’t miss it.”