Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things

by Jacqueline Firkins

  “Actually”—Sebastian’s glance scurried across the faces around him—“there’s been a change of plans.”

  Claire stopped shuffling cards. Everyone went still. Even the birds and the breezes seemed to go on high alert. Edie got the unnerving sense she was about to witness firsthand why Sebastian didn’t always tell his girlfriend the full truth about his goals, and why Claire might be less than thrilled with her boyfriend’s lack of candor.

  “My friends are renting a brownstone in Bushwick.” He gripped the arms of his chair, released them, and gripped them again. “They offered me a room for next year.”

  Claire’s expression hardened.

  “You’re kidding,” she said.

  “It’s a cool place.” He wrapped both hands around his glass and wiped away condensation with his thumbs. “It has big bay windows, a working fireplace, and enough bedrooms to fit five of us.”

  “Five of you?!” Claire blinked rapidly.

  Sebastian sank a little lower in his chair.

  Sensing both of their agony, Edie jumped in to fill the silence.

  “My mom played a few open mic nights in that area. It’s pretty great, actually. Old buildings, awesome graffiti, endless fire escapes. There was an antique shop on—”

  “Edie, please.” Claire flashed her a palm. “This has nothing to do with you.”

  Edie clamped her jaw shut and seethed. Henry gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze. Sebastian started to protest but Claire quickly cut him off.

  “You’re seriously going to live in a glorified frat house in Brooklyn?” she asked through a strained smile. “Why?”

  “I’m tired of owing my stepdad so much, of feeling like I have to do what he wants. I’d rather get a place I can afford on my own.”

  Edie felt a surge of pride that Sebastian was finally standing up for himself and making his own choices, though she wasn’t sure he’d chosen the best time to reveal them, especially now that Claire’s knuckles were whitening against the deck of cards.

  “What’s so awful about being comfortable?” Claire asked.

  “What’s so awful about being independent?” Sebastian countered.

  “People should only slum it they have no choice. No offense, Edie.”

  Edie leapt up, ready to snap, but Henry stood with her.

  “That’s our cue to depart,” he said.

  “I didn’t mean—” Claire started.

  “You never do,” Henry said, his tone surprisingly clipped, “but I promised Edie we’d have some alone time.”

  As Edie pushed back her chair, grateful to get the hell out of there, Henry bent down and swept her up, flinging her legs over his elbow so she was cradled in his arms. She grabbed his neck and held on tight as he carried her across the patio, pausing at the top of the steps and turning back toward the others.

  “You kids have a swell evening,” he said. “I hope it’s real ‘comfortable.’ No offense, Claire.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  * * *

  “Sorry about my sister.” Henry set Edie down near the front corner of the Vernons’ house. “No one deserves to be talked to like that.”

  “Thanks. For real.” Edie straightened her shirt, or rather his shirt, still scented with foresty, Henry-ish smells. “And that was quite an exit.”

  “Call that an exit?” Henry glanced past her shoulder toward the Summerses’ backyard, where Claire and Sebastian were still sitting at the card table, arguing out of earshot. “They’re watching. They’re acting like they’re not, but neither of them can bluff to save their lives. I had to blow a few hands just to keep the game going.” He chuckled softly, but as he turned toward Edie, his expression shifted to a slow, suggestive smolder. “Should we give them a grand finale?”

  Edie met his gaze, equal parts anxious and intrigued. As heat crept up her neck, she fixed her attention on a shirt button that didn’t need any attention.

  “I think I’m done,” she said. “That stopped being fun about half an hour ago.” Though she had to admit, she’d enjoyed the way Henry took her side, ready to bite back against Claire in a way no one else either would or could. Edie was insulted, she was angry, and she didn’t want to play any more games, but she found herself surprisingly reluctant to say goodbye to Henry, or was that his shirt talking?

  “Ten more minutes,” he suggested.

  “Five.”

  “Seven and a half.”

  “Six and a quarter.”

  “Agreed.”

  They shook on it. Then Henry set his hands on her waist, backed her up against the side of the house, and tipped his forehead against hers. The action took her totally off-guard, like zooming in from panoramic to close-up in two seconds flat. Really close up. Amber speckles in umber irises close-up.

  “I’m not going to kiss you,” she said, a little breathless despite her best effort to appear as calm and collected as he did.

  “And I’m not going to kiss you, but I’d appreciate it if you took your hands off your hips. Otherwise this’ll look like the world’s worst make-out session and I have a reputation to uphold.”

  She set her hands on his shoulders, letting them flop there, limp-wristed, fingers dangling, in a move she silently dubbed Dead Bunny Paws.

  “How did I let you talk me into this?” she asked.

  “Let’s get one thing clear.” He laid a hand against her cheek, gentle but unmoving, a touch that was merely for show. “This non-make-out session is a non-coerced, non-forced activity. If anything doesn’t feel like a non-coerced, non-forced activity, you’ll say so and said activity—or non-activity—will immediately cease.”

  Edie nodded.

  “Good.” His hand shifted against her cheek. Barely. “Now that the official business is out of the way, go left.”

  She mechanically tilted her head to the left. He stifled a laugh.

  “Not very convincing,” he said.

  “I’ve never really”—her shoulders inched up—“you know, with a guy.”

  “You’ve never not made out with a guy before? I’m shocked!” Henry’s eyes danced.

  Edie forced her shoulders to relax. He was having fun with this. Why couldn’t she?

  “You know what I mean,” she said. “And I’ve seen you, with other girls . . .”

  “Only when the interest is mutual.” His hand slid from her waist to her hip where his thumb laced through her belt loop and inched her closer, just for show. Maybe. “Is the interest mutual?”

  “No!” She laughed, unsure if anything was funny or if her nerves were trying to escape through their only possible outlet.

  “But you do want to fake it?” He lowered his head so his eyes were level with hers.

  She exhaled, bracing for an extensive internal debate about lies, longing, and a hundred uncertainties around how Henry fit into all that. But there he was, standing so close with his flirty smile and his beautiful body and his warm hands, and wouldn’t it be kinda great to just enjoy all that for a few minutes?

  “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

  “Then let’s try to make it look a little more believable.”

  “Right. Okay.” She blew out another breath as the hands that’d been resting so innocently on his shoulders began to explore nearby territory. Damn, those were brazen hands, and damn, those were nice shoulders. “You’re not going to suggest I moan or anything are you?”

  “You can if you want to.” His hand wove through her hair, slow, calming, but not.

  She leaned into his caress. It seemed like the believable thing to do.

  “I don’t want to,” she said.

  “Then don’t. Go right.”

  She tilted her head to the right, slightly less mechanically this time. His knee slid past hers, brushing the outside of her thigh as his body drew closer.

  “Moaning wouldn’t have much impact,” he said. “They can’t hear us from over there.”

  “So I can say anything?”

  “Anything.”

&
nbsp; “Man walks into a bar. Ouch.” She ran her hands along his arms, finding the hollows where one muscle ended and another started. Damn, they were nice arms, too.

  He smiled, a little bit demon/vampire, a little bit slime on rice, and a little bit just plain gorgeous.

  “Giraffe walks into a bar,” he said. “Orders a longneck.” His fingers wrapped the edge of her waistband, barely grazing her skin.

  She shivered. Seventy-degrees-in-the-sun shivered. Dreams-that-twisted-sheets shivered. No-way-to-hide-that-one shivered.

  “Photographer walks into a bar. Orders a round of shots.” She traced the edges of his biceps, feeling him tense under her touch. There was strength in those arms, and something clenched, held back, waiting to burst.

  “Go left.” His cheek swept hers as they swapped sides. His breath tickled her ear. His fingers continued pitter-patting a slow, irregular beat at the edge of her jeans. His thumb stroked her hip bone, probably not for show. “Wheel rolls into a bar. It’d fallen off the wagon.”

  Her hands crept down his back and slipped under the hem of his shirt.

  “Lumberjack walks”—she drew a line along his spine—“into a bar” —collecting the little beads of sweat that trickled downward. “Orders a logger.”

  He tipped his forehead against hers again, his dark eyes inches away. He was breathing faster now. They both were. Her mind swam, unable to lock on a single clear thought. Eyes. Skin. Heat. Hands. We all want things, he’d said to her once, and she did want things. The tension she’d built up over the poker game was gone now, replaced by an inexplicable but intense desire to melt against Henry’s body, to stop holding things in, to stop questioning and defining things. A desire to just be.

  “Should I go right?” She held still as Maria’s words rang in her ears. Kissing Henry was amazing. Amazing. Amazing.

  He shook his head.

  “Stay where you are. For ten.” His hand wrapped the back of her neck, cupping her head and tilting it toward his. “Nine.”

  She drew him closer with both palms pressed against his back, one sliding up and the other sliding down.

  “Eight.”

  She gripped his belt. He gripped her hair. Her breath caught in her throat.

  “Seven.” His hips met hers, barely, but enough to make one thing abundantly clear. “Six.” His gaze never faltered. “Five.”

  The tip of her nose brushed his. And stayed there.

  “Four.”

  Was that her pulse or was someone driving by with really loud bass music?

  “Three.”

  Was spontaneous combustion a real thing?

  “Two.”

  Those eyes, those demon/vampire, seduce-their-prey eyes. Good god, why were they still staring like that and why did his hands feel so strong and his skin feel so warm and his breath, his heat, his smell, and she leaned forward to close the distance and set her lips against—

  “One.”

  He let go and stepped away, bending in half with his hands on his knees. While he caught his breath, she remained pressed against the house, unsure what would happen if she attempted to self-support. They stayed like that for a full minute, neither of them speaking, neither of them moving. Eventually Henry straightened up. He rolled his neck, shuffled his shoulders, and adjusted his jeans.

  “I think they bought it.” He nodded toward the Summerses’ house.

  Edie shrugged, unable to form words. What just happened?

  “All that acting experience is good for something,” he said.

  She stared, blank, addled, stunned into silence.

  “Let me know how you want to play the breakup.”

  Hands. Heat. Sweat. Skin.

  “I’ll go along with whatever.”

  Fingers against her waist. Breath on her lips. Eyes probing, wanting, resisting.

  “See you around sometime?” he asked.

  “I guess so,” she managed.

  He took a step backwards.

  Touch. Tense. Shiver. Melt.

  “Henry?”

  “Yeah?”

  Breathe. Think. Locate your brain.

  “Thanks for . . . well, just thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He took another step back, digging in his pocket and pulling out his car keys. As he continued retreating, they swapped a wave. Then he turned away and headed toward the road. He passed the paving stones that led toward the front door. He passed the white marble birdbath. He passed the perfectly pruned pear trees.

  “Henry?!”

  He spun around.

  “Want to hang out next Friday? Just the two of us?”

  A smile spread across his face, one that was simply happy.

  “Fuck, yes.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  * * *

  Monday sucked. Tuesday was worse. By Wednesday, Edie was researching bus fare to California, where she planned to busk for taco money until August. On Thursday she wrote her most original “Who I’d Be if I Could Be Anybody” essay, which was a list of famous women who shared one distinguishing and enviable trait: they were dead. Despite Edie’s amicable aspirations over the weekend, the poker game resulted in three decidedly unfriendly consequences:

  Henry made an appearance in her latest sex dream, which for some reason also involved a rowboat, a snowman, and a lot of really weird jazz music.

  Sebastian went radio silent. No texts. No waves over the fence. Nothing.

  Claire’s antagonism escalated from veiled to vengeful.

  Edie wasn’t sure why Claire was so mad at her. Henry was the one prodding her during the game. Edie’d barely said a word, and Sebastian hadn’t paid her any noticeable attention. Maybe Claire blamed her for corrupting the Great Manhattan Love Nest Project. Or maybe the Crawfords followed some mysterious sibling code, forcing Edie to take the blows Claire wouldn’t aim at her own brother. Then again, maybe Edie had done to Claire exactly what she’d done to Shonda: deliberately sought attention that belonged to someone else. No matter how hard she tried to treat Sebastian like a friend now, the damage was already done. She couldn’t fix it in one weekend, especially if Claire still sensed an underlying rivalry. Her posh boyfriend was already “slumming it” by renting a room in a Brooklyn brownstone. His chummy relationship with the neighbors’ charity case was simply too much to bear.

  Claire was clever in her assault. She wasn’t overtly mean in front of the other girls. She simply made it clear that Edie’s presence at Saint Pen’s was tolerated, not welcomed. She cut Edie out of conversations by turning the topics to designer clothes, exotic vacations, and other subjects Edie couldn’t engage in. She launched subtly mocking comment threads on social media. She deliberately initiated activities when Edie was working. Then she posted extensively about the fun everyone was having without her. To top it all off, a rumor “somehow” circulated that Edie hadn’t been in a foster home before she moved to Mansfield. She’d been in juvenile hall.

  By Friday afternoon, Edie was eating her lunch on the back stairs by the fire exit, alone. She couldn’t bear to sit at the table with the other girls, knowing they didn’t want her there. She was also tired of the sly looks she’d been receiving all week as the other students speculated about whether she’d robbed a gas station, sold drugs, or Edie’s personal favorite: started a fistfight with a shopping mall Easter Bunny. She was attempting to choke down a bean sprout and tofu paste sandwich on the world’s driest spelt bread when Maria stepped out and sat down on the landing. She popped open two cans of diet soda, plunked a straw into one, and held the other out.

  “I thought you might need this,” she said. “Dear Mama’s sandwiches are basically hairy sawdust on moldy cardboard. And that’s the nice way of putting it.”

  Edie took the soda and set the sandwich aside, grateful for both the beverage and the unexpected company. The girls sat quietly for a minute, sipping their sodas and looking out at the empty soccer field. A lanky man in coveralls was repainting the white lines with what looked like an old law
nmower. As he started down the centerline, Edie turned toward Maria, watching the breeze play with her thick red hair.

  “So, you’re not mad anymore?” she asked.

  “Was I mad?”

  “Um, yeah. I think? About Henry?”

  “Whatever.” Maria flicked her hair over her shoulders, plucking a stray strand off her jacket and sending it off with the wind. “I know he’s just helping you out.”

  “Right.” Edie turned toward the field again, vaguely uneasy about hiding the full truth but uncertain anything would be gained by trying to explain a relationship she didn’t understand herself. She hadn’t spent much time with Henry and most of it did relate to her attempts to put her crush behind her, but a lot could happen in a few days, or even in six and a quarter minutes.

  “You going to hide out here till graduation?” Maria asked.

  “Depends when Claire retracts her claws.”

  Maria nodded while chewing on her lipstick-stained straw.

  “I didn’t think she’d go all Mean Girls about a little competition, especially from an ex-con who sold meth to the Easter Bunny.” She let out a snort of laughter.

  Edie slumped sideways against the iron handrail, utterly humorless.

  “I should’ve stuck to my Avoid the Boy Next Door plan,” she said. “That was working just fine.”

  “Except that it was boring us all to death.”

  Without responding, Edie peeled open her sandwich. She glared at the wilted sprouts as if they were responsible for all her problems, lying there, half-embedded in tasteless beige mush that pretended to be something it wasn’t.

  “Look on the bright side,” Maria encouraged. “Claire wouldn’t be playing Social Survivor unless she was threatened. Sebastian must like you more than you think.”

  “No, he doesn’t. He won’t even return my texts.”

  “Maybe he’s confused.”

  “Or maybe his girlfriend told him I’d sexually assaulted Santa Claus.”