The Book of Love

by Lynn Weingarten

  “Hey,” she said.

  Liza looked up. “Well, well.” She raised a bottle of something and took a swig.

  “Hi, Luce,” Gil said. “You’re just in time. Olivia was just about to say something incredibly important”—she rolled her eyes—“so important she had to pull me away from a hot idiot I was about to make out with.”

  Olivia sipped from a bottle of water and was silent.

  Lucy sat down in an empty seat, leaned forward, and took a breath. It was now or never. “You guys, I think I found a way to make our hearts normal again.” She looked down. “So we can go back to being the way we were.”

  No one said anything. Lucy looked up. They were all staring.

  “What do you think?” said Lucy. She tried to smile. Her heart was pounding.

  “Lucy,” Gil said slowly. “How drunk are you?” And then she let out a laugh.

  “I’m serious,” Lucy said.

  “You’re telling us you figured out how we can stop being part of an ancient secret sisterhood with perfectly formed unbreakable hearts and stop being able to do magic for the chance to go back to the way we were before?” said Liza. “To go back to the regular boring colorless world that everyone else lives in? Oh, goody!” She clapped her hands together.

  “Sign me up, please!” said Gil. “Maybe along the way we can all catch really bad cases of body lice!”

  Olivia was still silent.

  Lucy leaned forward. “But you don’t understand. The world is only boring and colorless if you have a closed heart. If you’re open, every single moment contains the possibility for something amazing.”

  Gil and Liza looked at each other, and this time they didn’t laugh—they just shook their gorgeous heads and rolled their beautiful eyes. “Adorable sweet little Lucy,” Gil said. “You’ve been reading too many inspirational calendars. I am seriously concerned there is something wrong with you.” Gil put her head on Liza’s shoulder. “Lizzie, give her some medicine.”

  Liza held out her drink. Lucy pushed it away. “You only feel like that because we’ve done too much magic already. If you would just trust . . .”

  “Give it a rest,” said Gil. She stood up and put one hand on her newly perfect hip. “I’m going back in. Liza, you coming?”

  Liza stood. She and Gil glanced at each other and then down at Lucy. Their eyes were cold and hard, but they didn’t look angry. They just looked like they were already somewhere else. And in that moment Lucy knew with horrible certainty that there would be no reaching them.

  Maybe one day they’d change their minds on their own, find the truth the way Eleanor had. Only it wasn’t going to happen here and it wasn’t going to happen now, and there was nothing more Lucy could do. Lucy watched as Liza and Gil linked arms and walked toward the party. Olivia stood.

  “Be careful,” she said. “Be careful with what you’re playing at.”

  She turned and followed Gil and Liza back toward the house. But right before she went inside, she turned back and looked Lucy in the eye, her expression intense and unreadable.

  Lucy walked around the side of the house, got on her bike, and started to pedal away, legs pumping, hands tight around the handlebars. She felt herself lurching forward in the darkness. She almost fell, and panic seized her. She stopped her bike, heart pounding, and it was only then that she suddenly understood that confusing unreadable look on Olivia’s face: She was afraid. And right then, Lucy knew why.

  People think memory is stored in the brain. But everything that truly matters is stored in the heart.

  Olivia was scared because she knew if she got her human heart back, she’d have to remember what she’d had and lost. Everything she’d been running from would catch up with her.

  But if Olivia could still be afraid, then maybe it wasn’t too late.

  Thirty-Seven

  Lucy sat on Olivia’s front steps, locket clasped in her fist, her entire body shaking. She wanted to get up, to pace, to do jumping jacks in the yard, but she refused to allow herself to stand, knowing if she did, there was a very good chance she’d hop on her bike and never come back.

  So she sat there. And she waited. And finally Olivia’s beautiful blue convertible pulled into the driveway. Lucy could hear Gil’s voice as they got out of the car.

  “. . . our own version of the Breakies against each other,” she said. “We’ll break as many hearts as we can, and then, well, I don’t know what. But it’ll be fun, right?”

  Liza laughed. “Sounds like someone’s getting a little cocky now that she’s so hot. Hmm?”

  The three of them were right in front of Lucy now, staring at her from the bottom of the steps.

  “Oh, look, Olivia,” Liza said loudly. “Someone left a very strange package on your steps.” She arched one perfect eyebrow.

  Gil snorted, then stepped over Lucy and went inside. Liza followed. Olivia stood there staring at her.

  “What are you doing here?” Olivia said.

  Lucy held up the locket that she’d retrieved from Olivia’s pillow. It shone in the moonlight.

  “I wanted to give you this,” Lucy said. A slight breeze blew and the locket swung like a pendulum.

  “How did you get . . .” Olivia reached out for it as if on instinct. She grabbed it and held it in her fist. “You’ve been to see her, then.”

  Lucy nodded.

  “And you don’t just think you can get your heart back, you know you can. She told you how to do it.”

  Lucy nodded again. “Listen,” she started to say.

  Lucy heard loud voices from upstairs, the sounds of doors slamming, feet stomping.

  “Lucy,” Olivia said through her teeth. Her voice was a low insistent whisper. “If Gil and Liza are doing what I think they’re doing, they are upstairs breaking into the tear safe.” The sounds upstairs were growing louder. The voices turned to shouts. “So if you did what I think you did, you better turn and you better run like hell. . . .”

  And Lucy wanted to do just that. But she would not let herself. “Come with me,” Lucy said. Her heart was hammering. “We can do this together.”

  Olivia had opened the locket. She was staring down into it. “Why are you doing this?” It sounded like her words were strangling her. “Everything was okay, we were okay. . . .”

  “That’s not true,” Lucy said. “And it’s only getting worse.” The sounds from upstairs were growing louder. “When I first met you, you told me most people don’t understand all the choices that there are for the making. And you were right. But the choice isn’t between being weak or strong, between being a Heartbreaker or the heartbroken. It’s between following fear and following love.”

  Liza and Gil came barreling through the door, going so fast they were practically flying. “ALL OF OUR TEARS ARE GONE!” Gil shouted.

  Liza grabbed Lucy and held on tight. Lucy tried to pull away, but she couldn’t move.

  “What did you do?” Gil said.

  “Check her pack,” shouted Liza. Gil tore her bag off her back and rifled through it.

  “They’re not here!” Gil said. “Where did you put them, Lucy?” She was smiling a sickly sweet, terrifying smile.

  But Lucy just shook her head. “I don’t have them anymore,” she said. “I . . .” She turned and tried to yank her arms from Liza’s grasp. But it was no use.

  Her eyes locked with Olivia’s. For a moment she thought she saw her soften. Please. Please. Please.

  But Olivia turned away.

  “Bring her inside, girls,” said Olivia. “If she doesn’t feel like answering now, that’s fine. We can wait.”

  Together, Liza and Gil dragged Lucy upstairs. Olivia followed.

  None of them turned their heads, but if they had, they might have seen a blade of glittering swirling tears, tucked neatly into a bush next to the steps, right where Lucy had left it.

  Thirty-Eight

  Lucy was in a small room at the end of the hallway. The room was empty except for a single hard wooden chair.
She had no idea how long she’d been there, locked in that room, or how much longer she would be. “You’ll stay here until you tell us where our tears are,” Gil had said. “Or we figure out a way to make you.” From a tiny window high up near the ceiling Lucy could see the light of the moon. It was still nighttime, at least. She wondered how long until they found the Rebreaking Blade, how long until her only chance was gone forever. She heard footsteps outside and pressed her ear against the door.

  “Olivia?” Lucy said. “Is that you?”

  They had been taking turns guarding the door, and no one was speaking to her, but Lucy could tell who was out there by the sound of their breath—Liza’s was sharp and snarly. Gil breathed quickly and angrily. Now the breaths on the other side of the door were deep and slow, like whoever was out there was trying to quell a rising panic. This was definitely Olivia.

  “I know you’re scared,” Lucy called out. “I know you’re scared of what will happen if you get your heart back. The truth is, I cannot even imagine what it will be like to go through everything you’ll have to go through. And the other truth is that using the blade isn’t safe, not even a little, but there’s one thing I do know for sure—if it works, you won’t be alone. You’ll have your grandmother, you’ll have me, you’ll have Pete. You’ll have so many other people you haven’t even met yet and an entire world to connect with. But you won’t if you leave me in here and let them find the blade. This is our last chance.”

  Lucy stopped. “Read the letter, Olivia. Look at the locket. Please.”

  The only answer she got was silence, a silence so complete it was as though the person outside the room had stopped breathing entirely. But a few seconds later there was the soft ssssshk of a lock being unlocked. And then the door opened and there was Olivia, her eyes bright, her lip quivering, her mother’s locket around her neck. They stood there for a moment, perfectly still, staring at each other. And then they both began to run.

  They were out in an open field with nothing but the moon, the sky, the open space. It was the perfect place to go, if you wanted to be alone. Or you didn’t want anyone to hear you scream.

  “Ready?” said Lucy. On the way there, Lucy had started to explain everything, but as it turned out, Olivia already knew all about it. Olivia had thought of making the blade before, had thought of doing this a million times already. But she’d been too scared, not of the possibility of death, but of the possibility of really living her life with a heart open to the world. She’d been too scared until now.

  “Ready.” Olivia took a breath. She looked down at the shimmering blade in her hand and then up toward the sky, toward the moon and the planets and space and her parents, whose bodies were gone but whose spirits were maybe, just maybe, somehow still out there. And in the dark, where Lucy should not have been able to see, she swore she caught Olivia smiling faintly up at the sky. And the sky smiling back down at her.

  Olivia turned to Lucy. “No matter what happens, don’t wait to see if I’m okay. Take the blade yourself and use it. You have to promise me, okay? The warmth of a heart melts the tears, and if you wait too long, your chance will be gone.”

  Lucy nodded. Olivia locked eyes with her one more time. She held the blade up to her chest. And then she smiled a tiny wry smile. “See you on the other side, honey pie.”

  In one swift motion, she thrust it forward and the swirling blade disappeared into her chest. Olivia opened her mouth and let out a sound, a deep, guttural, gut-wrenching howl that seemed to come not from her lips but from all around them, from all directions at once. Then she collapsed onto the ground. Lucy stared down at her. Olivia’s fist uncurled, and the blade tumbled out into the grass.

  Lucy picked it up. There was no time to think, there was no time to anything. Lucy pointed the blade toward her own chest, and she did not feel afraid anymore.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. And she sent that “thank you” out toward the sky and the earth and the trees, and toward all the magic in the world, not the spells and potions kind, but the kind that made it such that she’d ever existed at all, that she’d been able to be here and experience this and feel things, even if all too briefly. She looked out across the field for maybe the very last time, and then she closed her eyes and concentrated on all the things and people she’d ever loved. She pulled her love for them into the center of her chest; she concentrated on filling her heart up with it. One by one, she pictured their faces all in a row; one face stood out from all the others. She was ready.

  With every bit of strength she had, she plunged the blade into her chest. She felt it cut through her skin, her bone, felt it touch her heart. She heard herself scream and then heard nothing at all. She collapsed into the grass and that was it.

  There in that field, two girls found their hearts newly broken. And out in the world, 103 brokenhearted boys found their broken hearts magically healed.

  Thirty-Nine

  Before her eyes were even open, Lucy heard birds, their voices sweet and high over the steady pounding of her heart. She saw the sun creeping up over the horizon, and next to her Olivia lying in the damp grass. There was blood on her T-shirt. “Olivia,” Lucy whispered. “Olivia?”

  Olivia blinked. Her face was streaked with tears. And as she sat up, they just kept falling. But through the tears she was smiling. “We’re alive,” she said.

  “So we are,” said Lucy. She reached up to her own face. As it turned out, she was crying too.

  She brought her hand to her chest. Her heart felt tender and sore. There was blood caked on her skin but no mark where the blade had gone in. The only evidence that anything had happened was the fact that her tattoo was gone. And so was Olivia’s.

  Olivia scooted closer to Lucy and pulled her knees to her chest.

  The two sat there together, leaning against each other. And as the sun started to rise, they turned their faces toward it. They stayed like that until it was truly, beautifully, morning.

  Epilogue

  Lucy wrapped her winter coat tighter around her. The icy snow crunched under her feet like sugar crystals.

  “Hey, Luce!”

  Lucy turned as a flutter of powder rained down on her. And there was Olivia, grinning, her cheeks flushed with cold, snow still stuck to her gloves.

  “Hey, yourself!” Lucy grabbed a handful of snow with her mittens. She formed it into a ball and tossed it on top of Olivia’s head. They both laughed.

  “Pete wants to pick us up as soon as school ends,” Olivia said. “We have to leave right away if we want to get to the cabin by sunset, which is apparently amazing from all the way up there, and there’s some ice-cream place he is insisting we stop at on the way. I was like, ‘Dollface, it is the day before winter break, are you out of your mind?’” She shook her head, but she was smiling. “Also, I promised Eleanor we’d stop by on the way up. She wants to meet Pete and she’s excited to see you, is that okay?”

  “Perfect,” Lucy said. “We’ll be out front.”

  The two girls hugged, and Lucy watched Olivia go. Off in the distance Lucy spotted two familiar figures walking toward Olivia, their gorgeous faces expressionless, their breath floating around them in great white puffs. But they passed right by her without a glance, as though she was a stranger, as though they’d never known her at all. And in their minds, they hadn’t. Lucy and Olivia had been bleached from their memories, like an overexposed photograph, too bright to make out.

  Lucy smiled and shook her head. It was funny how so many things had changed so quickly. For Olivia, for Eleanor. For Lucy’s parents.

  So many things that had once seemed very unlikely, or even completely impossible, had simply gone and happened, and were still happening. . . .

  Lucy looked up. There was Tristan walking right toward her.

  Their eyes met. Lucy felt warmth radiating from the center of her chest. When Tristan saw her, his lips spread into a smile. And when he was close enough, he pressed his smiling lips against hers and wrapped his arms around her wa
ist. And then he leaned back slightly to speak. “According to Pete and the five-minute-long ice-cream-themed a cappella slash rap song he left me on my voice mail, we’re only three hours away from the best ice-cream experience of our lives. He’s very excited. It’s pretty cute.” He brought his face close to hers again. “I’ll tell you what I’m excited about this weekend. . . .”

  He let his words linger and they shared a private smile. It was different between them now, different from when they were just friends. There were times she actually felt shy around him. She’d blush sometimes when she caught him looking at her the way he did when he was about to kiss her. There was a tiny space between them now, just enough of a divide to give the sparks something to crackle across.

  But there were also times they felt closer than ever. Like when they would watch the stars together from the flatbed of Tristan’s truck, her head on his chest, and for a moment she’d forget that they were two separate people, she’d feel so much a part of him, and him so much a part of her.

  Then again, they still had their secrets. Both of them did. And that was okay. Some of those secrets Lucy figured they’d always keep for themselves. And some would be revealed in time. This weekend she planned to show him her new tattoo. The violet, right over her heart, its purple petals open. Someday, she might even tell him what it meant.

  The bell rang. “Hey, one more thing,” Tristan said. “I talked to Phee last night after she got home from going out with that guy Colin you set her up with? She was thrilled. I’ve never heard her like this about anyone before. She said they had an amazing time, and she thinks he’s going to be her new super boyfriend forever.” He paused. “How did you know they’d get along so well? I wouldn’t have guessed.”