“I don’t know,” she says. “Love is complicated. That’s why we have entire departments dedicated to it.”
I nod, even though that’s not really an answer. “Why did you become a HeartWorker, anyway?” I ask.
“Everyone in my family is one.”
“Did you always want to work in Relationship Autopsy?”
“Actually, UnRequited was my first choice, but it turns out my Empathy scores were too good. Also, I’m good at solving mysteries.”
“Like why perfect relationships end?”
“Something like that,” she says. It’s easy to see why she’s the first-ever apprentice to work in RA. She has an easy, soothing way about her.
“How come UnRequited was your first choice?”
“I’d get to tell people all day that they were worthy of being loved and give them hope for the future. It sounded like a nice way to spend a day.”
“Instead you’re stuck here with poor sobs like me.” I smile and try to relax into my chair, but it really is the worst chair. “You must think I’m ridiculous,” I say.
“I’m a HeartWorker. I don’t judge. It’s in the Charter.”
“I’m pretty sure you were judging me yesterday when you calculated our time together versus our time apart,” I say. “Admit it.”
“Maybe just a little bit.” Her eyes dance as she says it. “And, for the record, I was neither good-looking nor well-adjusted at thirteen years old.”
“Well, you’ve made up for it since then,” I say.
Her wide eyes get even wider and then she blushes and then she smiles.
I was right about her smile before. It’s both pretty and goofy.
— — — —
The next day we meet in the Autopsy room instead of her cubicle. I take three separate elevators to get to the sub-sub-sub-basement. It doesn’t escape my notice that there’s still another floor down. Is that where the Do Overs are done?
A HeartWorker wearing white is waiting for me as soon as I step off the elevator.
“I have an Autopsy appointment with Apprentice Lee,” I say. I don’t try to hide my nervousness.
He smiles a soothing smile and checks his tablet for my appointment. “Follow me,” he says.
We walk down a long hallway the color of rain clouds.
“Here we are,” he says as we get to the Autopsy room door. He places a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Time heals, Mr. Marks.”
Gabby is waiting just beyond the threshold. Until this moment, I’ve never actually seen her standing. She’s taller than I thought, almost as tall as I am. She’s not wearing black and white, but a muted blue-heather suit that looks vaguely like surgical scrubs, except more fitted. It looks good on her. I’d guess that most things look good on her.
“Welcome to Autopsy, Thomas,” she says, interrupting my noticing of her. Her voice is deeper than normal, almost spooky. She’s teasing me.
“Being a little bit dramatic, aren’t we?” I ask her.
“Gotta have some fun, right?” she says, grinning.
I look past her to the platform bed sitting in the center of the room. “This isn’t going to be fun?”
She doesn’t say anything, but her eyes do.
Besides the bed, there’s no other furniture in the room. The walls are the same gray as the hallway but more metallic. They almost seem to be pulsing.
Gabby closes the door behind me, and the room is so quiet you can hear us both breathing.
“You should sit,” she says.
I hop up and sit right in the middle.
She presses a button on the frame to adjust the height so we’re face-to-face.
“So, how does this work? I mean, I read the pamphlets and I’ve done some research, but maybe you could tell me anyway.” It comes out all in one sentence.
“First you have to relax,” she says, and touches my shoulder. I know it’s the standard HeartWorker soothing gesture, but when Gabby does it, it doesn’t feel like part of her job. Her hand is small and too warm and I can still feel it there even when she takes it away.
“Does everyone get nervous?” I ask.
“Yup. And everyone asks if everyone gets nervous, too.”
“You’re teasing me again,” I say.
“Yup.”
“Is teasing in the Charter?” I ask.
“Is it working?”
It is. I’m less nervous than I was a minute ago.
She sits on the stool in front of me. “There are three stages. Stage One, I autopsy your relationship history and determine the cause of death.”
“But how will you know when you’re only reading me?”
“You’d be surprised. Most times I can tell by reading just one side of the relationship. Usually the reason is buried somewhere in their memories, even if they can’t see it. The cause of death is usually there from the beginning, like a dormant virus.”
“I don’t think that’s the case with me.” I’m sure that sounds as defensive as it is. “What’s Stage Two?”
“If Stage One fails, then I’ll have to perform the Autopsy on her. With her consent, of course. She’ll have to come in. Will you be okay with that? Have you seen her since the breakup?”
“At school. From a distance. And she texts. She wants to be friends.”
“But you don’t want that?” she asks.
I shrug. “I already have friends.”
“Well, you’re honest,” she says.
She gets up from the stool, but then sits back down right away. “Do you mind if ask you a question?”
“Sure,” I say.
Her voice drops like we’re conspiring. “What do you think the difference between wanting to be friends and wanting to be more than friends is?”
I nod fifty times and lean in. “You have no idea how much time I have spent thinking about this.”
She laughs. “I had a feeling you would have thoughts.”
“Why?”
“Thomas, no one makes it to Relationship Autopsy without being a deep—some might say obsessive—thinker.”
“Would you say obsessive?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer, but her eyes are definitely laughing at me.
“You really are very judgy for a HeartWorker.”
She leans in, face serious. “Shhhh, don’t tell anyone, but we all are. On lunch breaks, we sit around making fun of you guys.”
“Wait. Is that true?”
“No, Thomas. Of course it isn’t.”
I don’t know why, but this has me doubling over with laughter. When I look back up at her eyes are bright and her cheeks are a rosy brown. She liked making me laugh.
“So,” she prompts when I’m done. “The difference?”
I blurt out my theory: “Some people you want to get to know and some people you want to know you. I think that’s the difference.”
For whatever reason, there are people that you want to tell your weird, secret thoughts to. You want to show them your pimples and tell them about your braces. You want them to love you because of those things, not in spite of them.
“Some people make you want to be known,” I say.
Our eyes meet and hold and the air feels different, like the words have changed it somehow. I want to tell her more of my weird theories of the world.
“That’s, um, pretty good,” she says, and then stands quickly. Is she breaking some HeartWorker protocol by talking to me this intimately?
She walks over to the wall on the right and waves her hand in front of it. A hidden drawer slides open. From inside, she retrieves a pair of black gloves and puts them on. The lights in the room fade to near darkness. The gloves glow a pale pink.
“Lie back, please,” she says.
I do. “What now?”
“I’m going to open you up.”
“Um—”
“Not with a scalpel,” she says, waving the gloves in the air. “I mean I’m going to open your heart. Metaphorically.”
“Will it hurt?�
�
“Yes. You’ll have to relive the whole relationship and then you’ll have to relive the moment it ended. It’s intense for most people.”
Something in her voice makes me ask: “How is it for you? Does it hurt you, too?”
“No one’s ever asked me that before.” It’s too dark to see the pain on her face, but I can hear it.
She clears her throat. “When I’m doing it, I feel all the things you feel.”
I want to ask more about that, but she touches her hands to my chest. “Ready?” she asks.
“Ready,” I say.
She’s right. It does hurt. It hurts to see all I have lost with Samantha.
I see our first kiss. I was in her room helping her with an essay for history class. She was pouting because she hates writing almost as much as she hates learning about old things. Out loud, I said, “I love that pout.” I kissed her, and we began.
I see my mom’s face when I told her. “Only took you twelve years,” she said, laughing.
I see the first time we go to school holding hands. It’s not official until your classmates see you as a couple. A few people yelled that it was about time.
I see the first time I go to her house as her boyfriend instead of her best friend. Her dad said we were no longer allowed in her room alone together. I was pissed, but happy, too. I spent the afternoon watching the Robot Games with him.
I see the sunshine-yellow daffodils I bought her for our one-month anniversary. Cotton-candy-pink tulips for our second. Ruby lilies for our third.
Gabby moves her hands across my chest and presses down a little harder. She’s searching, pulling our history up to the surface. Pressure builds in chest. My overfull heart wants to burst.
Four months into our relationship, it takes Sam a little longer to text me back. Four and a half months into it, the kisses aren’t the same. I mean, they’re the same physically, but something’s missing. She’s missing. I gave her coral daisies for our five-month anniversary. She said we don’t have to mark every single occasion.
We break up where we began: on the playground.
She’s sitting on a swing. It’s too big for her and her feet are touching the ground. Her arms hug the chains. I’m about to ask her what’s wrong, but then she scratches at her palms. Why doesn’t she want to be here with me?
She says: I think we were a mistake.
She says: I think we were better as friends.
I don’t say anything. She scratches at her palms again. For the first time I wish I didn’t know her as well as I do.
I say: You don’t have to stay here.
And she says thanks and leaves.
I sit on the swing and I’m six again and the playground is full of kids who won’t talk to me. This time, though, Sam’s not coming to rescue me.
The lights bloom to life. It’s hard to move, like a weight is pressing against my chest, pinning me to the bed. I open my eyes, but Gabby’s hands are no longer touching me. She’s at the foot of the bed now and she’s crying.
“It does hurt you,” I say, sitting up.
“Please don’t tell. I’m not supposed to cry.”
“I’m sorry,” I say and put my hand on her shoulder the way the HeartWorkers do.
“You’re kind,” she says, swiping at her tears. “You’re only my sixth case. I’ll get used to it. Your case was supposed to be an easy one.”
“But it’s not?”
Her eyes fill with tears again. “None of them have been easy. People feel so much. Love is so big and it leaves behind a crater. Even when it’s wrong.”
At the word wrong, the pressure on my chest increases and I remember why I’m here. Does she know the cause of death now? Was there something wrong with my relationship with Sam?
She must guess what I’m thinking, because she straightens her shoulders and swipes at her tears firmly. She walks over to the paneled wall with its hidden drawers. When she comes back, she’s gloveless and holding her tablet. All traces of her tears are gone.
“I’m sorry, Thomas, but your results are inconclusive.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“I wasn’t able to determine the cause of death.”
“So now you have to autopsy Sam, right?”
She frowns her dimple frown, considering. “Did you ever think that maybe you’ve just had this idea of who you guys were supposed to be for so long that—”
“No,” I say, cutting her off. I’ve been down this road with other HeartWorkers. I don’t want to guess why we ended. I want to know. “Now we autopsy Samantha, right?” I say again.
She starts to say something, but decides against it. She nods. “Yes, if she agrees.”
Of course. But I think she will agree if only so I can have closure and maybe we can be friends again. She says she misses being friends. I guess I do, too.
“When will you ask her?”
She waves the tablet at me. “I’ve already sent the results to HeartWorker Danica. She’s contacting Samantha as we speak. We should know in a few minutes.”
I really haven’t considered what I’ll do if she doesn’t say yes. I rub my hand across my chest. It still feels like Gabby’s hands are on me, searching, examining, pulling.
I hop off the bed and stroll around the room, but there’s nothing in it to distract me. I pace from one gray wall to the other.
“Have you ever been in love?” I call out.
“Please stop doing that,” she says.
“Doing what?”
“Pacing.”
I pace over to her and then stop. “Have you ever been in love?” I ask again.
She cradles the tablet to her chest. “No. I’ve been studying for this my whole life. I’m the very first apprentice ever to be assigned to RA. My parents are very proud.”
“So, your only experience with love is living it through brokenhearted people like me?”
She nods.
I asked the question idly, just talk to distract myself, but now I really want to hear her answer. “Would you ever want to? I mean, with all the stuff you know about it now, would you even want to fall in love?”
“I’d give anything to fall in love,” she says. She meets my eyes and they don’t look clear brown anymore. They’re a moonless black.
“Really? Even knowing how much it hurts? Even knowing how it ends in most cases?”
“Thomas,” she says. “All love ends. Sometimes it’s a breakup. Sometimes the other person dies.”
Her voice is so quiet that I have to move closer to hear her.
“Do you know why I was crying before? It wasn’t because of the pain of your heartbreak. It was because you felt so much in the first place.” She takes a deep breath. “And anyway, isn’t that what you’re doing here? Hoping that I’ll reset your memories and you can have a Do Over so you’ll feel that much again?”
Her tablet dings. She checks the screen and moves away, widening the space between us. “Samantha has agreed to the autopsy,” she says. “We’ll do it tomorrow.”
— — — —
“Hey, T,” Samantha says as soon as I arrive at Gabby’s cubicle. She looks the same as she always has, which surprises me for some reason. Since our breakup I’ve seen her, but only from a distance. I don’t know why I imagined she’d look different. One of my biggest fears has been that while we’re apart, she’ll change so much that one day I won’t recognize her at all. But no. She looks the same.
“Hey,” I say, or I try to say, but no sound comes out. I clear my throat and try again. “Hey,” I say again, this time too loudly.
I feel Gabby’s eyes studying me, but when I look at her, she looks down at her tablet. “Did you already autopsy—” I start to ask her.
“No, Samantha wanted to wait until you arrived.”
I didn’t expect that.
I look back at Samantha. “Why?”
“You’re my best friend, T. Who else would I ask?”
“You don’t have to do this,�
�� I blurt, shocking all three of us. Why did I say that? I’ve been waiting for this moment since we broke up.
“It’s okay, T.” She looks at Gabby. “I want to know, too.”
We take the elevator to the sub-sub-sub-basement level and down the long gray hallway in silence. In the autopsy room, Gabby immediately puts on her pink gloves and directs me to stand off to the side. Samantha’s nervous. I know because ordinarily she’d be talking and asking lots of questions. At least she’s not scratching at her palm.
Watching the autopsy is strange. The pink of the gloves reflects off Samantha’s dress, washes Gabby’s face in a rose light. Her eyes are closed and her face is more open than I’ve ever seen it. This is what it means to be a HeartWorker. You have to be open to the world, to be able to absorb the range of human emotions and make sense of them.
It is beautiful to watch.
A few minutes later Gabby pulls her hands away from Samantha: “Thomas, can you join us over here, please?” Her voice is soft.
I walk toward her, searching her face for signs of pain. “Are you okay?” I ask. I know it’s her job, but I feel guilty anyway.
“I am fine, Thomas.” Her face is as blank as the first day I met her. She looks past me and over to Sam.
“Are you okay, Samantha?”
I turn to see Sam staring at me. Her eyes are shining with tears. “I’d forgotten how much fun we had together,” she says.
I’m not sure what I expected her to say, but that wasn’t it. All at once the enormity of my selfishness hits me. I know that Sam didn’t have to agree to do this, but I didn’t have to ask.
“It’s okay,” she says, reading my face. “I missed you, T.”
Does she mean that she misses our friendship or something else? She slides off the bed and stands next to me. My heart pounds and I rub my hand across my chest. For a moment it feels like Gabby’s hand is still right there, pressed against it, trying to find the love I’ve lost.
Gabby clears her throat and we both turn toward her. “Samantha, I need your consent to disclose the results in front of Thomas.” Sam nods.
“I’m afraid your results are still inconclusive. I was not able to determine the cause of death.”
“Wait, what?” I say. “But you said—”
Meet Cute Page 26
