The Museum of Heartbreak

by Meg Leder

The present was tiny and exquisitely wrapped.

  “Nice job with this,” I said, trying to conjure up the girl I was a year ago, the one who would have given her left arm to have a curly-haired boy give her a beautiful little wrapped gift on her birthday.

  “Clerk at the store,” he said, smiling, and I automatically smiled back.

  I opened the box. Nestled on a deep blue velvet cushion was a tiny gold wishbone charm on a gold necklace.

  My first thought was, I hate gold.

  My second was, This was expensive.

  And then, This is not me at all.

  “Wow,” I said, pulling it out.

  “Here, let me put it on you.” He swept my hair out of the way and, without asking, took off my subway-token chain, which I had rescued from my purse after the launch party. He handed it to me, putting the new necklace around my neck.

  I studied the subway token in my palm, the chain kinked, the coin tarnished, as his fingers fumbled with the tiny clasp, his warm breath against my skin.

  “There,” Keats said. “You’re gorgeous, Scout.”

  No one had ever called me gorgeous before.

  I slid my subway token in my pocket and fiddled with the tiny wishbone, sliding it back and forth on the chain.

  It was my seventeenth birthday, and not only had I finally been kissed, I finally had what should have been my fairy tale, my John Hughes, everything-turns-out-awesome romance.

  Only I wasn’t sure I wanted it anymore.

  • • •

  The next day, after school ended, we took the subway to West Fourth and then walked to his brownstone.

  I thought about the last time I was there, his First of October party, and how that night was perfect.

  “Anyone home?” Keats called as he unlocked the door, and when no one answered, he took my hand and I followed him, the old wooden stairs creaking slightly. When we got to his room, I dropped my bag on his floor and put my coat and scarf on his desk chair. Sitting on his bed felt too forward, so I slid down next to it and stretched my legs in front of me, leaning my head back against the side.

  He clicked on his computer, and the Flaming Lips started filtering through the room like a subtle headache, one that won’t leave.

  I told him I hated this band.

  Keats sat on the edge of his bed and patted the spot next to him. “C’mere.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he said. “It’s just more comfortable.”

  I rose, smoothed my skirt, and sat down next to him.

  Without another word Keats leaned over and started to kiss me, slow and careful, starting at the exposed spot on the slope of my neck and moving up, until he kissed my eyebrows, the spot between them, the gold wishbone sitting against the pulse of my throat.

  My fingers felt cold.

  Keats moved to my lips and I kissed him back, returning to the familiar taste of his mouth.

  His hands pushed my shoulders down, and I lay on the bed, and he was above me, kissing my collarbone, the hollow dip in my neck.

  I raked my hands through his curls, the softness of them.

  “Your hair smells good,” I said, and he was sliding my shirt up halfway, running a hand lightly across my belly, and I shivered, and he was leaning down and kissing my stomach, gently.

  “Keats,” I said, and my skin was tingling awake, and I realized no one had touched my stomach like this before, it was new land that he was discovering, and he lifted my shirt higher.

  I closed my eyes, letting him kiss me, letting go . . .

  . . . and I saw:

  Miles looking affectionately at Oscar.

  Kieran’s confidence around Grace.

  The three freckles across Eph’s nose . . .

  My eyes shot open. I pushed out from under Keats.

  “Do you want me to slow down?” He seemed so regretful that I wasn’t sure what to say.

  He traced my clavicle, and goose bumps rose on my arms. I bit my lip.

  No. I needed to be sure about this. This, this was a big deal.

  I stood up, straightened my shirt down, smoothed my hair back into place. As I did, my eyes fell upon the picture of Keats and Emily, still sitting on his bedside table.

  He saw me notice it.

  “Crap, I knew that was going to make you mad,” he said, grabbing it and shoving it facedown in a drawer.

  I frowned, pulled on my peacoat, looped my scarf around my neck.

  Keats let out a weighty sigh. “Scout, c’mon . . .”

  For the first time, the nickname was grating.

  “No, I gotta go,” I said, leaving his room, a terrible sneaking suspicion dawning on me with every step that took me farther away from him.

  I liked the idea of Keats.

  But I wasn’t sure I actually liked Keats.

  Silver necklace

  Monile argentum

  New York, New York

  Cat. No. 201X-20

  Gift of Ephraim O’Connor

  THE EVENING OF MY DAD’S Willo event coincided with the first snow of the season—a much-too-early November snow, fat flakes sticking on shoulders and hair.

  I walked up the front museum steps in my red cowboy boots, shivering and scratching my neck where the lace collar of my vintage green velvet sheath dress met my neck. I was sweating profusely, the armpits of the dress too tight, the velvet too warm. And I hadn’t really thought much about the red-boots-and-bright-green-dress combo until I was halfway there. I was going to be the big, sweaty Christmas weirdo in the room.

  I followed the line of people trickling in the main entrance: men with suits, women with fur-collared coats, benefactors and socialites and science people all mingling together.

  Entering the main hall, I felt about two degrees better and calmer, because there was the familiar giant blue whale hanging above me. And the entire room was magical, dimly lit with blue lights, the underside of the whale glowing luminescent, the square glass windows reflecting turquoise.

  I thought about how when my dad had first started working here, he’d come home every evening singing that old Beatles song to himself, the one about an octopus’s garden. He’d pull me up and spin me around. “I work under the sea, darling daughter,” he’d say, and when my mom came in, he’d let go and pull her into a waltz, dipping her crazily, not stopping until she laughed so hard she cried.

  I’d forgotten that about my parents.

  I searched for them on the dance floor, but my dad was on the side, gesticulating excitedly to an older man, while my mom talked to the woman with him—benefactors, I was guessing.

  “So, there you are.”

  I spun around. Eph was standing behind me, being totally wrongly handsome—no, hot—in an old brown vintage suit, an indigo tie somehow working with the whole thing.

  I nodded, feeling weirdly shy.

  He self-consciously smiled. “Mom made me change out of jeans. I found this in my dad’s closet. I don’t think it’s what she had in mind when she said to borrow something from his closet. But if the suit fits . . .”

  I scoffed at the bad pun. “That’s some Theodore Marx humor right there.”

  “What can I say, I have good taste.” He kicked the floor in his scuffed boots, not making eye contact.

  “Wanna go see the exhibit?”

  When we got to the central room, it was packed, people drinking from champagne glasses, chattering excitedly, enjoying the socializing, and not paying a single bit of attention to anything about the dinosaur circulatory system. I was glad my dad wasn’t in the room. It would have made him so angry.

  Eph tilted his head toward the main attraction, and when we got there, we leaned over, looking at Willo—the dinosaur with a heart-not-heart. Its skeleton was oddly curled in on itself, almost in the fetal position, its legs tangled, like it was disoriented, confused, trying to protect the brown clump in the middle of its rib cage.

  “You know, it’s actually concre
tized sand,” an older man said passing by. “They were wrong. That’s the whole point of the exhibit.”

  Eph gave an exasperated sigh, muttering something under his breath about people minding their own business.

  Of course I knew the old guy was right. But that didn’t mean I still didn’t want to push him over, make him go away.

  Because at that moment, standing next to that skeleton, more than anything I wanted that rusty clump in Willo’s fossil to be a heart.

  I wanted to believe that, even though this dinosaur had existed centuries and centuries ago, its heart had pushed and pumped blood through its limbs like mine, that there was something vulnerable and tender in its leathery skin, that something of that heart still remained.

  “Your dad did a nice job with the exhibit, Pen,” Eph said.

  “Yeah, he did,” I said, leaning on the railing, unable to take my eyes away from Willo.

  “Hey, there’s my mom.”

  Ellen was on her tiptoes, scanning the crowd, her red hair glowing in the light of the room, like she was one of the exhibits.

  “Mom!” Eph called her over.

  “Hey, guys. Happy belated birthday, Penelope! You and your parents still coming over Monday night to celebrate?” I nodded, and she turned to Eph. “Have you seen your dad? There’s a major donor who wants to meet him. You think he’s in his office?”

  “I haven’t seen him, but we can look,” Eph said.

  “Great. If you find him, send him down to the main lobby. I’ll keep making the rounds down here.”

  Eph and I walked through the crowd until we found the private staff door in the back of the room. The noise of the party behind us dulled to a murmur as the door clicked behind us.

  The ensuing silence of the hall felt unbelievably loud.

  “So what’d you do for your birthday?” Eph asked over his shoulder.

  “Keats had dinner with us.”

  “That’s cool, that’s cool,” Eph said. He turned forward. “Yep, cool.”

  I frowned at his back. Since when did Eph use the word “cool” three times in a row?

  “He got me a gold necklace. It was really thoughtful.”

  He stopped, dismayed.

  “A necklace?”

  “Um, yeah, a necklace?” I said, echoing his tone of voice.

  “Oh,” he said, face falling.

  “But I’m wearing my good-luck subway token,” I said, holding up the chain. “It goes better with my outfit anyway.”

  “That’s cool.” He stalked down the hall, his pace faster this time, and I sped up.

  “What’s with you tonight?” I asked.

  “Nothing. You and Keats make up from the other day?” he asked, not looking at me.

  “What other day?”

  “The Nevermore launch.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Cool.”

  Five times.

  When we got to George’s office, it was unlocked but empty, the lights off.

  “Not here,” I said.

  The corners of Eph’s mouth curled, the start of a crooked smile. “Want to go to the attic?”

  “We can’t.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s locked.”

  In one uninterrupted move he slid open the top drawer in his dad’s desk and dangled a ring of keys in front of me.

  “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble . . . ,” I started, but Eph was already out of the office, jogging down the hall to the stairway.

  The second floor was pretty dark—the only illumination coming from the basic utility lighting marking exits and entrances—and we couldn’t hear the sound of the party anymore, only the creaking of the building in the wind. We were in one of the older sections, where my dad’s office was. Everything was wooden—the old drawers and bookcases, the doors and desks. My dad even had one of those crazy old iron moving ladders for his top shelves.

  Eph cleared his throat. “Remember when I kept insisting there was a real dinosaur who lived here and roamed the halls at night?”

  “Yeah,” I said, looking guiltily over my shoulder for security guards. I was pretty sure they’d give us a free pass, but it was our dads I was more worried about. “It was one of the first things you ever told me. You know, I was scared out of my mind anytime I was here and it was the slightest bit dark outside. I was convinced the dinosaur would eat me. Or my dad.”

  “Nah,” Eph said. “It was a friendly dinosaur. Lonely, even. The last of his kind.”

  I thought of Willo.

  Eph stopped in front of a weathered wooden door, pulled out a long, old-timey key, and clicked it in the latch.

  “Eph,” I said, my voice faltering.

  “Come on.” He started up the steps. “We’re trying to find my dad, remember?”

  I sighed and followed him up the stairs, leaving the door open behind me. With each step my mood lifted a little, like I was a kid following Eph up the steps again.

  But when we got to the top, we saw that the attic had been cleaned out: no more elephant skulls like in Eph’s drawing and our memories, only empty windows casting an empty silver light across the battered wood floors.

  “No!” I cried. “Where are the elephant skulls?”

  “I guess they moved them,” Eph said. “It’s probably not great to store things up here anyway.”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  I remembered the first day we found them. We each picked one to sit in, Eph in his Superman cape, me hugging my knees, the bone structures so big around us, our own ivory caves, how you could almost feel the tickle of a ghost trunk brushing your neck.

  “God, I hate change,” I muttered, hugging myself against the cold coming from the windows.

  “Pen, I have your birthday present,” Eph said.

  I turned, and he was standing in the middle of the room, and he was so absolutely, unremarkably the same Eph I had always known. But my heart clenched, skipping a beat, because he was also totally different, his eyes waiting, my breath catching, ghosts around us.

  “Here,” he said, digging in his coat pocket and pulling out a small rumpled brown bag.

  I stepped forward and unfolded it carefully, sliding my hand in, fishing out the shape at the bottom. Dangling at the end of a thin, sparkly silver chain was a silver T. rex charm, its tiny arms bent in fury, its mouth open in rage—like the skeleton downstairs, like the imaginary dinosaur who roamed the museum halls at night.

  I gasped. It was perfect.

  “Eph, I love it.”

  My hands were so jittery I fumbled trying to put it on, so Eph stepped behind me, his hands steady against my neck, fixing the clasp. His fingers skimmed my neck, and a small exhale escaped me.

  It fit perfectly above my subway token, resting across from my heart.

  I was already half in love with this small, angry dinosaur.

  “Penelope?”

  “Yeah?” I whispered, watching the way the T. rex glinted in the moonlight, like he was absorbing it, coming into his own.

  And then Eph stepped in front of me and met my eyes, pulling me toward him, his hands pressing firm and solid against the small of my back, and I curled inside him, like I was Willo curling into myself, like Willo holding my heart close, and we kissed.

  There was roaring in my ears, wooden floors shaking, Eph in the moonlight, Eph’s heart in my hands.

  He traced the line of my cheekbone down to the hollow of my neck, letting his finger rest there, my heart thudding underneath.

  And then I panicked.

  Because this wasn’t a fairy tale.

  This was the solidness and messiness of Eph—real in front of me—the furious and tender parts of him, the taste of his lips and the jut of his chin, everything infuriating and everything magical, all the belches and tiny dinosaurs, everything I could lose with letting go.

  I stepped back. “We can’t do this.”

  His face furrowed in confusion.

  “You’re my best friend,” I said
.

  “But, Pen, ever since we kissed in the thrift shop . . .” He shoved his hands in his coat pockets and studied the floor, kicked his boot against the wood, then looked up. “At first I didn’t want to admit it, you know? But I can’t pretend it’s not there.”

  He looked at me, his eyes hopeful.

  I was afraid to ask what he was talking about.

  “I already lost Audrey,” I said. “What if things get messed up? I can’t lose you too.”

  “This is different. This is inevitable.” God, his smile was crushing me.

  “What about Mia?” I asked. “Or Autumn or the punk rock girl at the Flea?”

  “They’re not you,” he said plainly.

  “Oh,” I said, my voice small.

  “Pen, here’s the thing: I fucking love you,” he said.

  The beautiful words hurtled toward me with the momentum of a meteorite, fierce and terrible and un-take-back-able.

  I wanted to shove him in the chest, to stuff everything back in his mouth, to stop this nonsense right now. Because what if Eph broke my heart? What if I broke his?

  (But then there was this: What if I stepped forward, what if I took his hand, what if I said it back? What if there were stars falling and orange embers dancing in the air around us and our eyes burned with smoke and our feet hurt from the heat and around us dinosaurs were roaring in pain and we curled around each other, keeping each other’s heart safe?)

  I opened my mouth and nothing came out.

  We stood there in silence, Eph’s face falling by the second.

  “You’re killing me here, Pen,” he said, his shoulders falling, his face broken.

  I shook my head.

  At that moment the door to the attic creaked open. Two people stumbled up the steps, lips locked as they tripped up—a woman’s giggle, a man’s grunt.

  Eph registered it at the same time I did, and a soft cry escaped his lips—he was a boy again—and I gasped.

  It was George.

  But he wasn’t with Ellen. He was with Annabeth, the lady from the bookstore.

  George squinted at us, Annabeth swaying against him.

  “Eph?” he asked, his voice slurred.

  Eph’s whole body tensed.

  Annabeth hiccupped. “Is that Penelope? George and I were in such a fight last time we saw you, I’m afraid I wasn’t very friendly. . . .” She giggled, hiccupping, and tried to snuggle against George, but he jerked away, leaving her tottering.