Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things

by Jacqueline Firkins

  But that other thing Henry said . . . if he meant it . . . but surely . . . or not so surely . . . Goddammit! Wasn’t everything muddled enough already? Or was it all one big game she wasn’t sophisticated enough to understand, full of bluffs and schemes wherein everyone had to “go big or go home”?

  Edie stayed in the alcove for several minutes, trying to make sense out of things that failed to fall into tidy definitions or even meter. Unable to un-mess the situation, she eventually concluded that her only option was to stop trying to clean everything up. She marched into the ballroom, heading straight for the table with the Saint Pen’s girls and her no-longer-maybe-date. She sped past Maria and Rupert as they took a selfie. She ignored Julia’s wide-eyed gaping. She continued, undeterred, as she passed Claire and Sebastian arguing heatedly by a streamered column. She focused solely on Henry, whose eyes tracked her across the room. She stopped in front of him and held out her hand.

  “Dance with me,” she said.

  He clasped her hand and followed her to the dance floor. He wrapped his arms around her. She wrapped her arms around him. As they started swaying to the beat, he laid a finger under her chin and tilted her face toward his. His eyes were serious, with no hint of their usual mischief.

  “I know I’m not supposed to say this, but I’m tired of pretending I think of you as a friend. I’ve tried. I failed. I love you.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “But—”

  “It doesn’t matter. Kiss me anyway.”

  Slowly, gently, Henry placed his hands on either side of Edie’s face. He met her eyes. She held his gaze, unflinching, unblushing. There in the middle of the dance floor, Edie had her first skin-tingling, breath-stealing, knee-weakening, heart-pounding, lip-burning, tongue-tangling, bone-decimating, chest-exploding, hair-gripping, brain-erasing, blood-bursting, where-am-I-who-cares-good-god-make-this-last-forever kiss.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  * * *

  Edie opened her eyes. Henry was smiling at her, his face inches away, his cheeks flushed, his lips swollen, his eyes sparkling.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Wow.” Edie touched her lips to make sure they were still there. Lips? Yep, present and accounted for. Necklace? Check. But what about the rest of her? Who’d replaced her bones with Jell-O, put this hammering thing inside her chest, and turned her blood into gushing lava?

  As she stumbled back a step, Henry caught her and pulled her close, one arm around her waist, the other cradling her head against his shoulder.

  “You have no idea how badly I wanted to do that,” he said.

  Edie melted against him, bewildered by what she’d just done but deliriously happy about how good it felt. What on earth had she been waiting for all these weeks? Was she really protecting her cousins? What cousins? And who cared if Henry had been playing her? Crush not only crushed, but banished to the furthest outskirts of oblivion.

  As Edie’s lips stopped tingling, she blinked herself into awareness. She and Henry stood in a small clearing, surrounded by gyrating dancers, many of whom were looking her way. Her skin prickled as she sensed people watching her, judging her, zeroing in on her flaws. The strange claustrophobia of being alone among many.

  “People are staring,” she whispered.

  “Actually, people are trying not to stare,” Henry corrected.

  “Then let’s go where there are no people at all.”

  “Nothing would make me happier.”

  Henry kept his arm firmly wrapped around Edie’s waist as they swept past their table. They grabbed her purse and said a swift, eye-contact-avoiding good night to the remaining couples. Then they slipped out the doors before anyone could ask questions, rate their performance, or pepper them with commentary.

  As they got into Henry’s car, he asked, “Where to?”

  Edie considered asking Henry to drive her home. She’d confessed her love for one guy and kissed another—all in a very public setting. For a girl who’d made it almost all the way to graduation without going on a date, it was enough for one night. More than enough. And yet, as the memory of Henry’s kiss swam through her brain and rippled across her skin, she decided the night didn’t need to end just yet. In fact, she kind of hoped the sun wouldn’t rise for a long, long time.

  “Surprise me,” she suggested.

  Henry tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, considering.

  “I have an idea.” He started the ignition. “I think you’ll like it.” As he pulled out of the parking lot, he nodded at the glove compartment. “There’s something in there you might like, too.”

  Edie tensed as she eyed him sideways.

  “I know exactly what you keep in the glove compartment.”

  Henry laughed, thoroughly amused, as he turned onto the main road.

  “Don’t worry. I cleaned it out. I didn’t want you getting the wrong idea.”

  Edie popped open the glove compartment, half expecting a slew of condoms to fall onto her lap, but the cubby contained only a small stack of papers and an elegant silver flask. She took out the flask and ran a thumb over the bold, block-print HC.

  “I filled it with vodka-cranberry,” Henry explained. “In case you wanted to make a pink bastard.”

  Edie smiled at the memory of Rupert’s horrible party, back when she’d known a different Henry, and when she’d been a different Edie. Sitting next to him now, with her lips tingling and her whole body on fire with anticipation, she had no intention of pouring a cocktail over his head. Instead, she took a few judicious sips, just enough to still her nerves without risking a reprise of the Great Pork Product Projectile Incident. Meanwhile, Henry drove a mile or two to the center of Mansfield. Once there he led Edie to the gray stone church that sat in the middle of the town green.

  “Church?” she said with a laugh. “I didn’t know you were so devout.”

  “Still think I’m a vampire?”

  “Honestly? I’m a bit lost about what you are.”

  He took her hand, locking his fingers with hers, knuckle to knuckle.

  “I’m just a guy out with a beautiful girl on a beautiful night, hoping to share as much of it as possible with her.” He kissed her hand and held it to his chest.

  She let her eyes linger on their little knot of fingers. It wasn’t the hell of a held hand from The Age of Innocence. It wasn’t the uncertain and fleeting connection from the Age of Confused. Maybe, just maybe, it was the onset of the Age of Yes.

  Hand in hand, Henry and Edie climbed the steps to the front doors. There, he tugged on the big brass handles while she folded her arms and watched him struggle.

  “What? No midnight service?” she teased.

  “Oh, there’ll be a midnight service, but we may need to slip in the back way.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m perfectly serious, as you perfectly know.” He held out a hand.

  Edie hesitated, gauging the up-to-no-good-ness in Henry’s eyes. He might not care about silly things like rules and laws, but Edie suspected getting caught breaking and entering would do little to help her strained relationship with Norah, her summer employability, or her scholarship application. Henry flapped his hand, waiting, hoping, and smiling with un-kissed kisses hidden in his lips. Really. Amazing. Kisses.

  Edie took his hand.

  Together they skirted the church and stopped beneath a stained-glass window at the back. It was chest high, about two feet wide, and four feet high, depicting a saint with a halo of light and an outstretched hand. Henry slipped his fingers through a narrow gap at the edge of the window. He pulled until the window creaked open.

  “Do I want to know how you discovered ‘the back way’?” Edie asked.

  He shot her a wry look over his shoulder.

  “Let’s just say I get bored easily.”

  “That I knew.”

  “And I accidentally left something behind when my family came for mass.”

  “Like a long list of sin
s to atone for?”

  “Like a necklace I purchased on my way here that day.”

  Edie pressed a palm against it. Still there, faceted and flawless.

  Henry knelt down and made a cradle of his hands for Edie’s glass-slippered foot. Not wanting to puncture his palm, she slipped off her shoes and tossed them through the window. He boosted her up so she could haul her body forward, funneling her enormous dress through the open window. As she leapt down and steadied herself, she took in her surroundings. From the outside, the church looked like a typical Mansfield building: formal, elegant, old but carefully preserved. On the inside, in the moonlight, empty, echoing, and vibrating with the thrill of the illicit, it was magical.

  Twenty-foot-high stained-glass windows split the moonlight into kaleidoscopic shafts of red, green, and gold that speckled the floor and spilled onto the empty pews. An upright piano stood against a wall with a stack of hymnals on top. The air smelled of dust, wax, and incense. Every footstep reverberated against the polished but well-worn floorboards. This was a space that held stories, where people brought their hopes, their prayers, their sorrow and despair. Edie loved it. Henry was right, yet again. She bit back a smile. She wondered if she was ever going to prove him wrong about anything, though she didn’t care much anymore if she didn’t.

  As Henry stepped up beside her, she whispered, “Come here often?”

  “Never with such spectacular company.”

  “What are we supposed to do now?”

  “We’re supposed to climb.”

  Edie grabbed her shoes. Henry clasped her hand and led her across the church, through a door near the pulpit, up a long spiral staircase, and then up a service ladder. At the top, he drew open a little trapdoor in the ceiling. Edie followed him onto the top of the bell tower. The space was maybe forty feet square, with a waist-high stone wall, an A-frame timber roof held up by four corner posts, and an empty hook that awaited a bell. The tower was dingy and dirty, filled with old bits of rope, chain, and rusty hardware, but beyond the wall, the stars sparkled like fairy dust.

  “It’s the highest spot in Mansfield.” Henry shut the trapdoor. “I thought you might enjoy the view.” He stepped forward, leaned on the wall, and waved her over.

  Edie left her shoes in the corner. Then she nestled into the curve of his arm and scanned the horizon for familiar landmarks. Henry pointed to a meandering residential street dotted with grand houses and orange-tinted streetlamps. The homes were largely indistinguishable from so far away, but Edie could tell by their orientation that she was looking at the Vernons’ street.

  “There’s where I first saw Edie Price.” Henry turned her to the left and pointed out a bookshop on the other side of the green. “There’s where she let me buy her a tiny token of my affection.” He pivoted her again and pointed out her school with the illuminated flagpole in the circular driveway. “There’s where she reluctantly accepted a ride.” He pointed to the hotel they’d just left. “And there’s where I first kissed her. Can I kiss her again?” He laid a hand on either side of her face and looked into her eyes.

  Edie nodded, already breathless just from a look.

  “Say my favorite word,” he implored her.

  “Yes.” The word came out easily, like it’d been waiting on her tongue, ready to spring into being and multiply itself a thousand times. Yes, she thought. Good god, yes.

  Henry kissed her lightly on her cheek. He stayed there to murmur, “‘Upon thy cheek I lay this zealous kiss, as seal to the indenture of my love.’”

  Edie laughed, as much as a girl could laugh when hands and lips were slowly stealing her breath and making her heart ricochet against her ribs.

  “I wondered when I was going to hear a little Shakespeare,” she said.

  “I could tell man-walks-into-a-bar jokes instead.” His hands slid along her jaw line, strong fingers gliding beneath her ears, weaving through her hair, and pressing into the base of her skull.

  “Shakespeare walks into a bar,” she suggested.

  “Shakespeare walks into a bard.”

  “Nice.” She leaned in to his touch as she set her hands on his waist, steadying herself, slipping her thumbs over the edge of his tux pants and drawing him closer.

  Henry tilted her head and placed a row of kisses along the side of her neck, ensuring each one was securely fastened to her skin before moving on to plant another.

  “‘A thousand kisses buys my heart from me.’”

  “I’m not actually in the market for a heart.” She inched up his shirt and slipped her hands around the base of his rib cage. His skin was warm, smooth, tightly stretched over muscles that twitched and tensed under her touch. “But you can have as many kisses as we can fit into one night.”

  “Only one night? Then let’s make the most of it.”

  In the next moment, Henry’s lips were on Edie’s and the world blurred, fading into a haze of light and shadow, punctuated only by the feel of gloriously greedy hands and hungry lips that sought anything but words. His jacket came off. Her hair tumbled down around her shoulders. His cummerbund fell across his toes. Her balance wavered. Still he kissed her and she kissed him back, unable to draw away for more than a second.

  When Edie’s knees collapsed, she and Henry crumpled to the floor, picking up where they left off, with her hands working their way across his back while his fingers tangled in her hair. Hairpins pinged against the floorboards as Maria’s careful work unraveled, as everything unraveled. Hours, days, months of confusion unknotted themselves, making room for the overwhelming immediacy of lips, tongues, breath, hands, skin, heat, want.

  Want. Yes. That was what felt so amazing. Wanting openly and being wanted back, without question or reservation. Not trying to read between the lines. Not trying to create any lines. Not defining things. Not analyzing how he felt and how she felt and what it all meant. Not trying to figure out the polite thing to do or say. Not trying to get things right all the time. Just being present, in the moment, in a way Edie had never felt before. There was no space for before, no room for later. There was only now.

  Edie rolled onto her back as Henry settled his weight on top of her. The floor beneath her was cool, damp maybe, and rough, but all thoughts of the floor vanished as Henry peppered kisses across her bare skin from shoulder to shoulder, dipping down where her chest pressed against the bodice that seemed to tighten as each breath grew faster, shorter, harder to take. With a strange desperation to get closer to Henry’s skin, to his body, Edie loosened his tie, slipped the tail out through the knot, and tossed it aside.

  A smile stretched across his face, a little bit wicked and a lot dead-sexy.

  “Two can play at that game.” He unknotted the sash around her waist.

  Edie pictured him toying with it when they’d first arrived at prom, the knowing look in his eyes, the way he’d teased a blush out of her as if he’d been deliberately planting ideas in her head.

  “You knew you’d be taking that off me,” she said.

  “No, but I hoped. I like untying things.” He kissed her neck. “Undoing things.” He kissed her cheek, edging toward her ear, his voice low like thunder. “Returning things to a natural state of disorder.”

  “What are you, the Lord of Chaos?”

  “Nah. I’m small-time.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  He shifted above her, pressing down with his hips, his dark eyes boring into hers as she plucked open his collar button.

  “I can’t match that move,” he said. “You don’t have any buttons.”

  “Then I get to have all the fun.” She opened his second button.

  “Hardly.” He traced a finger along the edge of her bodice, sending a shiver to her toes. “Nothing’s more fun than the sound of a zipper coming undone.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Well, now that you mention it.” He slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a condom. “Only if you want to.”

  Edie paused, her hands on his
chest, her eyes shifting back and forth between his face and the condom. She was a little unsettled that he’d planned for this possibility, but also a little grateful, since she hadn’t planned for anything at all. She only thought she’d kiss him tonight, but what they were doing felt so good. Why stop now? She wanted this. She wanted him.

  She nodded as she opened his third button.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  She met his gaze. She held it.

  “Yes.”

  He traced the top of her bodice again, this time running his fingertips just inside the neckline, making her back arch toward him.

  “They say a woman always looks perfect in white,” he said.

  “It’s a nice dress.” Fourth button. Fifth button. “But I don’t know about perfect.”

  “You’re right. It’s terrible. We should probably take it off.” He rolled onto his back, settling Edie astride his hips. He found the zipper at the back of her dress. He inched it down past her waist, drawing out the clickety-whirr of something coming undone.

  Sixth button. Seventh button.

  Edie opened Henry’s shirt and pushed it off his shoulders. She ran her hands down his chest, tracing his bones and muscles, watching his body respond, fascinated with the relationship between her touch and his movement.

  “Remember what you asked me the day we played poker?” she said.

  “I remember a lot of things from that day.”

  “Well, this time, yes, the interest is mutual.”