The Museum of Heartbreak - Meg Leder Page 0,31

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I hated to even think it, but it was there, stark and ugly, unavoidable and unwanted: Audrey was a little bit right.

I let out a huge sigh and let my head fall onto Eph’s shoulder, let it rise and fall with his soft breath, the way his eyelashes did in his sleep, and hoped on my subway token that Audrey wasn’t right about everything.

Handwritten note

Chirographum

Saint Bartholomew’s Academy

New York, New York

Cat. No. 201X-11

Gift of Keats Francis

THE NEXT MORNING, BY THE time chemistry class rolled around, I was 100 percent Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day miserable. I had woken up that morning with a hangover of sadness—not that I knew what a hangover felt like, but I imagined it’d be something like this: a headache, a stomachache, sadness emanating like a stench from my pores. The Sweet Truck, which parked in front of school in the morning, was out of carrot-raisin muffins, and despite my best efforts with the blow dryer, my hair insisted on looking like butt.

To top it off, a small dumb part of my heart kept beating maybe maybe maybe—maybe I hadn’t imagined the spark with Keats—but then Audrey’s words would boom through my brain on loudspeaker: I’m happy you finally like a real person . . . I don’t want you to misinterpret anything . . .

I hated that small part of my heart.

As I reached for my chemistry book from my locker, I saw a hole in the armpit of the shirt I was wearing—my favorite, a vintage They Might Be Giants T-shirt—the perfect crescendo to the morning’s symphony of crappiness. I picked up the subway token from the chain under my shirt and rubbed it between my thumbs, praying to the Bearded Lady: Please, let me spontaneously combust like some boring old Dickens character (Note: Bleak House, you are the worst). Right now, in the hallway, before I have to go to chemistry.

I waited.

Nothing.

Instead I heard an anxious voice say my name.

I turned and Audrey was standing there, hugging her books against her chest. She met my eyes and shifted from foot to foot anxiously. Her brown eyes were big and watery, like she was a deer caught out.

I broke eye contact, pretending to be really focused on putting the books from my bag in my locker.

“Hey, Pen, can we talk?”

I shrugged.

“I’m really sorry about yesterday. Everything I was saying was coming out wrong, and I hate that things are weird with us—it feels really, really terrible.”

Inside me I felt something small and invisible relax just a little bit.

“I feel pretty terrible too,” I admitted, meeting her gaze this time.

She brightened slightly, her face cautiously opening, tentative sun after a storm.

“I’m so glad I found you this morning. Cherisse told me I should give it some time, but I didn’t feel right waiting—”

“Wait, you talked to Cherisse about us?”

“Well, yeah, she was there when you left yesterday . . .”

“Did you tell her about me and Keats?”

She nodded carefully, but her voice was steady. “She’s my friend, Pen. I was upset about our fight. Of course I talked with her.”

I turned back to my locker, chewing on my lip and feeling a mortifying impulse to burst into tears.

Instead I said, “I wish you weren’t friends with Cherisse. I wish you’d just pick me.”

I immediately wanted to take it back. I hated how pathetic I sounded. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t nice. It wasn’t who Audrey and I were. But before I could say anything, Audrey shook her head at me.

“God, it’s really hard to be your friend sometimes. You know that? I can be friends with more than you and Eph! You can too! You have this stupid set of expectations and rules about how everyone should act and how life should be, and they’re so damn impossible, you shut out everything.” She choked back an angry sob, her face red. “You know what? Cherisse doesn’t make me watch David Lynch movies. Cherisse likes to go dancing and try new things. Cherisse called my grandma to see how she was doing in her new home. And you know what else? Cherisse isn’t fixated on some stupid unrealistic Leonardo DiCaprio movie we watched in seventh grade.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth. “If it’s so hard to be my friend, then maybe we shouldn’t be friends anymore,” I said, my eyes stinging.

Her face went stunned and white, like I’d slapped her, like I’d pulled out her heart instead of