The Museum of Heartbreak - Meg Leder Page 0,39
that book. The mouse was spontaneous and outspoken and sometimes interrupted people, but even back then I knew that she had something I didn’t have: That mouse had spunk.
“Pretty damn sweet,” Eph said.
I imagined walking into the coffee shop the next day, the boots peeking out from under a pair of jeans, one of my vintage tees (minus an armpit hole) and some sparkly earrings on top, Eph’s subway token over my heart and Ellen’s bracelet on my wrist.
It was a start.
“So you’re not going to wuss out, right? You’ll go?” Eph asked.
I looked at him, Orion’s belt, the flecks of gold in his brown eyes, leftover bits of sun.
“I’ve never been kissed before,” I finally, finally blurted out.
I had never said that aloud to anyone. Ever.
He raised his eyebrows in surprise, and I immediately wanted to pull the words back in, but I had let them go and they were already out of my reach, miles away.
Mortified, I turned the other way, frantic for the closest exit, but I still had the boots on. Maybe the lady at the register would let me leave with them if I threw all the money in my wallet at her on my way out the door.
Better yet, she could have the whole wallet.
“Pen, turn around.”
I looked slowly behind me, and Eph was standing there, and even though I was an inch taller with the boots on, he was still so tall, I had forgotten how tall he was, and my cheeks reddened, hot with embarrassment.
“I’ll kiss you,” he said offhandedly, as if he’d offered me some of his Sno-Caps at the movie, as if he’d told me he could watch Ford when we were out of town.
“Wait. What?” My heart started going thud-thunk, thud-thunk.
“Yeah, why not?”
“Here? Now? Shut up,” I said nervously, waiting for him to yell “Punked!” or to belch so loud people two aisles over would hear or to take a call from the Elf Queen—something, anything other than what he was proposing.
Instead he reached down, tilted my chin gently up toward his, rested his hand on the small of my back. He was so tall, it was like craning your neck at a skyscraper with clouds moving behind it, and everything felt weird and dizzy.
“Is this all right?” he asked.
My breath caught and I nodded.
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Yeah,” he echoed.
And then, before I could process what was happening, Eph was leaning down, his lips meeting mine.
I didn’t turn away.
He kissed me, and I thought of tearing mint leaves, of licking salt water off my lips, of the mornings you wake up heart alive, no alarm.
I stood on my tiptoes, my body stretching to meet the length of his.
His lips were gentle against mine.
Eph’s lips.
Eph’s.
I pulled back, my legs shaky, and practically crumbled onto the bench.
“Whoa,” Eph said, and his voice was pure wonder, dinosaur bones bigger than the both of us, muscular tails knocking over cities, roars that made your ears ring, fossil hearts. “That was . . .”
“Weird,” I answered without thinking.
He took a step back, and his face fell.
“Eph, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”
But I did mean it, because it was weird, because this was Eph, the boy I’d known since I was six, the boy whose nose I’d broken, who broke girls’ hearts as regularly as it rained, who made fart noises during all of the digitally remastered rerelease of Casablanca, who said things like “Exsqueeze me.”
A kid with a red-lollipop-smeared face and lips ran down our aisle, and the fluorescent lights were twitching above us, and an old man yelled at the lollipop kid from two aisles over, and the kid was laughing maniacally like he was secretly a demon.
“I’m so sorry.”
His face was flushed, like the day I’d punched him, but he laughed. “Sorry? It was just a kiss, Pen. Not a big fucking deal.”
“Oh, okay,” I said, confused.
“Okay,” he echoed a bit more quietly.
A wavery voice started speaking on the store intercom, static punctuating each space: “Store’s closing in five minutes. Five minutes.”
Eph shifted. “You getting those? I’ll save you a spot in line.” He didn’t even wait for me to answer before jogging away, so desperate was he to get to a Penelope-free zone.
I slid off the boots and shoved my feet back in my Converse, knotting the laces once, then twice, desperately trying to brainstorm topics to ramble about to Eph on the subway ride home—anything to avoid the dinosaur in the room.
Matchbook notebook
Matchbook commentarius
Cafe Gitane
New York, New