The Museum of Heartbreak - Meg Leder Page 0,40

York

Cat. No. 201X-13

Gift of Keats Francis

THAT NIGHT I DREAMED I had a pet dinosaur.

The dinosaur was little and he was cute. His teeth were sharp, yes, but he was a baby, so he only gave my arm or bare leg light nips when he was hungry. Sort of a Hey there, remember me? I need some eats, stat! His eyes were big and his scaly skin was a shimmery green and brown. I had never seen that color in nature, and it sort of took my breath away.

But because it was a dream and dreams are weird, the dinosaur got bigger—fast. His tail started knocking things over: Mom’s rosebud tea set. Dad’s transistor-radio table. My dollhouse.

He trembled then, that dinosaur, his eyes wide and watery, scared and hungry and too big for the walls around him, claws clicking, panicked, among shattered pieces on the floor.

And then one day he swallowed my baby brother whole.

In the dream I was surprised, because I hadn’t known I had a baby brother, but Mom was crying and Dad was yelling, so I figured maybe I did. That dinosaur licked his chops. He looked sort of embarrassed, but he also smelled like rain, like possibility.

I woke up at 3:34 a.m. with the sheets twisted around me and a deep sadness in my heart about my now-eaten baby brother. But then I remembered it was a dream, that I was an only child, and the grief of losing my imaginary sibling left me as easily as it had come, floating away in the dark.

What I couldn’t shake, though, was the waking memory of Eph’s kiss.

My fingers flew to my lips. I pushed at them with my index finger.

These lips these lips.

I thought about that dinosaur’s heart, and how it simply wanted. The type of want that made you ravenous, made your eyes wild, made you want to tear into things, rip them apart with gnashed teeth, how you’d do anything to fill that hunger—anything to make your heart stop needing, stop wanting.

I tried to fall asleep again but ended up staring at the clock next to my bed, until I gave up, picking up On the Road, the dream heavy around me.

The next thing I knew, Ford was meowing plaintively in my face, his breath fishy. I peeled open a sleep-crusted eye.

11:38.

CRAP. I shot up. I had slept through my alarm, probably because of the dinosaur dream and the fact that I was reading a not-so-great book for most of the night and because of the kiss.

My first kiss.

I replayed every part of last night at the thrift store—Eph being so tall, and the kid with the lollipop-stained lips running by, and how I tasted mint, and how it was both horrible and marvelous.

The whole subway ride home had been profoundly weird. I was squeezed in next to Eph, but he was leaning forward on his knees, emanating serious no-talk vibes. But the possibility of silence alongside the kiss—the kiss!—was too enormous, so I started manically asking him as many questions about Watchmen as I could without actually confessing I hadn’t had time to read it thanks to Keats and Kerouac and school.

I didn’t—couldn’t—stop.

By the time we reached my street, he had resorted to monosyllabic grunts, and I was riding high on a tidal wave of verbal terror—pretty sure right then that even if a giant piano fell from the sky on top of me or the earth cracked open and swallowed me whole, I still wouldn’t be able to stop my astute cultural analysis of a Watchmen character compared to the different actors who’d played Batman over time. (“More Christian Bale, less Michael Keaton.” What was I even talking about?)

Maybe the kiss wasn’t weird for him. Maybe it was like he said: not a big deal. Maybe it was only a big deal for me because it was my epic first kiss—the stuff of songs and movies—and for him it was a favor for his pathetic, unkissed friend.

And now my first kiss was over, which was a relief. Better weird and awkward with Eph than weird and awkward with Keats, right?

Only I wasn’t quite sure how to answer that.

I needed Audrey.

I didn’t have her anymore.

Her absence felt like matter—something heavy and dark sitting right behind my sternum.

I picked up my phone to text her and then remembered how ugly I’d been to her in the hallway when I’d asked her to pick me, how we’d ignored each other every time we passed in the hallway