The Museum of Heartbreak - Meg Leder Page 0,69

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